BC NDP won’t permit Kinder Morgan to put shovels in ground on public land for pipeline

If the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion is completed, it will result in about 400 oil tankers per year passing through Burrard Inlet. Photo by Travis Lupick

by Charlie Smith, The Georgia Straight, August 10, 2017

This morning, two B.C. NDP cabinet ministers outlined steps their government is taking to address public concerns over Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion project.

The owner, Texas-based Kinder Morgan, wants to triple shipments of Alberta oil through its system to 890,000 barrels per day. That would lead to a nearly seven-fold increase in oil tankers moving through Georgia and Juan de Fuca straits.

UVic to rename Trutch building because of colonial politician’s racist legacy

The University of Victoria says Joseph Trutch’s attitude towards First Nations peoples was racist, even for his time. (Wikipedia/Library and Archives Canada)

Joseph Trutch, B.C.’s first lieutenant-governor, has legacy of denying First Nations land rights

By Liam Britten, CBC News, June 6, 2017

Joseph Trutch is remembered as B.C.’s first lieutenant-governor, an engineer and commissioner of public works.

But he is also remembered as a man who trampled over the rights of B.C.’s Indigenous peoples in the 19th century, which is why the University of Victoria is removing his name from one of its residence buildings.

Douglas Treaties translated into indigenous languages of Vancouver Island for first time

Graphic by Gord Hill, Kwakwaka’wakw

‘Our people understood it to be a peace treaty so that we wouldn’t go burn their fort down’

CBC News, Feb 24, 2017

For the first time since they were signed 170 years ago, the Douglas Treaties have been translated into the indigenous languages of the Sencoten and Lekwungen First Nations of Vancouver Island.

But the effort to translate them has also highlighted how differently their meanings were understood by both sides who signed them.