Category: Travel

There won’t be any oil and gas drilling rigs off British Columbia’s coast — at least not in the near future.The last of 227 oil and gas exploration permits that once blanketed British Columbia’s coast from the entrance to Juan de Fuca Strait to Alaska over the past 50 years have been relinquished to the federal government.Chevron Canada turned in 23 offshore permits on Feb. 9, reverting ownership to the Crown and leaving “zero permits” off the Pacific coast, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said Wednesday at a news conference about salmon-habitat restoration.In April 2023, Chevron Canada voluntarily relinquished 19 offshore oil and gas permits within protected wildlife areas on B.C.’s west coast. The permitting area surrendered by Chevron last year was estimated at 5,700 square kilometres and overlapped parts of federal marine protection areas off B.C.Wilkinson said Chevron has not been compensated for relinquishing the latest 23 permits, which comprise an estimated 5,900 square kilometres off north Vancouver Island and in Hecate Strait.A provincial moratorium on offshore drilling has been in place since 1989, though it wasn’t considered legally binding.“I think Chevron came to the conclusion there are other places in the world to do this kind of development and this wasn’t the most appropriate place,” Wilkinson said. “We welcome that decision by Chevron. I think most British Columbians are of the view that this is not the most appropriate place to do that kind of development and today we’re saying that will not happen.”Ian Morin, a lawyer for Ecojustice Canada, called Chevron’s decision to relinquish the last of the permits “great news. “It significantly reduces the [environmental] risks that oil and gas drilling can have on the coast, particularly on environmentally significant areas.”Environmental groups were celebrating last March when ExxonMobil gave up offshore oil and gas permits the company had held for more than 50 years.Morin said ExxonMobil had been dropped from a federal court lawsuit filed by the David Suzuki Foundation and World Wildlife Fund in 2022 challenging the federal government’s continual renewal of the permits. The case was settled out of court.The groups’ similar legal challenge against Chevron Canada had remained active, but now will likely be dropped, said Morin.Calgary-based Chevron Canada said in a statement that it regularly evaluates its portfolio and had no plans to pursue development of the offshore permits.It said it’s committed to “safely and responsibly” developing Canada’s onshore and offshore oil and gas resources. “Providing affordable, reliable and ever-cleaner energy is essential to an orderly energy transition that balances energy security, economic prosperity and environmental protection.”Drilling companies have been sporadically searching for gas and oil off the coast since 1949, when minor deposits were found off Graham Island. Shell Canada started a drilling program in 1967, drilling 14 wells from Barkley Sound to Queen Charlotte Sound and Hecate Strait.

Source: All oil and natural gas permits in B.C. waters relinquished – Victoria Times Colonist

Health Minister Mark Holland announced tweaks to Ottawa’s new dental-care plan Wednesday in a bid to get more dentists, hygienists and oral-health care providers to participate.Dental and hygienists’ associations say their members have been slow to sign up to provide care under the new federal program, even though 1.7 million seniors have already enrolled.They cite concerns about how much the government plans to reimburse them for services and the administrative burden the program will put on their staff.The Liberals say 5,000 dental-care providers — including dentists, hygienists and denturists — have enrolled so far.After further consultation, the government will allow providers to direct bill for services on a claim-by-claim basis without signing on to the program, starting in July, Holland said.“I think it’s going to vastly vastly expand the number of people participating.”The $13-billion dental program is a key element of the deal the Liberals struck with the NDP two years ago to prevent an early election, and is expected to offer dental coverage to as many as 9 million low- and medium-income families by the time it is fully implemented in 2025.Lagging dentist enrollments have inspired new opposition attacks from the Conservatives, who up until this point have been mum on the dental program.“Their dental-care debacle is failing Canadians,” Conservative health critic Stephen Ellis charged during an exchange in question period Tuesday.He alleged there were only eight dentists enrolled in the program in New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island an Newfound Land, out of 1,170.Holland said the latest change will mean dentists won’t need need to be registered in order for the program to succeed.

Source: Changes to Canada’s national dental plan pitched to get dentists on side – Greater Victoria News

Britain’s hush hush Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) intelligence and security organization has released new images never before made public of Colossus, the world’s first digital electronic computer, to mark its 80th anniversary.If there’s one thing that Britain’s intelligence agencies are notorious for, it’s their emphasis on secrecy. From For Your Eyes Only to destroy-all-evidence-and-pretend-it-never-happened, keeping things under wraps for up to a century is a matter of routine.

Source: British spy agency releases previously secret images of Colossus computer

Glenda Luymes/Vancouver Sunabout 7 hours ago

Cherie Kroll does the math every time she steps into her skis.

So far this year, she’s skied five times, choosing not to go when conditions are poor. She paid $800 for her season pass at Grouse Mountain, including equipment and parking passes. That adds up to about $160 a visit.

“I don’t like those numbers,” she says.

Kroll, who learned to ski on the North Shore mountains as a kid, once skied so often that each visit cost less than $20. But she also remembers being 14 and scraping together $75 for a pass, only to find just one run open.

“There have been bad years before,” she says, “but I do wonder if this will become the norm.”

Experts believe it will.

By mid-century, about half of the ski seasons on the B.C. coast will be warmer than this one, with “bad years” becoming as frequent as good years or even more frequent than good years, said University of B.C. climate scientist Michael Pidwirny.

Using historic data and climate models based on the current trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions, he estimates the average season at Whistler will be similar to this dismal season by 2050.

By 2080, some models predict, 50 to 75 per cent of North America’s ski resorts will disappear.

“The coastal mountains face the most dire situation,” Pidwirny said, referring to the Grouse, Seymour and Cypress ski operations on Vancouver’s North Shore and Mount Washington on Vancouver Island.

But it’s also bad news for B.C. in general, where the ski business employs about 21,000 people, generates $2.02 billion in revenue, including $1.3 billion from out-of-province visitors, and provides outdoor recreation through 7.4 million skier visits each year.

While some mountains may fare better than others, it’s clear serious changes are on the way for B.C.’s snow seekers.

Ski hills mostly brown

The challenges facing the North Shore resorts have been obvious this winter. At times, the ski runs cut into the forested slopes above Vancouver have looked brown, not white.

As B.C. basked in a balmy December, resorts delayed their opening day, then struggled to stay open over the Christmas holidays as warmth records were broken across the province.

January brought a cold snap and then an atmospheric river. Rain melted snow at lower elevations, forcing some of the coastal mountain ski operations to temporarily close. Whistler Blackcomb asked beginners to take the gondolas down from mid-mountain after runs on the lower mountain that lacked much snow were damaged.

While February started off warm and dry, the last few weeks have been cooler, allowing most mountains to reopen.

But that hasn’t stopped pass holders from posting online about a lack of transparency — and lack of snow — at some resorts.

Kroll believes the North Shore mountains will need to change their business model to provide pass holders with some guarantee of compensation in bad years, or people won’t buy in.

“People won’t be able to afford the risk, and they’ll say ‘I’m not doing it again,’” she said.

Susy Bell, who spent almost $2,000 at Sasquatch near Agassiz, said she’ll never gamble on it again. She was also planning to buy a condo on the mountain, but has decided against it.

“If you’re going to take that kind of money from families, you need a plan when there’s no snow,” she said.

Pidwirny said he was surprised resorts haven’t been more open with the skiing public about a situation that isn’t really a surprise.

B.C.’s ski resorts have a “pretty good understanding” of the weather patterns that bring snow to the mountains. El Niño years, like this one, are usually warmer, with more rain than snow. Many skiers will remember 2014-15 as the year “without a ski season,” he said.

This year, El Niño has likely contributed to a snowpack that’s about 39 per cent lower than normal across B.C., said Dave Campbell, head of the B.C. River Forecast Centre. About two-thirds of snow accumulation typically happens by early February, with a “wholesale switch” to snowy weather at this point unlikely.

But El Niño isn’t the only factor at play as B.C. begins to feel the bite of climate change. The record low snowpack across the province follows a 50-year trend toward smaller snowpacks, meaning a decrease in annual snow accumulation, said Campbell. Areas where the temperature typically hovers around freezing are increasingly likely to be above zero more often, resulting in rain, not snow, on mountain slopes.

“That change in phase, based on the zero degrees level, really jumps out in the February snowpack numbers,” he said. Coastal B.C. and Vancouver Island, where winters are usually milder, have had some of the biggest drops in snowfall this year.

Warm weather and heavy rain prompted Mount Washington Alpine Resort in the Comox Valley to temporarily closed in late January and early February, when its snowbase dropped to 44 centimetres. (It was back up to 97 cm on Monday.)

Across Canada, snow is arriving later in the fall and melting earlier, said Chris Derksen, a research scientist with Environment and Climate Change Canada.

Meteorologists are also noticing the freezing level bouncing around more. In the past, high elevation areas would freeze in the fall and remain frozen through the winter snow accumulation, before thawing in the spring, he said. “Now we see that freeze-to-thaw transition happening more frequently” over the course of the winter.

That change has been evident at Big White near Kelowna, where the resort once marketed itself as a place it never rained. That’s no longer true, said senior vice-president Michael Ballingall, although the mountain’s location means it has a decent snow base this year.

Big White usually aims to open by American Thanksgiving, but the opening was delayed four times this year. That unpredictability is hard to manage, said Ballingall. Staff arrive in mid-November and must be housed and trained, regardless of when guests start to come.

“There’s an enormous cost to open every season — and then we wait.”

Ballingall said climate change also brings other challenges.

If the North Shore mountains have a bad year, it hurts the entire B.C. ski industry. Big White relies on the smaller resorts to help people fall in love with skiing — and to train their kids to ski.

Big White is working to remind people that it is open well into the spring, when conditions are often fantastic. But people have started playing golf or baseball by then, and skiing is no longer on their minds.

But overall, Ballingall believes Big White is in a good position. Interior B.C. should continue to get snow for decades to come and its business could benefit as mountains on the coast struggle, he said.

“We don’t have to reinvent ourselves. We just need to remind people we’re here.”

Climate change threatens snow sports

The National Ski Areas Association calls climate change “the No. 1 threat to the snow sports industry.”

On its website, the American organization said it supports “regulatory standards and legislation to curb carbon emissions.”

Several B.C. operations, including Cypress and Big White, are part of a Canadian advocacy group called Protect Our Winters.

But ski resorts are also looking for ways to mitigate the impacts of climate change, said Christopher Nicolson, president of the Canada West Ski Areas Association.

That includes summer grooming — removing rocks, stumps and other obstacles on ski runs to make them skiable when the snow cover is thin. Adding dirt and smoothing it, rather than waiting for deep snow to fill in the bumps, can also allow resorts to open earlier in the season, he said.

Winter snow management, or “snow farming,” will also be important. Resorts can use snow-making machines and install snow fences to catch blowing snow, stockpile it and then “spread it like peanut butter on the slope” as needed.

Nicolson said he expects to resorts to continue to diversify to become all-season mountain resorts, with several revenue streams, like mountain biking or hiking, in the summer.

Some resorts are also changing their business model to sell more season passes, which gives them a stable income, no matter what kind of winter it is.

“The ski industry used to be ruled by weather,” said Dane Gergovich, senior communications manager for Whistler Blackcomb. But Vail Resorts, which bought Whistler Blackcomb in 2016, has been trying to “change that dynamic” by selling more season passes.

Vail’s “Epic Pass,” a season pass that provides unlimited access to a network of Vail Resort mountains, could be a better deal for skiers as the price of a single-day lift ticket for Whistler Blackcomb has risen. The pass is only on sale until early December — before winter snow conditions are known — and it’s non-refundable.

“We incentivize the pre-season purchase of passes by offering incredible value, flexibility and benefits to skiers and riders that is only offered with our passes versus in-season lift tickets,” Gergovich said in a statement. “In return, that commitment provides our company, our communities, and our employees with stability in the face of weather variability. In other words, we know who’s coming before the season really kicks off.”

Other B.C. mountains seem to be following suit, raising the price of single-day lift tickets, while promoting early-bird sales of season passes. But without a network of mountains, or clients who can afford to chase snow across the globe, the concept has the potential to backfire in a bad year.

Some B.C. mountains, like Revelstoke, Sun Peaks and Panorama, have joined a multi-resort pass called Mountain Collective. Skiers get two days each at 24 resorts around the world, allowing them to find good conditions when snowfall is “variable,” said CEO Todd Burnette.

For Vail Resorts, with 2.4 million people “pre-committed” to its 41 resorts through passes, the income allows them to “continuously reinvest back into the employee and guest experience, no matter the winter we have,” said Gergovich.

That includes big spending on snow-making systems, another pillar of the ski industry’s plan to adapt to climate change.

Snow-making will become critical as mountains warm, said University of Waterloo geography professor Daniel Scott.

But it has its limits.

The temperature must be low enough — usually around -2 C — for the water droplets sprayed by snow cannons to freeze and fall as snow. In mid-January, temperatures on the North Shore mountains were often warmer than that. Another issue is the cost of the systems, which use large amounts of power and water.

In terms of sustainability, “snow-making has a fairly minor footprint” in B.C., said Scott, due to the province’s hydroelectric power and access to water. He’s also weighed the environmental cost of using snow-making machines against the cost of getting on a flight to a ski resort.

“One flight of ski tourists to Whistler uses more carbon than all of Quebec’s snow-making for an entire winter,” he said. “If you can keep B.C. ski tourists in B.C., it is actually a climate mitigation strategy.”

Scott said there will be winners and losers in each ski market as the climate changes. He predicts consolidation of resorts, with just as many ski visits packed into a shorter season and less terrain. High-elevation resorts in colder areas will gain market share and improve their capacity for more people.

Postmedia was unable to reach Grouse, Cypress and Seymour for comment on how the local mountains are preparing for climate change.

Sasquatch general manager Todd Muir said that, at the moment, the mountain is “still focused on the season at hand.”

Robert Wilson, president of Bridal Veil Mountain Resort, an all-season resort proposed for the mountains above Chilliwack, said its application with the province remains in the early stages, but its “long-term goal is to offer year-round recreation opportunities at a destination mountain resort that is owned, designed, managed and governed with participating Stó:lō First Nations.”

But as Pidwirny noted, the challenges facing ski hills in 2050 might pale in comparison to those on the areas down below.

As sea level rise reshapes coastal cities like Vancouver and impacts the everyday lives of citizens, adaptation isn’t the answer.

“We need to get our act together and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions,” he said.

Ski hills are just “the canary in the coal mine.”

Lewis Hamilton says there is “no transparency and no accountability” in Formula 1 as the sport continues to be rocked by off-track wrangles.The seven-time champion appeared to conflate controversies involving governing body the FIA and the behaviour of Red Bull team principal Christian Horner.Speaking before this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix, Hamilton said: “With the FIA, things happening behind closed doors, there is no accountability and the fans need that.”He added: “How can you trust the sport and what is happening here if you don’t have that?”Hamilton praised F1 Academy director Susie Wolff for taking legal action against the FIA following its controversial conflict of interest inquiry into her last year.Wolff announced her legal case, which is believed to be one of defamation against a number of senior figures within the FIA, on the same day as the organisation’s ethics committee cleared its president of claims he interfered with races in Saudi Arabia and Las Vegas last year.Asked whether Mohammed Ben Sulayem still had Hamilton’s confidence as FIA president, Hamilton said: “(He) never has.”The Mercedes driver added: “I am incredibly proud of Susie. She is so brave and she stands for such great values and she is such a leader.

Source: Lewis Hamilton says F1 hard to trust with no accountability in the sport – BBC Sport

Universities are central to Canada’s economic growth.As a result, governments (which partially fund them), employers (who hire graduates) and students (who pay tuition fees) have come to view universities as a tool to achieve their own goals: economic growth, a productive workforce and good jobs after graduation.Yet, the increasing focus on training undergraduates for specific jobs or as economic entrepreneurs — not only in traditional professional degrees in STEM, such as engineering but across all university programs — shortchanges all parties involved.Is education only to be ‘endured’?Positioning jobs as the paramount outcome of a degree strips away opportunities for students to explore their passions and interests and instead frames education as something they must endure — as they focus on packaging themselves as marketable brands.Even while the spectre of employment precarity and debt hang over students, and despite trends towards work-ready undergraduate programs, it’s often only after students have earned an undergraduate degree that they know their career aspirations — and seek education to bolster a workplace role that fits them.

Source: Does a university undergraduate degree lead to a ‘good job?’ It depends what you mean

Harper, Mike Roman, Sheer, O’Toole and Poilievre have one major thing in common: they are all members of the International Democratic Union (IDU). This organization is an international alliance of far-right political parties that works to destroy democracy around the world. It was founded in 1983 by a group of conservative leaders from Europe and North America who wanted to create a global forum for exchanging ideas on how best to protect right wing values.

The IDU has grown significantly since its founding and now includes over 80 member parties from across five continents. Its membership consists mainly of right-of-centre governments as well as some opposition parties that share similar beliefs about economic freedom, individual responsibility and limited government intervention in people’s lives. Harper served as President of the IDU between 2009–2010 while Mike Roman was Secretary General during 2012–2015; Andrew Scheer held this position until 2019 when he stepped down to run for Prime Minister; Erin O’Toole is currently Secretary General while Pierre Poilievre serves on its Executive Committee representing Canada at this time.

The mission statement outlined by the IDU states “to strengthen our democracies through free markets open competition within societies based upon respect for human rights.” In practice this means promoting policies such as reducing taxes so individuals can keep more money earned through their hard work; encouraging entrepreneurship so businesses can thrive without excessive regulations or barriers imposed by governments; advocating against corruption which undermines trust in public institutions among citizens etcetera . By working together with like minded political groups across borders these five Canadian politicians hope achieve positive change both domestically here at home but also abroad via their involvement with International Democratic Union.

The International Democratic Union (IDU) is an international political organization that brings together far-right and conservative parties from around the world. It was founded in 1983 by prominent members of the British Conservative Party, including Margaret Thatcher, as well as other influential figures such as Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and U.S. President Ronald Reagan. In Canada today, several prominent politicians are affiliated with IDU: Andrew Scheer, Mike Roman, Pierre Poilievre and Erin O’Toole all belong to this group alongside Charles Koch of Koch Industries – a major American industrialist who has become one of the most powerful players in global politics due to his immense wealth and influence over both sides of the aisle in America’s two-party system. Koch funded Trump and the Republicans in excess of a billion dollars out to destroy democracy as Trump racks up indictments with over whelming evidence. Last week, along with former President of the United States, Donald Trump, a Republican operative and now former (apparently) assistant chairman to Stephen Harper’s International Democratic Union, Mike Roman, was indicted in Georgia along with other co-conspirators.

These five individuals have much more than their membership with IDU in common; they share similar views on economic policy which emphasize free markets rather than government intervention or regulation when it comes to business decisions or operations within a market economy structure – something that resonates strongly with Charles Koch’s libertarian beliefs about minimal government involvement within society at large . All five also believe strongly that governments should provide citizens with adequate social services while still maintaining fiscal responsibility through balanced budgets without running up huge deficits for future generations to pay off – another point where they align closely on economic principles .

Finally , these men also support strong national defense policies which prioritize protecting their respective countries against external threats but do not involve getting involved militarily overseas unless absolutely necessary – again mirroring Mr .Koch’s stance on foreign policy matters . All five are committed supporters of limited government interference overall while advocating for increased personal freedom among citizens living under democratic rule , making them natural allies within IDU’s ranks despite coming from different backgrounds politically speaking

SIR ISAIAH BERLIN, a Latvian-born Oxford philosopher who died in 1997, may well have ranked among the greatest conversationalists who ever lived. According to Robert Darnton, a Princeton historian, Berlin’s friends would “watch him as if he were a trapeze artist, soaring through every imaginable subject, spinning, flipping, hanging by his heels and without a touch of showmanship”. Darnton reckoned that Berlin’s only match in relatively modern times might have been Denis Diderot, an 18th-century French Enlightenment philosopher. By one account Diderot’s conversation was “enlivened by absolute sincerity, subtle without obscurity, varied in its forms, dazzling in its flights of imagination, fertile in ideas and in its capacity to inspire ideas in others. One let oneself drift along with it for hours at a time, as if one were gliding down a fresh and limpid river, whose banks were adorned with rich estates and beautiful houses.”

Churchill was another magnificent talker, perhaps the greatest of the 20th century, but often a poor listener. Virginia Woolf was given, in the words of one biographer, to “wonderful performances in conversation, spinning off into fantastic fabrications while everyone sat around and, as it were, applauded”. A short list of the greatest living conversationalists in English would probably have to include Christopher Hitchens, Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor, Sir Tom Stoppard, Studs Terkel and Gore Vidal.

Source: Chattering classes

If the polls hold, Pierre Poilievre will be our prime minister and Donald Trump will be ruling the United States, which — according to the Orange One’s own words — will no longer be a democracy. Trump will act as a dictator on “Day 1,” he’s declared on Fox News. According to the world’s most indicted politician himself, a U.S. Trumpocracy will run along the lines of strongman Viktor Orbán’s increasingly undemocratic Hungary.ANNOUNCEMENTS, EVENTS & MORE FROM TYEE AND SELECT PARTNERSWatch This Play about How a Fox Helped a Family GrieveIn ‘This Is How We Got Here,’ a mystical creature leads a family struck by trauma to again interact with humour and love.Eight Local Books to Celebrate National Poetry MonthGet poetic this April with collections from writers across Canada.Poilievre makes no such claims of course. But if he wins along with Trump, both countries will be part of the worldwide drift towards hard-right agendas tinged with authoritarian contempt for democratic institutions including a free and fair press.The tactics for steering ships of state sharply starboard are similar around the globe, having changed dramatically in the last 30 years. Today’s political campaigners, particularly on the populist right, rely far more on attack ads and tearing down one’s opponent rather than presenting one’s own plans for the country. Brilliant polling is done to find out what issues people react to emotionally. And the internet is played like an algorithmic Wurlitzer to convert whipped-up fears into devotion to cult-like leaders.That’s one of the reasons that outside influence on democracies has become such a burning issue around the world these days, including here in Canada.

Source: Democracy Is Under Siege Globally. Canada Is Being Tested | The Tyee