Tag: Politics

on Plagiarism

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Plagiarism:, according to Wiktionary, the on-line crowd-sourced dictionary, it is defined as:

”the copying of another person’s ideas, text, or other creative work, and presenting it as one’s own, especially without permission.”

Now, I used someone else’s ideas and text right there, but that’s not plagiarism, because I did two things: I made it clear that those were not my words, but someone else I was quoting; and I provided a link or reference to the original source.

In today’s internet world, there is so much information out there from so many sources, that plagiarism is a serious issue. Just look at the hassles Margaret Wente went through recently – clearly cribbing another person’s work, and representing it as her own. When caught, her professional reputation suffered, as did the organization she represented (the Globe and Mail Newspaper).

But she is a journalist, in a unique position of public trust. Writing is her business, she should know better. This is a issue of much discussion in schools and universities: it is so easy to Cut & Paste another’s work and claim it as your own, that teachers have a real struggle keeping ahead of it. When caught, students in high school can expect a zero score on their paper. In University, a student is likely to fail the course, and (if the offence is repeated or flagrant) – to be kicked out of school for academic dishonesty.

But what of politicians? We had a bit of a plagiarism issue here in New West during the last municipal election, one likely more attributable to lazy campaigning than real malice. After all, copying definitions word-for-word from Wikipedia without attribution is to plagiarism what running your parking meter down is to theft- pretty predictable and low-impact in the grand scheme.

So it is somewhere between those two extremes when a person in the public eye- say a former (and potential future) elected official keeps a blog journal that is presumably their writing and thought, but ends up just being cut-and-paste phrases from other sources, jumbled up into a slightly-changed narrative, with nary a mention the sources.

This gets slightly more concerning when non-specific claims of authenticity go out on Twitter saying such things as “Understand what is HAMAS, to understand why people are dying. Read me at…” or “I finally said something about Gaza, read me”, with links to a long-form cut & paste master class in plagiarism without attributions.

Would any reasonable person just assume what you are going to read under an invitation “read me at...” to find out what “I finally said…” will be the original work of the author?

Unfortunately for Paul Foresth, it is a big internet, but not big enough. His two recent posts on the current Hamas-Israeli conflict (a strange topic for a Provincial candidate to spark up about, but whatever) are prefect examples of when borrowing ideas, using sources, or even forwarding others’ work veers off into out-and-out plagiarism.

First note that neither the post on “Rockets” or the one on “Hamas” ever provide citation or reference to other sources. Even the few “quoted” sections are generally without attribution. This is a bit of a concern, because just about every sentence written in those two blog posts can be found written elsewhere on the web, by different authors, and (this is important) in different contexts.

Compare the ”Rockets ” post to this story on the CTV News website:

Paul Forseth: “In Brussels, officials with the European Union have also weighed in on the conflict. Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama have said that Israel has the right to defend itself. However, it is unclear how far that support will extend, if Israel considers another ground incursion into Gaza.”

CTV News: “ In Brussels, officials with the European Union have also weighed in on the conflict. Speaking to a gathering of foreign and defence ministers Monday, EU policy chief Catherine Ashton called for an end to rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel. Meanwhile, Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt urged an immediate ceasefire, and a subsequent review of wider issues between Israel and Gaza.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama have stated publicly that Israel has the right to defend itself against Hamas-launched missiles. But it’s unclear how far that support will extend as Israel considers a ground incursion into Gaza.”

Or this Part, where Mr.Forseth both fails to cite CTV News, and fails to cite the person CTV News has the good sense to attribute the quote to:

Paul Forseth: “Four years ago, when there was a ground offensive, a ceasefire followed and there was the hope that calm and reason would prevail. Effectively what it yielded was an opportunity for perpetrators in Gaza to restock their arsenals by smuggling in stronger missiles from Iran.”

CTV News: “If he chooses to put troops on the ground, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu risks increasing military and civilian casualties and losing outside support, said Mackey Frayer. ‘Four years ago, when there was a ground offensive, a ceasefire followed and there was the promise that calm would prevail on both sides,” she noted. “Effectively what it yielded was an opportunity for militants in the Gaza Strip to restock their arsenals with stronger missiles.’”

Here is a pro tip to check if what you are doing is plagiarism: if you remove quotation marks from an article, and nothing else, then you are plagiarizing
.
I won’t go through that article paragraph-by-paragraph to point to all of the plagiarized points, but I will point out that the afrementioned 55-in-a-50-zone style of plagiarism is there as well: cribbing a definition, unattributed, from Wikipedia:

Paul Forseth: “Hamas (Arabic: حماس‎ Ḥamās, “enthusiasm”, an acronym of حركة المقاومة الاسلامية Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-Islāmiyyah, “Islamic Resistance Movement”) is the Palestinian Sunni Islamist political group that controls Gaza City.”

Wilkipedia: “Hamas (Arabic: حماس‎ Ḥamās, “enthusiasm”, an acronym of حركة المقاومة الاسلامية Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah, “Islamic Resistance Movement”) is the Palestinian Sunni Islamic or Islamist[5] political party[neutrality is disputed] that governs the Gaza Strip.”

The more recent  “Hamas” post at Forseth’s blog is on the same topic, but no less original. Almost all of the text is copy-and-pasted from this article. Not linearly, as Mr. Forseth took the time to break it up and re-arrange parts, but pretty much every sentence in the Forseth post is cribbed, uncited, from this single source. Compare:

Paul Forseth: ”The Hamas Covenant, states that the organization’s goal is to “raise the banner of God over every inch of Palestine,” i.e. to eliminate the State of Israel (and any secular Palestinian state which may be established), and to replace it with an Islamic Republic. The thirty-six articles of the Covenant detail the movement’s Islamist beliefs regarding the primacy of Islam in all aspects of life.

Hamas views the Arab-Israeli conflict as “a religious struggle between Islam and Judaism that can only be resolved by the destruction of the State of Israel.” Hamas uses both political activities and violence to pursue its goal of establishing an Islamic Palestinian state in place of Israel and the secular Palestinian Authority.

The 1988 Hamas Covenant states that the organization’s goal is to “raise the banner of God over every inch of Palestine,” i.e. to eliminate the State of Israel (and any secular Palestinian state which may be established), and to replace it with an Islamic Republic.”

Martin Frost (excerpts, in order they appear) : “According to the Washington Institute, Hamas views the Arab-Israeli conflict as “a religious struggle between Islam and Judaism that can only be resolved by the destruction of the State of Israel.” Hamas uses both political activities and violence to pursue its goal of establishing an Islamic Palestinian state in place of Israel and the secular Palestinian Authority. [Clip]

The Hamas Covenant, written in 1988, states that the organization’s goal is to “raise the banner of God over every inch of Palestine,” i.e. to eliminate the State of Israel (and any secular Palestinian state which may be established), and to replace it with an Islamic Republic.

The thirty-six articles of the Covenant detail the movement’s Islamist beliefs regarding the primacy of Islam in all aspects of life. The Covenant identifies Hamas as the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine and considers its members to be Muslims who “fear God and raise the banner of Jihad in the face of the oppressors.” Hamas describes resisting and quelling the enemy as the individual duty of every Muslim and prescribes revolutionary roles for all members of society; including men and women, professionals, scientists and students.”

The parts that were not written by Martin Frost were either extracted from this YnetNews story:

Paul Forseth: “What is this fighting all about; it is religion. It is about the struggle of Political Islam against anyone it decides is in its way. Hamas regards the territory of the present-day State of Israel — as well as the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — as an inalienable Islamic waqf or religious bequest, which can never be surrendered to non-Muslims. It asserts that struggle (jihad) to wrest control of the land from Israel is the religious duty of every Muslim (fard `ain).”

YnetNews: “Hamas combines Palestinian nationalism with Islamic fundamentalism: It regards the territory of present-day Israel – as well as the Gaza Strip and the West Bank – as an inalienable Islamic waqf or religious bequest, which can never be surrendered to non-Muslims.Furthermore, Hamas asserts that struggle (jihad) to regain control of the land from Israel is the religious duty of every Muslim.”

Or lifted from arcane Google books found on line:

Paul Forseth: “During the election campaign the organization toned down the criticism of Israel in their election manifest and only stated that they are prepared to use ‘armed resistance to end the occupation’.”

Compared to the last paragraph on page 194 of this book:

” During the election campaign the organization toned down the criticism of Israel in its election manifesto, stating only that it was prepared to use ‘armed resistance to end the occupation’.”

Lucky for Mr. Forseth, he is only running for office, because if he was a student in any decent school, he would at least be on academic probation by now, or would be taking the long bus ride home to explain to his parents why he wasn’t going to finish Law School after all.

My 12 minutes of EnVisioning

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

The City of New Westminster kicked off their Integrated Community Sustainability Plan process – called EnVision2032 – this weekend with a two-day Sustainability event.

Saturday, there were more than 100 people in a room discussing a variety of topics, and workshopping ideas about what a more sustainable New Westminster will look like in 20 years – the planning horizon for EnVision2032. There were lively and interesting discussions, and a broad set of ideas and principles were discussed. This is only the start of a long planning process, but I think the attendees gave City Staff a good foundation upon which they can build the plan.

This followed the Friday night “inspiration” event, when the planning process was outlined, and some motivation was provided through a half-dozen speakers and a couple of video shorts. I was honoured to be one of the speakers, providing a 10-minute case for environmental sustainability and community engagement. There were accomplished community leaders on the agenda, so I kept my remarks short and light to get out of their way – the comedy relief of the evening if you will. Since I talked fast and pared it down to fit in 12 minutes of my allotted 10, I figured I would expand a bit on the speech here, with the images I used.

The following is a slightly extended version of my 10 (+2) minutes on the stage – with parts I edited out on the spot to make my allotted time.

So I care about Environmental Sustainability, for somewhat selfish reasons. I kind of like the environment the way it is. Being someone who studied ancient climates on the geologic scale in my academic life, I recognize that the biosphere has changed remarkably over the 4 billion years of life on Earth. But the environment of the last 100,000 years, the environment where humans prospered and developed things like “society” and “the economy” has been remarkable stable. Until now.

There is no reason to believe the rapid changes we are seeing now in the biosphere, from the atmosphere to the ocean to the forests, will benefit the prosperity of humans. So why are we changing it?

When an environmentalist like me comes to a mixed crowd and says we need to drive less, burn less oil and coal, use less electricity, rely more on local and seasonal food, account for the pollution we cause, etc., it is usually seen as anti-progress. The recommended “heckler” response is:

“You Suzuki types won’t be happy until we are all living in caves using candles and eating cockroaches!”

I hope to demonstrate the exact opposite is true. And to do that, I want to invoke this guy:

Who worked as an economic adviser to this dirty hippie:

…and had a son who turned in to this guy:

But back when Herbert Stein was working for that Maoist hippie commune called the American Enterprise Institute, he coined an economic truism that was so new, so profound, and so important, it became known a Steins Law:

“If something cannot go on forever, it will stop,”

When coined, Stein was talking about balance of payment deficits – and he was arguing for laissez-faire free market capitalism. In a free market, deficits cannot go on forever, so we don’t need to take action to stop them, they will stop of their own accord. (note at the time, the cumulative US debt was about $300 Billion, it is now approaching $13 Trillion).The same could of course be said of ballooning housing prices and irresponsible mortgage practices in the US in the mid 2000s. They were unsustainable, so in 2008 they stopped.

In that sense, Steins Law might be the greatest statement ever made about “Sustainability” since Bruntlund went to the UN. Stein would have said we don’t need to worry about burning the last of our oil, we don’t need to worry about removing fish from the sea faster than they can reproduce, we don’t need to worry about putting more CO2 in the atmosphere than planetary biosystems can remove… all of these things will stop eventually. The question is whether we, as a society and as an economy, decide when that stop happens, or if we just sit around and face the cold shock of it happening.

Now, a common response to this is that Malthus was wrong. Technology will come the rescue, it always has. If we run out of oil we will use natural gas; if we run out of natural gas, we will use nuclear; if we run out of uranium, we will develop fusion – the technifix is there.

The simplest answer to this approach is that it ignores that existence of fixed limits to the environment, regardless of technology. I am going to use energy use for the example, partly because I believe energy use is the #1 environmental issue on the planet today, the one all of our other issues, economic, social, or environmental, stem from, and partly because someone else already did the math for me.

Energy use over the last 400 years, on a global scale, has increased exponentially at a pretty constant rate. Through the transitions from wood and animal power to coal and steam then electricity, kerosene, refined petroleum, and nuclear energy – this gate of growth has been pretty constant. Plotted on a logarithmic scale, it is a flat line showing constant growth.

For the fun of it (and partly to demonstrate the fallacy of projecting too far into the future), Dr. Murphy projected this rate of energy use growth into the future, with hilarious results:

Note that only 400 years from now, we will need to tap 100% of the energy the planet receives from the sun. That would require 100% efficient solar panels on every square inch of the earth’s surface. A thousand years from then we will need to tap the entire energy supply of the sun. On the scale of “societies” and “economies”, 400 years is not that long a time… there are buildings built by Europeans here on the North American continent that are almost 400 years old…

Ok, the technofix to the rescue again, Why rely on the sun? In 400 years, we will use Cold Fusion or Zero Point Energy or tap the limitless energy of fairy wings. However, there are other limits. Whenever you use energy, you create heat. There is no getting around the Second law of Thermodynamics. Whenever we use energy to do something, lift a book, drive a car, smelt some steel, we create heat. The cumulative heat of this energy use is “sunk” to the biosphere. At this point, we slightly increase the heat of the planet through fossil fuel and nuclear power- much less than a degree (separate than “Global Warming” and other feedback effects, this is literally converting other types of energy to heat that must be dissipated). If we continue to grow energy use at current rates, the average temperature of the planet’s surface will double in less than 400 years. And in about 450 years, the average surface temperature on Earth will be at the boiling point of water.

Don’t worry, this can’t actually happen, as every multi-cellular form of life on the planet will be long dead – the temperature cannot continue to increase, it will stop. Just like Ben Stein’s dad told Nixon.

So, again, the question we need to ask ourselves- will we take the laissez-faire approach and leave the next generations to deal with the problem, or will we acknowledge this issue, take personal responsibility for this, and take it on now? I argue the second.

OK, if we agree that we need to do something, what to do? How do we get there? How do we get there? How do we engage and change the narrative applied to us?

Of course, you can just change things in your life. You can buy a Prius, or even stop driving altogether. You can grow your own food in your back yard, you can build a rammed-earth house with ground-source geothermal, passive solar and photovoltaics and a composting toilet and live off the grid. But that won’t change the world, because the guy living next door to you just bought an F-450 Super Duty with a 7-litre diesel for hauling his boat out the lake every weekend so he can “rip-it up”.

This isn’t going to work. To change the world, we need leaders to make the hard choices. As engaged, concerned citizens, it is up to us to empower our elected officials to make those hard decisions. Beyond choosing how we vote, we can arm them with information, we can voice our support, and we can ask them tough questions that force then to think differently.

That is what the NWEP does – and why I want to talk about the NWEP model as an example of positive engagement towards sustainability. We engage citizens and decision makers on issues around sustainability.

We reach out, as a collective, to the City and the community to move ideas forward. We run events that raise public awareness. We delegate to City Council and take part in City committees, to assure Sustainability is always a part of the conversation within the City. We reach out to City staff and share ideas, try to understand their challenges and provide solutions. We delegate to council and have less-formal discussions with elected officials, to again increase understanding on both sides, and to hopefully clear-up misconceptions about what “Sustainability” means, and about the value of a healthy environment.

We don’t protest. OK, we usually don’t protest.

Protesting can be a divisive activity- it calls into question decisions that are being made in the most aggressive way, and can put people who made decisions on the defensive. We would rather, collectively, take part in a constructive conversation and use personal conversations, the power of ideas and constructive criticism, and humour, to bring peoples’ thinking to a place where hard decisions become obvious decisions.

How do we apply this in an urban setting? What are our Sustainability goals in a developed City? The same as in other settings: reducing our externalities. Less energy in, less waste out, and creating efficiency in our internal systems.

Energy has obvious implications in New West. This City is uniquely empowered (pun) to take control of its electrical energy consumption, as we own our own electrical utility.

So where is our co-generation program? Where are our roof-top photovoltaics across our expansive south-facing slopes? Where are our small turbines? Where is our sewer heat recovery, or groundsource geothermal, our riversource geothermal?

Here is a picture of Nelson, in the West Kootenay, similar to New West in that it is full of old, inefficient, but historic buildings and it operates its own energy utility. Nelson has introduced a municipal ecosave program, where you can pay the capital cost for efficiency upgrades to your house through the savings in your power bill. This is on top of the rapidly-disappearing Federal and Provincial programs – an example of a City moving forward.
Note also the Solar Colwood program introduced by one of the earlier speakers tonight)

Waste is another area where municipalities can make tough choices. I could go on at length about the successes of the City’s solid waste diversion plans, compost-promotion and green organic waste collection system. Good news all around.

…but I could also go on at length about how burning trash for energy is inherently as unsustainable as burning coal. Its cheaper, it is easier, and it carries a certain “green” patina: it may be socially acceptable and economically prudent at this time, but it ain’t sustainable. We need to think better – and may soon need to make a tough choice here.

What about those internal systems? Places where the Urban Environment can put back, improve the world’s overall sustainability?

One example is protecting and promoting the Urban Forest- trees in the City provide remarkable benefits from reduced heating and cooling energy use to improved storm water retention, air quality improvements, habitat protection for birds and other animals. Protecting and promoting trees is an easy choice.

Living in denser, more diverse communities mean we spend less time and energy travelling between home, work, and play. This is why your average New Westminster resident drives less than your average Kelowna resident, or even your average Langley resident – this is a tangible benefit well-planned dense urban environments can provide- a “value added” to the environment.

There are harder questions I could raise. Try this: go up to any Federal or Provincial candidate and ask them when their party is going to offer a Zero-growth economic model as part of their platform. It’s inevitable that economic growth will stop. It has to, just ask Ben Stein’s father. The question is how it stops.

Can we empower our elected officials enough that they can admit this during an election cycle?

Are we going to plan a sustainable future now, when resources are still relatively plentiful and we can still have the most comfortable sustainable future possible? Or will we wait until resources are so decimated, that we are scrapping for what we can get? I don’t want to live in a cave cooking roaches over a candle- which is why we need to start now- actually we needed to start yesterday, making the choices that will protect our resources, protect our society and our economy- protect the environment that has allowed us to build this comfortable lifestyle.

Livable cities are part of the solution – and we are just getting started!

EnVision2032 this weekend!

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

The NWEP AGM went very well. There were four departing board members, we refreshed with three new board members and a fourth person is returning to the board after a one-year hiatus. It is good to have a combination of old and new ideas, and I look forward to working with the new team (which should give you the hint about who the returning-after-a-hiatus person is).

Speaking at the AGM were Mark Allison, who is a Senior Planner for the City of New Westminster, and Ann Rowan, a Senior Policy Analyst for our regional government, MetroVancouver. They spoke of community engagement and how individuals and organizations can make a difference in their community.

There were two big ideas I took away from the discussions.

First (to paraphrase Mark), when it comes to community planning and municipal government the decisions are generally made by “those that show up”. At open houses, at council delegations, at community meetings and advisory councils. Those that take an active part in the discussion are the only ones whose voices will be heard in the discussions.

Second (to paraphrase Ann), there are easy things individuals can do to improve the situation in the world from a sustainability standpoint: drive less, live in a more efficient house, conserve energy, buy local food, and generally buy less. However, talking to politicians is also one of those things, and it is one that it is often easier for groups to do than individuals. Bringing ideas to, sharing knowledge with, and providing support for the elected types is an important way to empower them to make the right decisions.

I’m glad to say: these are two things the NWEP does well locally.

This is what I hope to talk about (if I ever get a speech written….) at the City of New Westminster’s Envision2032 event this Friday. Besides taking part in the Saturday workshop (see “showing up” above), I am taking part in the Friday night social – an inspirational event where people who work or advocate in Sustainability Planning will talk the talk, hoping to inspire the Saturday participants to walk the walk on Saturday.

Yep, another “City Consultation” process for yet, another “Plan”. But I hope to emphasise that the Integrated Community Sustainability Plan is the big one. This is the over-arching set of community standards and goals that will inform subsequent Official Community Plans, Master Transportation Plans, Local Area Plans, Affordable Housing Plans, etc. etc. Once approved in 2013, the ICSP will provide guidance for the next generation of community development. How will we grow? How will we manage the volatility in world energy markets? How will we care for the homeless and the economically disenfranchised? How will we prioritize our taxation and spending? This Plan will set the stage upon which our City’s resurgence will play out. Take it from the City’s Sustainability Planner– this is a rather big deal.

If you live in New West, own property in New West, run a business or work in New West, you might want to drop by on Saturday and spend a couple of hours helping to sketch out that plan. This is your opportunity to show up, and your opportunity to speak to politicians: in other words, your opportunity to make the change you want to see happen.

You need to register before Thursday, mostly because they need to know how much lunch to order. Yes, if you spend a couple of hours on rainy Saturday when there is no Hockey on TV helping out the City – your City– you will get a free lunch!

Also, show up Friday night for the inspiration event, and find out if I ever got a speech written. I’m thinking of talking about this guy’s contribution to Sustainability thinking:

 

TransLink – countdown to 2013

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

(some edits made, factual and grammatical)

As I mentioned last post, I got to spend another exciting evening last week with TransLink consultation staff.

For a change, I wasn’t giving them the gears about the Pattullo Bridge. They have bigger problems these days, and (surprisingly not for the first time) I am 100% on their side of this argument.

They were in town meeting with New Westminster transportation and community advocates to talk about the 2013 Base Plan – their economic outlook for fiscal 2013. I wish it was full of good news.

Short version: TransLink is out of money, and cannot hope to expand their service to the level that demand dictates. If the Mayors don’t agree next week to provide the extra $30 Million annually from Property Tax that came out of the last stand-off, then TransLink will need to start cutting services.

Yes, in 2013, our regional transit system will need to take busses off the road and reduce SkyTrain service in a City that is still growing at double-digit levels, with transit use growing at a fast rate than population. Boggles. The. F-ing. Mind.

The long version is very long, as is the list of politicians soaked in the stink of failure here. TransLink’s economic failure is not a story of a system gone off the rails, of a system that has squandered their good fortune or taxpayer’s money, or of a system that isn’t well used and desired by the community. It is a story of our political structures being wholly unable to provide solutions that everyone can see, while (in many cases) taking active measures that worsen the very problems they are meant to solve.

How big a failure is TransLink? Between 2000 and 2011, the number of MetroVancouver trips taken on transit has gone from 130 Million/year to 233 Million/year. That is an 80% increase in ridership over 11 years, in a region where population has increased just under 20%. Say what you want about TransLink- they have done their job. Just since 2008, MetroVancouver has seen a 6% rise in population, and TransLink ridership went up 17%. Compare this to the increase in car use (4%, notably only 2/3 of population growth), and a 26% increase in bicycle use. These numbers become important as the discussion of how TransLink manages their current economic morass.

Few are arguing TransLink’s problem is anything but a revenue problem. Here, for the sake of discussion, are where the revenues come from that fund TransLink:

But this pie doesn’t talk about the revenue problem, which is something to behold. The organization moves something like $1.4 Billion a year, but will be almost $500Million short between 2013 and 2015 unless something dramatic happens. The shortfall seems to be hitting TransLink from every direction.

$38 Million shortfall from the Golden Ears Bridge tolls: this is the gap between the number of cars the Province dreamed would cross the Golden Ears Bridge, and the number that actually do. Since the bridge was built by a PPP, the concessionaire is guaranteed to make the profit they are entitled to, and the regional transportation authority has to make up the gap. SNC-Lavalin (correction: The GEB is operated by something called “Golden Crossing Group”, a partnership of Engineering firms CH2M Hill and Bilfinger Berger – Thanks for the reminder Bart) gets the profit, the taxpayer gets the risk. Keep this in mind when the Port Mann 2 opens, and when people tell you the Port Mann tolls are “guaranteed” to cover the capital cost of the bridge.

$108 Million shortfall on transit fares. Never mind the alleged “fare evasion” problem (which is less that 5% of this amount), this is the lost opportunity costs due to TransLink being unable to expand their system as intended. These are the fares lost because the rapid bus on Highway 1 will either not happen or will be cut back, because we still have no B-line on King George, because Evergreen is years behind schedule, because the increase in bus service hours has been scaled way back. This number is a count of potential customers lost.

$152 Million is the shortfall on asset sales. TransLink is going to sell off real estate around stations, and the Oakridge Bus Terminal. Lack of ability to move capital projects forward has exacerbated this problem, because the real estate is not currently surplus.

144 Million is the shortage from the gas tax. Simply put: people are driving less, and are driving more fuel-efficient cars. Although a small proportion of this represents people buying gas outside of MetroVancouver to avoid the tax, the vast majority simply reflects what happens when you have an effective transportation system and $1.50/l gas: people make the more rational choice. Ironically, TransLink’s funding woes will work to cause this revenue source to improve in the near future, as Provincial policies seem directed at forcing people to buy more gas.

Then there is the $30 Million that is the current cause of so much consternation with the Mayors. TransLink has prepared their 2013 Base Plan on the assumption that the Mayors will provide that $30 Million next week. This is far from a certainty, but TransLink is legally required to plan assuming that this funding is in place.

Just for perspective, here is how that $30 Million fits into the original graph of TransLink revenue. That sliver is what all the fighting is about, what is causing this silly brinksmanship between the Mayors Council and our completely rudderless Provincial Government.

Alas, this is all (recent) history. How is Translink moving forward with this revenue problem? They have already cut 90 professional positions (remember what I said about not being able to get their capital programs moving forward?), they are reducing SkyTrain frequency, “rightsizing” their bus fleet (meaning fewer busses or trains that aren’t bursting-at-their-seams overcrowded), and they are “optimizing” the bus schedule (meaning fewer busses on the less-popular routes, more on the more-popular routes).

Upgrades to stations have been put on hold (except the FalconGate installations, of course), and there will be cuts to both the road upgrade program and the bicycle infrastructure program. TransLink has already cut almost $100Million a year in expenditures through these measures.

Unfortunately, all of these will fail to solve the problem. As they all make the real problem (revenue) worse.

TransLink acknowledges what the results of these measures will be. Busses will be less frequent, some “less busy” service (read: the suburban service) will be cancelled. Skytrains will be more crowded, and there will be less flexibility built into the entire system, meaning that any small disturbance (a bus break-down, traffic congestion, etc.) will impact more people, more often. In summary: a more crowded, less reliable system servicing fewer areas. Does that sound like a recipe for revenue growth?

Instead, these cuts seem to be directed at specifically cutting off future revenue opportunities.

Making service in the “less busy” areas less reliable will do nothing to increase ridership in the rapidly-growing suburbs, where all the revenue growth potential exists. People crowding onto the 99 B-line at Commercial Station are already Transit users: they buy monthly passes or U-passes: TransLink cannot possibly increase revenue by providing better service on Broadway. Ditto the hundreds queued up every morning waiting for a 145 at Production Station. Cutting funding to bicycle programs – the programs that get people out of cars and into transit stations – and to pedestrian and bicycle accessibility at SkyTrain stations, again throws disincentives in front of potential multi-modal travelers.

Any opportunity to increase revenue in the one place TransLink has some revenue-control (fares) is being cut off, as the service will become less reliable, less useable, less attractive compared to the shiny new $5 Billion freeways criss-crossing the suburbs.

There is very little (except for creating a policy to charge for Park-and-ride spaces – wait, we didn’t already havethat!?!) in this plan to address the revenue side of the system. The Mayors keep saying that increased property tax is a no-go, and seeing the level that they fund the system now relative to senior government contributions, I tend to be on their side. However, there is no-one in senior government willing to put more than their paltry 6% into improved transit service in the Lower Mainland, as they have already decided that the $5 Billion in roads and bridges they have spent in the last decade needs to be increased by another $1- $2 Billion in the next 10 years. Mary Polak continued to talk about road expansion today: Announcing another $60 Million for roads. I’m not sure she even knows there is such a thing as TransLink. The Gas tax is a declining factor. The only real hope for revenue growth is in putting asses in seats.

TransLink cannot afford to shrink right now, as the region is growing so rapidly. They cannot even afford to “hold fast” at their current size. TransLink needs to grow now. We need rapid bus to Langley, we need Rapid Bus (not just B-line) to WhiteRock, we need increased SkyTrain or light rail in Surrey, in Richmond, to the Northeast, and along Broadway (mostly to free up the Broadway busses to service other routes). The only way for this organization to increase revenue that is within their power is to make it easier for customers to use their service. To do that, they need to make it more useful, more predictable, more reliable. Not the opposite.

The only good news is that we know an election is coming. We know that in May, 2013, things will change for TransLink. Their governance will change, and their funding will likely change. All signs indicate it will be a change to the better. It simply cannot be any worse.

As much as I disagree with the model, I hope the Mayors can find a way to fill the $30 Million gap through Property Tax next week, so TransLink is able to tread water for one more year until the rescue boat arrives. Before they do that, though, I hope they get some confirmation from the party that will form government next year that the Province will provide adequate support in the coming years to build the transit system we need.

On Offshore Drilling, Mines, and the Cynicism of John Rustad

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I found this to be an interesting story, one that probably didn’t get the media exposure it should have.

The Morrison Mine is just northwest of Babine Lake, in the woods east of Smithers. There are already a couple of significant historical mines in the area, including the Granisle and Bell open-pit copper mines that are located on islands within Babine Lake. The Morrison project would have chased a porphyry deposit related to the one that was mined at Granisle. These deposit types are common for copper, and are always mined using open-pit techniques, as they are trace deposits where the concentration of ore is usually much less than 0.5% of the host rock. So large volumes of rock must be dug up, crushed and concentrated to make economic ore. In the case of many copper mines like the Highland Valley mine near Logan Lake in the southern interior, the copper part of the business is often run as a break-even business, and all the profits come from the trace gold, silver, platinum, and other more valuable minerals that are extracted as accessory to the main copper operation (indeed the Morrison deposit reports .2g of gold per tonne, and could have produced up to a million ounces of gold over its life).

Grand Isle and Bell mines, on Babine Lake.

However, the Morrison Mine will not be, at least not as per the current plan. The environmental impacts were deemed too significant by the BC Government, or the proposed mitigation of those impacts was seen as insufficient. The copper is still there, the deposit still economic, so I suspect Pacific Booker will revise and come up with a less-impactful way to extract the deposit, or will sell off the rights to someone who thinks they can make it work.

This is the second copper-porphyry copper deposit that has been denied a Provincial Environmental Review Certificate under the current Liberal Government, after Kemess North was denied in 2007. (Remember, the controversial Prosperity Mine project that was going to nuke Fish Lake received Provincial Approval, but was subsequently rejected by the Federal Government)

I honestly don’t know enough about the Morrison project to know if the rejection was a good thing or not. I give the benefit of the doubt to Terry Lake and presume that if the Government felt the impacts were such that they outweighed the benefits, then the rejection is a good thing. The copper isn’t going anywhere, and it will still be a valuable resource when someone figures out how to exploit it in a less impactful way.

What I do find interesting is how this story relates to my earlier post criticising the meme propagated by a local mining executive that “the NDP will Kill Mining in BC” if elected.

In discussion around that meme, the topic of Tatshenshini Park is always raised, as in the suggestion that it was the Harcourt-led NDP Government turning potential mine site into a park in 1993 put a deep chill on mining exploration that took the Liberal Government to cure. This ignores the impact of historic-low metal prices and the Bre-X scandal on speculative investment on mineral exploration. It also ignores the point that the United States Government was not going to approve the Mine and attached pipeline as suggested (creating a nasty Boundary Waters Treaty dispute), that the acid leachate management plan for the mine would have relied on non-existent technology, or that there were dozens of serious concerns about the mining plan from First Nations, the Canadian and US Salmon fishing industries, Environment Canada, the EPA, and the US National Parks Service.

Click here if you want to read a good run-down of the legal framework around Windy Craggy. The last paragraph is great, as they quote the President of the company that spent all the money planning and proposing the Windy Craggy mine, and the compensation that company received from the BC Government for their lost revenue:

“Geddes Resources president John Smrke stated that the settlement ‘sends out a very strong signal that, indeed, B.C. is open to mining.'”

Does that sound like someone who thinks the BC NDP Government was killing mining in BC?

But back to the present day. If the NDP was killing mining by shutting down 1 potential mine and compensating the exploration company, how are the BCLiberals supporting mining by shutting down two potential mines over the last 5 years?  Maybe that is why the BC Liberals have been pretty quiet about it, including the Babine Lake local MLA.

A story that DID get a little media this week was John Rustad, MLA, tweeting about the idea of opening up the west coast for oil exploration. Now I have poked at John Rustad a bit in the past, but I can’t help but feel his well-timed comments about offshore exploration outside of his riding will serve as a useful distraction.

Indeed, if you look at John Rustad’s webpage, you find no mention of Morrison Copper. Which is funny, as the mine is right smack-dab in the middle of John Rustad’s electoral riding, and John Rustad is a Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, so you figure he would have an opinion on the scupper of a mine in his backyard.

At least as much as he has an opinion on offshore oil exploration, speaking as he is from his land-locked interior riding, 300km from the sea.

Doubling Down on Dumb Growth.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

There was a meeting last week of the Province’s Cities: the Union of BC Municipalities annual conference. People who run cities get together to talk about innovations, ideas, problems, and solutions. Pretty much like any other “convention”, except that there is another aspect to the meeting. Cities also have the opportunity to communicate with the Provincial Government. This happens through closed-door meetings where Civic politicos or staff meet with Provincial Ministers and their staff to hash out issues of an intergovernmental nature; where the UBCM passes “resolutions” of their members to ask the Provincial Government to take action on some topic; and in the Provincial Government presenting speeches to the collected City folk, to tell them what great things the Province has in store for Municipalities.

This year, the Premier (whom I like to refer to as McSparklestm) gave the Keynote address, and as is typical, offered a number of baubles to Muni leaders to show that the Province cares about families cities.

For those of us living in the Metropola of Vancouva, there has been an awful lot of talk recently about the biggest challenge the region is facing: how to move people about. As the Biggest Bestest Bridge Ever is getting rolled out, our regional Transportation Authority is bleeding from the eyes. Such is the ongoing funding crisis at TransLink that they are cutting rationalizing bus service, hiring security guards to intimidate people away from overloaded night buses, scrapping plans to invest in expanded service, cutting their bike program, and will not even be able to drive buses over that shiny new bridge…

So I waited in a cat-like state of readiness anticipating that Premier was going to show a little leadership and give the Province’s biggest Cities the relief they have been waiting for – a new funding model for TransLink, a new Governance model for Translink, a new idea of some kind in regards to TransLink. Anything. Just deal with it.

However, the word “Transit” did not appear once in her Keynote Speech to the Province’s Municipal Leaders, just as the word Leadership rarely crosses her mind. Instead, she doubled-down on building up last century’s transportation infrastructure. She doubled-down on Bridges and Roads. She doubled-down on dumb.

How bad? Almost a billion dollars in road infrastructure spending, not including the $2 Billion or more that any eventual Deas/Massey Tunnel will cost. Not a penny for TransLink or transit anywhere in the Province. I’ve said this before, and I‘ll say it again: Dumb.

The Premier announced they are going to start planning for a replacement of the Deas/Massey Tunnel, hoping to have it completed “in 10 years”. She has no plan, doesn’t know what to build, doesn’t know what it will cost, doesn’t know if it will be tolled, doesn’t know anything- but she announced that it is time to start the conversation (recognizing she won’t be arond long to complete the conversation). She want to start the planning.

Here, I’ll save her some time. You are not twinning or expanding the tunnel. It may seem cheap and easy to toss a third tube down adjacent to existing ones, but it would be anything but. The infrastructure used to make and install the tunnel is long gone (the basin built for the purpose now a BC Ferries works dock just west of the tunnel), and the design from 1958 would surely not pass 2012 seismic standards, and dropping a third tube without disturbing the existing ones or the armor rock on them would be difficult.
Further, the tunnel is currently a limiting factor on ships traversing the Fraser River. Ocean-going cargo ships are restricted in draft on the River now by the clearance at the tunnel. The Panamax Tankers envisioned for the Vancouver Airport Fuel Delivery Project could not reach their terminal unless they are less than 80% laden, and even then only at high tide. If the Federal Government are going to agree to any Deas Island crossing (and they will have to as per the Navigable Waters Protection Act), they will no doubt insist on a bridge to open up PortMetroVancouver to more flexible freight movement on the River. Any “upgrade” here will involve the removal of the Deas/Massey Tunnel, full stop.

There is also no chance of a bored tunnel (as the Canada Line takes under False Creek) working in this location. The geology there is loose river sediment at least 500m down – making it like tunnelling through jello: a geotechnical nightmare.

So it will be a bridge. If near the same location as the tunnel (as would be required to fit Highway 99, we are looking at a 800-m long main span, similar to the Pattullo Bridge, but built on technically challenging foundations due to the loose sediment. Any other location (to the east, as there is no way Richmond will be ploughing neighbourhoods to allow the bridge to move west) will mean a longer span and lesser connection to Highway 99.

But how big? The new bridge will need to be larger than the current 4 lanes to meet Premier McSparklestm 1950’s mindset that the “congestion problem” in Delta can be solved with new highway lanes. As the counter-flow system currently has three lanes with Rush Hour flow, a 6-lane bridge will also likely not be up to the task…. will 8 be enough?

For the sake of argument, let’s say the Deas/Massey Tunnel is replaced with a 8-lane bridge, just slightly ahead of the Premier’s 2022 deadline, to align with the Province’s and MetroVancouver’s growth predictions for 2021. Also presume that the current funding stranglehold doesn’t scupper TransLink’s planned 6-lane Pattullo replacement, the exponential growth of traffic lanes across the River is pretty clear:

Just between 2000 and 2021, the number of road lanes crossing the Fraser River within MetroVancouver would double from 18 to 36 with not a single increase in rail or transit capacity crossing the river in the same time.

The real economic choke point in the crossing of the Fraser is the 100-year old New Westminster Rail Bridge, with its single rail line being that flat purple line on the graph. TransLink forecasts big increases in Transit ridership across the River (well, it used to, it is unsure how the current funding crunch will impact these projections), but is currently operating the only two lanes of rapid transit (Skybridge is green line) at near capacity, will not have the money to even put buses on the World’s Widest Bridge, which will have 10 lanes, but not one of them dedicated to transit. Dumb.

This is the real story behind the TransLink “Funding Crisis”. $5Billion spent on roads and bridges in the last decade, and Billions more to come. All this while car use is declining, and our existing transit system is hopelessly overcrowded. The last comprehensive study of Traffic at the Deas/Massey Tunnel demonstrated that traffic through the Tube declined more than 7% over the 5 years, while people taking transit over the same time went up over 8% in the same period. This is not about capacity issues- this is about entrenching the building of car-oriented neighbourhoods in Langley, Surrey and Delta. This is threatening our livable region strategy, it will continue to threaten ALR land and our airshed. We cannot possibly hope to reduce our Greenhouse Gas emissions, to become food or energy independent. 

The worst part of the Surrey Leader story? The Vice-Chair of TransLink (who happens to be Mayor of the City with the greatest proportion of car users in the region) calling it “a great announcement”, while the only quote from the NDP opposition seems to be critical that the tunnel can’t be replaced sooner. There is plenty of dumb to go around here.

The Transportation System is Broken

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 3 Comments.

Two remarkable transportation stories hit the media this week, but few people have mentioned that they are connected at the hip.

Story #1: The ongoing crisis with public transportation in Vancouver has reached a new low.

Frustrated transit users are being left behind as demand continues to increase, and TransLink cannot afford to even maintain existing levels of service. Anyone trying to catch a 145 to SFU in the morning or a westbound 99 B-line pretty much any time of day know the system is broken.

Now increasing numbers of people, enjoying our revitalized Downtown (which is finally shucking the “No-Fun-City” reputation) while responsibly avoiding drinking-and-driving, find they cannot get out of downtown after Transit effectively shuts down at 1:00am. There is no budget to increase the number of NightBusses that are leaving people standing on the street at 2:00am, so TransLink is instead hiring Security Guards to manage the pissed-off customers!

Get that straight, the regional Transit System is so failing at its mandate, it has to hire security to beat the customers away from using their service.
On what planet is that a rational situation?

Story #2: The protracted opening of the new Port Mann Bridge is starting.

First, the announcement that tolls for the bridge will be cut in half until after the election, then that there will be no tolls for the first week (reinforcing the message that car dependency is like any other addiction – freebees help get your customers hooked!) , then the snap announcement that EastBound lanes will be opened (today), relatively bereft of fanfare, it was more likely a hasty response to a bit of poor planning yesterday that resulted in temporary traffic chaos (which should be differentiated from the permanent traffic chaos that will result from this entire project)

The missing context is how these two stories are really just one story. The Province and Feds are saying they cannot possibly afford to provide a couple of hundred million dollars to support the continued operation of a Transportation System that is bursting at its seams from overuse, so the Cities like Burnaby and Vancouver are going to have to buck up and find other solutions on their own dime. At the same time, the Feds and the Province are blowing somewhere north of $5 Billion building a transportation system that few people outside of Langley and Surrey want.

The tolls on the Port Mann are not going to pay for the Bridge (see this year’s projected $38 Million shortfall on the Golden Ears), and they are not even intended to pay for the 37 Kilometres of Freeway expansion from Grandview to 200th Street, or the dozen interchanges that are being stripped down and replaced. They are also not going to pay for the South Fraser Perimeter Road, or the Pitt River Bridge Replacement, the spectacular expansion of Lougheed Highway through Coquitlam Big-Box Hell (with concomitant King Edward Overpass).

Strange that after all the money spent on these roads, it is the Provincial contribution to the Rapid Bus Service that is only part of the project that has not barged ahead, costs be damned!

Yet the first opening day for the Bridge- the centrepiece of the most expansive roadbuilding project the Province’s history – was overshadowed on the front page of the Province by some sort of alleged taxpayer revolt over TransLink’s request for a little more money to keep operating the only alternative to more freeways. The biggest news in the Minister of Transportation’s home riding is that they may have to pay $2 to park their car all day in a park-and-ride to catch the Rapid Bus their MLA refuses to allocate the funds to operate!

These are twisted times, my friends.

As much as I may have questioned TransLink’s motivations in the past, I am starting to feel sorry for them, because none of this is their own doing.

I am convinced TransLink would rather provide enough NightBusses to get people safely home from Downtown at night, and not have to hire extra security to scare off potential fare-payers. I am positive TransLink would love to have an efficient and reliable RapidBus service to get people from Langley to Downtown in a reasonable time. I am sure TransLink would have rather have invested $150Million in service improvements than be forced to waste that amount on FalconGates that will not even address the alleged Fare Evasion “problem” on the system.

I am also sure that given a stable funding source, and a governance model free of political interference, TransLink would be able to achieve the goals they set for themselves in the Transport2040 plan. They would be fulfilling their mandate under the Livable Region Strategy. They would be able to deliver decent service and adapt to changes in how people use Transit. Instead, they are sitting outside a SkyTrain Station, hat in hand, looking for enough money to get their next fix, hoping the Transit Cops don’t shoo them away, while Elected Officials biker over which form of tax is most “appropriate”.

As it is now, the entire system is broken. Road lanes are being built, bus service is being cut. The entire $5Billion Gateway program was announced, designed, built and brought onstream in a little over 7 years, meanwhile it has been 15 Years since a Rapid Transit Line to the Northeast Sector was announced, and there are no signs of an Evergreen running any time soon, never mind Rapid Transit expansion on the Broadway Corridor or South of the Fraser.

The saddest part is the lost opportunity. During the Olympics, MetroVancouver proved what could be done: we could move a huge number of confused, lost, (and commonly drunk) people cheaply and efficiently even as we were reducing road space for cars. At the time, it was seen as a vision for the future, the model being proven that it can work. We had the momentum, but we lost it.

That lost opportunity, not some shiny new bridge looming like the Sword of Damocles over Coquitlam, will be Kevin Falcon’s legacy.

The Next Federal Election, and what should be.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

Not long after writing this post, I was made aware of this website.

The idea is simple: they took poll-by-poll results from the last two elections and re-ran the elections with the new Electoral Districts being proposed across Canada. The results locally are interesting.

Here are the existing ridings for the Lower Mainland, and the results from the 2011 Federal election. I shaded ridings by winning Party, dark if they won handily, and pale if the Party won a close one (“close” I arbitrarily set at a 5% lead over the next closest rival, which is pretty much within pre-election polling error).

And here is the same area, with the proposed riding boundaries for the next Federal Election, and how the 2011 election would have ended, assuming everyone voted for the same party, regardless of the newly-drawn riding boundaries:

Remember, this reflects exactly the same number of voters, and exactly the same votes: so no change at all in the percentage of popular vote for any party. What does change is who goes to Ottawa.

With the existing boundaries, MetroVancouver will be represented by 11 CPC, 7 NDP, and 2 LPC MPs. With the proposed boundaries, the same area will be represented by 17 CPC, 5 NDP, and 2 LPC MPs. Exactly the same votes, and the result sees the Conservatives gain 6 seats, the NDP lose two. Are we supposed to believe this is a coincidence?

There are a couple of caveats that should be acknowledged when looking at this data.

This revised data is useful mostly in the extreme case: it is highly unlikely that the 3,000 votes in NDP-leaning Queensborough will have any influence on the 30,000 votes in Conservative-dominated Richmond once the two are put in the same riding. You can see this in complete lack of change “around the edge” of the map, where solid Conservative leads would not be threatened by any change in boundaries, and the East Side of Vancouver will always be NDP.

However, what the impact on the old New Westminster-Coquitlam riding is less certain. According to last election’s poll-by-poll results, the new riding of Port Moody – Coquitlam the loss of the strong-NDP Sapperton polls would hurt Fin Donnelly much more than the loss of Conservative-friendly Queens Park polls, and the Conservative-leaning Coquitlam vote would swing the riding to that party by the thinnest of margins- about 0.95%, or less than 400 votes.

This brings up the bigger supposition: that people vote strictly along party lines, and those party lines never shift. We know that isn’t true for much of the population. Fin Donnelly is a great NDP Candidate, and appealed to a lot of people in Conservative-leaning areas, just as Diana Dilworth appealed to many people in NDP-leaning areas. Fin now has real incumbency behind him, the NDP are gaining in the polls, and there is no guarantee that Dilworth will run again, Fin could still win the new Coquitlam-Port Moody riding, or a “Star Candidate” for the Conservatives could win by more than the thin margin above. Candidates and Pary matter: which is why a distribution that doesn’t fairly represent the popular vote is such a problem. 

This may sound like an NDP partisan whinge, but if there is one thing upon which we should all agree it is that we want the representation in Ottawa to represent, as best as possible, the popular vote. That is the fundamental basis for Representative Democracy, and the entire purpose of this Electoral District Redistribution: to adapt the House of Commons to the growing and shifting population. The Growth of Greater Vancouver means we are getting 4 more seats. However, if we want to fairly represent this population, how should those seats be distributed?

Look at this table I made, again of data from the PollMaps database:

For the combined 20 ridings in the above maps, the popular vote in the 2011 election was 45% for the Conservatives, 31% for the NDP, 19% for the Liberals, and the Greens an everyone else split the other 6% of the vote.

That resulted in 11 seats for the CPC (55% of the total seats available), 7 for the NDP (35%), 2 for the Liberals (10%), and none for anyone else. The Blue numbers are the number of seats each party should have got, based on a distribution of seats that matches their popular vote. Overall, the distribution was not perfect, but in the grand scheme, it wasn’t too bad for a first-past-the-post system.

Now look at the proposed boundaries data. Ideally, redistribution should push us towards the ideal here. Instead, the over-representation of the Conservatives get bigger (71% of seats from 45% of the vote!), while the NDP and Liberals get less representation and the situation for the other parties doesn’t change. All of the extra seats go the party that is already overrepresented, plus seats stripped from a party already under-represented, while doing nothing to help the other under-represented parties!

This is an opportunity lost. With proportional representation in European model, those 4 new seats could be reserved for representatives from parties that are underrepresented.

The Conservatives can keep their 11 seats: the number out of 20 that they won, and the number out of 24 that represents their popular vote.

The NDP keep their 7 seats (well, lose one, but are granted a “proportional seat” for no net gain): this is one more than they won out of 20, but fairly represents the number out of 24 that represents their popular vote.

The Liberals keep their 2 seats, and are granted 2 “proportional seats” to bring heir total to 4: the number out of 24 that represents their popular vote.

The final proportional seat is given to the Green party, as out of the 6% “others”, about 80% of that was for the Greens, meaning 5% of the total popular vote.

This way, we meet the “ideal” number of seats, as per popular vote. Of course, this is a local example, but the same results can be drawn at the Provincial Level, and at the National level. All it would take is the wholesale re-writing of the Canadian Constitution and Parliamentary system. We have three years until the next election, let’s get started!

He’s a Fletcher, but he’s no Fletch

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 3 Comments.

I loved Fletch – the books and the movies. The books were darker and more cynical than the Chevy Chase vehicle, but I thought Chevy did his best work in the first Fletch. So please accept that my fandom may colour comparison of the investigative reporting skills of the fictional Irwin M. Fletcher with the hackneyed opinion making of BC’s own Tom Fletcher.

The columnist for Black Newspapers is predictably right-of-centre and comes from a free-enterprise-uber-alles all-government-are-clowns viewpoint. No problem with that, people have opinions, and I don’t expect everyone to agree (look at some of the crap I write – if you don’t disagree with me sometimes you just aren’t thinking!), but I’m a local blogger, he is a regionally syndicated Professional Journalist.

His recent column in the print version of the NewsLeader (and syndicated Province-wide) shows that he isn’t a very good one. I wanted to go through line-by-line and talk about the hundred types of wrong in this column (“Robert Redford!?”), but it just got too deep and too boring, even for me. So this long post is a few thousand words short of where it should be. You get what you pay for.

In this column, the estimable Mr. Fletcher attempts to fix some of the “ignorance” he has seen and heard in discussions questioning merits of Oil Pipelines. These misconceptions are being “exploited by some opponents”, and he wants to set the record straight.

Fact checking is an important part of the profession of Journalism, so we should thank him for his efforts.

Except that he gets pretty much everything from that point forward wrong. Not just the facts, but the part about being a professional Journalist.

Again, I don’t want to go through this line-by-line, but let’s take the major premise of the first half of his column – oil pollution ain’t so bad – and do a little fact-checking.

“A global study by the Smithsonian Institution in 1995 calculated the amount of oil making its way into oceans this way: Big tanker spills accounted for 37 million gallons a year, about five per cent of the total marine oil pollution identified.

“By far the largest source was oil runoff from land into drains, from oil changes, municipal and industrial wastes and other sources: 363 million gallons. Bilge cleaning and other routine ship maintenance added 137 million gallons, four times the tanker spill average.

“Air pollution from vehicles and industry deposited hydrocarbon particles equal to another 97 million gallons; natural seeps added 62 million gallons; offshore drilling discharges accounted for 15 million gallons.”

It’s nice that Fletcher gave us a reference, a global study by the Smithsonian Institution published in 1995 should be easy to find. It also tells us where he might have got the information from. Presuming Tom gets his “information” from the Internets, he might have picked it up from here or here. Or, even more likely, he got it directly from his buddies inside the BC Government.

Notably, that’s not where the actual data came from. The citation the BC Government provides does not link to any Global Study, as no such study was performed by the Smithsonian. Or anyone else in 1995 for that matter. The numbers come from a 1995 travelling science exhibit put together by the Smithsonian to teach about Ocean Ecology.

I’m not sure how many oil-industry spin cycles this dataset went through before Tom pulled it out and hung it on the line (and, problematically, neither does Tom), but hey, he’s a Professional Journalist – and it would have required a few more Google clicks to look for the original Smithsonian display text, and follow their citation

“National Research Council (2002) Oil in the Sea: Inputs, Fates and Effects. Washington, D.C: National Academy Press, May.”

Now we are getting somewhere. The National Research Council is a public research body, so the source of the data is available on-line, and we can assess the quality of the data (you know, Tom, like real reporters do). We find that there is no actual report that fits the above citation perfectly. There is a 2003 report by the NRC called “Oil in the Sea III: Inputs Fates and Effects”, which is pretty close:

“Oil in the Sea III: Inputs Fates and Effects, 2003”

It would be hard for a 1995 travelling science show to cite a 2003 paper, even with the Smithsonian’s money, so we need to go back to the older report “Oil in the Sea: Inputs Fates and Effects” done in 1985, which is also available here:

“Oil in the Sea: Inputs Fates and Effects” 1985

You can read the whole thing (it is interesting!) but maybe for the purposes of this post, just skip to the table on page 82, which lists estimates of Global input of hydrocarbons into the oceans. This looks good.

Also notice the text around the report about the meanings of each of the inputs, you really need to spend a few minutes putting this study into context. Then look at the similar table in the 2003 report I linked to above (the table is on page 69) – and note the long discussion about how far off the 1985 estimates were, and for what reasons. I put together this handy table so you can compare the numbers Tom chose to hinge his entire argument on, with actual data from which he allegedly got his numbers.

“Fletcher” are the numbers Tom regurgitated uncritically
“1985” are the best estimates from the 1983 report, converted from million tonnes to kilotonnes.
“2003” are the “best estimates” for global inputs from that report.

It doesn’t matter that the figures are in different units (Millions of Gallons versus kilotonnes), because his argument hinges on comparisons of oil spills with other inputs, so I decided not to do the conversions so I won’t be accused of misquoting the tables or cookingthe books. You can still compare the three sets of numbers on piecharts:

You can see there are three very different datasets. Which do you have the most faith in? The most recent study that built on the older study while acknowledging the flaws, or the random numbers presented by well-meaning science educators in 1995 from an flawed at-that-time 10-year old study? Which set of numbers did Tom run with? If you were a Professional Journalist, which would you use in order to address “misconceptions” that are creeping in to the Pipeline debate?

You may ask “So what? Who cares if his data is shit?”

I would say that even if it weren’t built on crappy data – his argument is flawed! The data is almost 30 years old, so the “oil runoff from land into drains” in the 1985 report included industrial waste runoff – primarily from petrochemical industries – and other waste streams from operations that are clearly not done by “you and me”. These are coming from things like oil terminals and refineries similar to the one his boss wants to build. I’m not sure how making statements like “Bilge cleaning and other routine ship maintenance added 137 million gallons, four times the tanker spill average” is supposed to endear us to having a tanker terminal on BC’s Northwest coast – why worry about a spill if bilge cleaning will cause more oil pollution!?!

This is also built on the premise that a little bit of oil spilled into a thousand small streams will have the same impact as millions of litres of oil spilled into one estuary. This is simply false. The impact of a single spill event can be catastrophic, and the minuscule amount of hydrocarbons in street run-off is less than optimal, but is generally metabolized and dissipated on the ocean before it can have harmful effects on the ecosystem.

I’m not minimizing the problem – Municipal runoff is generally bad stuff with trace levels of metals and hydrocarbons – but through significant changes since that 1985 report (oil and oil filter recycling programs, oil-water separator systems in storm drains, AirCare and similar emissions testing programs that remove unburned hydrocarbons from exhaust, standardization of dry-clean-up methods in the automotive repair industry, Laws regulating the handling and disposal of dry-cleaning solvents, etc. etc.) the situation in 2012 is way better than it was. I digress.

Admittedly, this is not an Investigative Journalism piece- it is an opinion column. So maybe I expect too much of a Professional Journalist writing an opinion piece to spend 5 minutes on Google to see if his data is correct (because that is how long it took me to collect the data above and demonstrate that his data is crap).

I fear somewhat that it is the data being used in a technical memorandum prepared by the BC Government, but that’s an entire other blog post.

I am going to give Fletcher the benefit of Hanlons Razor, and assume he is an incompetent and lazy journalist, and not intentionally using crappy data because it better makes the point of his “opinion”. Incompetent or lying, it hardly makes a difference, I’m not sure why Fletcher’s opinion is something anyone would find worth reading.

PS: By the way, “Cambridge Energy Research Associates” is not associated with Cambridge: the university or any of the universities based in Cambridge, Mass. It is the “energy market consulting” wing of the publicly traded industry publishing corporation “Information Handling Services”, or “IHS Inc”. It doesn’t take long on their website to see who butters their toast. And the study to which he refers “Oil Sands, Greenhouse Gases, and European Supply: Getting the Numbers Right” does not actually agree with the numbers Tom provides in his column. Those numbers are actually from page 6 of a recent Shell Oil pamphlet talking about how great Bitumen Sands are, which in turn cites the CERA… Yep, he did it again.

Hanlon’s Razor is looking pretty dull these days.

Will the NDP kill Mining in BC?

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

I was prompted to write this post by a Twitter conversation last week. One of the local #NewWest Twitterati opined (not for the first time) that mining and exploration money will abandon British Columbia if the NDP are elected. His opinion seems worthy of consideration: although he is an outspoken supporter of the BCLiberals, he has also built his career in mineral exploration, so maybe this is more about the job than the politics?

Problem is, it contrasted with my (much shorter) personal experience with mineral exploration in BC. A few years after completing my undergrad, I worked a bit of the BC Geological Survey Branch, wandering around mineralized parts of Central BC helping put potential mineral exploration targets on maps. Ms.NWimby had a real job with the BC GSB, conducting geochemistry and drift exploration studies in other parts of the Province, for much the same reason.

At the time, exploration in BC was suffering. There were not that many jobs in BC for just-out-of-school grads in geology. True, the NDP were in office, but I don’t remember anyone talking about that. When talking to small placer miners up the Omineca Mining Access Road, they were talking about one thing only: gold prices. There were sole operators up there who were putting all of their gold into safety deposit boxes, because at under $300/ounce, it wasn’t worth selling.

When Ms.NWimby and I moved to Illinois, we went there to work for the Illinois State Geological Survey, partly because the writing was on the wall for the BC GSB. The message from the incoming Liberal Party was to not expect any investment in the BC GSB: layoffs were coming, and it was time to pull up stakes and find other opportunities if we wanted to do geological science.

So I thought I would look back at how BC governments have impacted exploration spending in BC since Dave Barrett’s rule. Easy. The BC Government produces a list of historical annual exploration expenditures in the Province. Not Government expenditures, mind you, but private sector investments in the future of BC mineral industry. This is the money that disappears quickly when the private sector get scared that the Government of the day is “unfriendly”. It is also a much better measure of “industry confidence” than actual mining revenue, as mines take a long time to set up, and once operating, carry a lot of momentum – so they tend to last through multiuple administration changes.

I plotted the exploration investment data, Millions of Dollars per year, against the years of Social Credit, NDP, and BCLiberal rule, from just before Dave Barrett’s short 1970s government through the longer late-90s NDP and the current BCLiberals. It sure looks like there was less spending during the NDP. Just look at the precipitous drop in 1997:
There was another event that was big news in the 1990s that hurt mineral exploration. The Bre-X scandal was huge news in the Earth Sciences Department at my University, and in the Canadian mining sector. Actually, that is an understatement. It was, after all, the biggest mining scandal in history, and it happened right here in Canada. It pulled the money-carpet out from under every junior mining exploration stock on the Toronto and Vancouver Stock Exchanges. The effect it had on how much all those companies spend on exploration is obvious:

Aside from thsi single event, we need to think about where this exploration money comes from – selling stocks in Junior Mining Firms. When people invest in these companies, they are, of course, thinking about potential return-on-investment. That return is essentially based on two things: the company’s chances of finding a marketable amount of metal, and the price of the metal when they market it (don’t start me on the whole pump-and-dump factory that was the VSE). Read any junior mining prospectus, and those are the two things they talk about at length.

So what happened to metal prices over that same period? (please follow links to find the Government references to all the data I use below, I don’t make this stuff up)

I went to the USGS and looked up their historic mineral stats to find the value of those metals as commodities on the world market. I then compared that to the actual minerals BC produces the most of. According to the Government of BC, 59% of BC’s mineral industry value comes from Copper, 17% from Gold and 11% from Zinc. Essentially, 87% of the money BC makes from mining metals comes from these 3 metals, and their value has changed over the last 40 years:

To combine this into a single graph, I turned all three numbers into price indexes. I divided each year’s price by the 1971 price, so this graph shows the value for the three metals compared to their 1971 value.

Notice gold changed more than other metals, but represents only 17% of BC’s metals wealth. So I multiplied the numbers above by the percentage of their proportion of BC metals wealth, according to the BC Government stats from above (Copper *0.59 + Gold *0.17 + Zinc *0.11). We get a single graph of the change in value of 87% of BC’s mineral wealth over the last 40 years, not due to Provincial Government action, but simply due to the fluctuations in global metals markets:

Then lets project that graph over the original one showing exploration spending:.

Then I ask you, does it look like the government in Victoria has as much effect on the amount of mineral exploration money spent in BC as the global metals markets? Who was more responsible for the jump in the late 1970s- Bill Bennett or the Hunt Brothers? Was Gordon Campbell responsible for the value of gold taking off after 2001? Was the NDP responsible for Bre-X?  

Even the greatest “socialist” insult to mining exploration – the dedication of the Tatshenshini-Alsek Provincial Park, which killed the massive Windy Craggy Mine project – is hardly a blip in the exploration-investment graph (it took place in June, 1993), despite what the Fraser Institute may say. I added that arrow, only to contrast the impact of the Tat announcement with that of the Bre-X fraud. (Funny, the Fraser Institute site returns no searches for “Bre-X”).

So unless Adrian Dix has the power to single-handedly manipulate the world metals markets, I will treat the “NDP will kill mineral exploration” meme as just another case of political hyperbole that doesn’t fit the data.