Tag: LNG

FRACKING HELL!!

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fracking hell BC

It is reported in the Tyee that Progress Energy, a subsidiary of PETRONAS has built 16 unauthorized earth dams in the Montney basin, Northeastern British Columbia that, for whatever reason, have not been vetted by the provincial Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) . These dams trap water for large-scale fracking activities which involve injecting a pressurized mix of water, chemicals, gases and sand into the ground – a process that has allegedly triggered significant earthquakes in the region. Progress Energy seems to have built these dams between 2012 and 2014 on Treaty 8 land north of Fort St John. Treaty No. 8 land cover 840,000 square kilometres and is home to 23 Alberta First Nations, 3 Saskatchewan First Nations, 6 Northwestern Territories First Nations and 8 British Columbia First Nations. Treaty rights give members of party Nations, shared territorial rights to hunt, fish, pursue cultural activities and build burial grounds; in other words to collectively live their traditional way of life.

In 2013 the government of British Columbia announced a multi-billion dollar LNG investment by Malaysia’s PETRONAS Group of Companies. The proposal was to build an LNG export terminal on Lelu Island. This investment would have made Malaysia the largest foreign investor or, in liberal terms the greatest economic benefactor to our province. Meanwhile, the racial, religious, financial and political funk of Malaysia has been steadily rising in the wake of the the tightly contested 13th general elections of 2013 as well as the ongoing 1MDB scandal.

In BC the promised investment began driving the inherent tribal, territorial, economic and environmental contestations towards an inexorable crisis. This congruence of contexts that I call mine – Malaysia and British Columbia, gave rise to an awakening  in me of a transpacific identity and to many, many questions – Does the populace of BC have a perspective on Malaysia and on PETRONAS’ imbrication in the finances of  that nation? Are Malaysians aware of economic, environmental and territorial perspectives in BC? … These were some of the stirrings behind this Koboi Kembara Lagi (The Koboi Rides Again) Blog which I initiated in 2015.

Just 2 days ago (July 2017) it was  announced that the PETRONAS LNG Project on Lelu Island would not proceed for financial reasons. While this decision is good news for the fish, for environmentalists and for some natives, others, including many native communities feel that this withdrawal will hurt the economy and consequently the social fabric of society. For the present at least, it seems that the Skeena river and Lelu island are safe from environmental degradation by PETRONAS developments in the context of BC’s resource economy. This relief is however very local, to Lelu island. In the bigger a provincial picture we find that this powerful Malaysian crown corporation is already well entrenched in our LNG economy and, as expressed in the Tyee atticle, involved in environmental controversies that are poorly reported by BC’s mainstream news media.

The Lelu island project was, for PETRONAS, part of a downstreaming exercise designed to maximize profits from PETRONAS’ own primary resource assets that have been developed more discreetly in British Columbia over a much longer period of time. Indeed, the Lelu terminal was intended to bring mainly PETRONAS’ LNG to PETRONAS’ markets in China. The terminal is now not happening but the fracking and its consequences continue. This blog will now follow these activities more closely in search of answers to the abiding question – Can information flows follow global capital and create truly transnational networks and communities of contestation and accord or does the new communications medium create solipsistic circuits of ‘social’ media?  As the Koboi continues his wanderings and his art this Koboi Kembara Lagi blog will go on exploring the implications of Malaysian investments in British Columbia.

Image https://thetyee.ca/News/2017/05/03/Petronas-Unauthorized-Dams-Fracking/

https://thetyee.ca/News/2017/05/03/Petronas-Unauthorized-Dams-Fracking/

http://treaty8.bc.ca/treaty-8-accord/

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33447456

 

 

LNG Bluff 6: The Artist

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the fish is fine 2

Image – Koboi Kembara Lagi: Berhijrah, 8 The Fish if Fine, copyright by Niranjan Rajah. Preparatory sketch for photographic work. Image source Vancouver Sun

I am moved to hear that the PETRONAS LNG Project on Lelu Island will not be going forward. My latest email conversation on 13 July 2017 with Donnie Wesley, Simoyget (hereditary chief) Yahaan, who has lead the opposition to the project valiantly, reflects the pressure his movement has been under of late. Here is an extract from the the Chief’s last email to me, ” … many thanks for expressing the views of many. My court dates are encroaching and feel the need to scream as the misery of my people is real … “.

And for the record, here is what I had written to him that prompted his reply, “…. I feel many people do not understand what is at stake … even native people seem to be polarized between an ideal Turtle Island where the settlers and immigrants are gone and some kind of unreflective engagement with the Canadian  State… ie. some are happy with the trickle down of benefits from the state  …   My own position as an immigrant is that I am here and I am here to stay but I want Canada to move towards a meaningful recognition of First Nation rights and claims to their remaining assets and authority … The key to Native reclamation is the insistence on proper consultation before anything else. This is what you are doing and I hope the Federal Court sees justice through“.

In all honesty, I must say my own feelings are very mixed with regard to this great victory for the Chief. I am so happy for him and his people. I am happy for the environment and the fish. I am happy for my children who will is some way inherit the environment that the present generation of deciders and actors leaves behind on this beautiful coastal land. I am however somewhat disappointed as a Malaysian that this momentous transpacific engagement will not take place and, as an artist, I feel that, suddenly, I have lost my muse!

 

LNG Bluff 5: Greens

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greensYesterday, the left leaning NDP officially formed the new government of British Columbia thereby ending of 16 years of conservative Liberal Party rule in our Province. The NDP had no majority on their own but with the support of the BC Green party they just pushed past the Liberals by one seat. I have addressed the duality of the NDP position regarding the Lelu Island  LNG development in a previous post and now I want to address the position of their new allies the BC Greens. Andrew Weaver, the leader of the Greens, had denounced LNG as a “pipe dream” upon first taking office as an MLA in 2013. He as the lone Green MLA, voted against the special tax regime that both the Liberals and New Democrats approved for LNG development in 2014. Further, in the runup to the recent elections which saw a record 3 Green MLAs in the BC legislature, he promised to repeal the BC government”s agreement with Pacific NorthWest/ PETRONAS to develop their LNG terminal on Lelu Island. Weaver has however, in the wake if the elections agreed to support the NDP in governing BC, giving this new alliance a tenuous majority of 1 in the provincial parliament.  In fact, the NDP appointed speaker  would have to break with convention and cast his vote with the government for this alliance to sucessfully pass any legislation. How can Weaver hold his position on Lelu LNG if the NDP fall in behind the Feds, the Liberals and their own powerful patrons, the alliance of BC Building Trade unions, in supporting the project.

http://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/vaughn-palmer-weaver-offers-dramatic-alternative-to-ndp-and-liberals

Image : http://commonsensecanadian.ca/rafe-elizabeth-may-greens-double-bc/

Band vs Tribe

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LeluDecSigning_610px
Simogyet Malii, the chief negotiator for the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs, makes a powerful assertion that the recent cultural appropriation debate belies a deeper arrogation. First Peoples cultural forms are expressions of their relationship to their lands and waters and are inseparable from their traditional laws. He draws our attention to the fact that the significant  ‘appropriation’ “isn’t happening in art galleries or on the pages of high-minded magazines. This is happening on our lands and in the courts and legislatures, and it has to stop.”

A case in point is how the Lax Kw’alaams Band Council is seeking to deny or, to extend the analogy,  ‘appropriate’ the ancestral authority of hereditary chief Simogyet Yahaan, of the Gitwilgyoots in connection with and PETRONAS/ Pacific NorthWest LNG project on Lelu island. The Band Council has launched a legal challenge to Yahaan’s locus standi to repersent his tribe and protect its territory. Simogyet Malii notes that this assertion by the Council is unprecedented and that, “It challenges the respect for aboriginal law and authority, and undermines any possible reconciliation between Canada and aboriginal peoples.”

There is clear  preceedant, in Federal Court of Appeal decions, that the Crown is obliged to properly consult First Nations in connection development projects on uceded lands under their jurisdiction and the technical question at stake here is quite simply, who should the Crown rightly consult – ancestral hereditary chiefs or the Band Council that derives its authority from  colonial legislation. The Gitwilgyoots and the Gitanyow who believe they too have a right to be consulted do to impacts of this project on the Salmon ecology and consequently on their economy has brought a request for  Jucial review in this matter to the Federal Court in Vancouver . Yahaan has said , “The … council deemed they could go out and take tribal territory and use it at their own discretion for oil and gas. Their only jurisdiction is on reserves. Outside that jurisdiction belongs to the tribes.”

The Band Council’s apolication to the courts to have  Yahaan declared persona non grata  in this manner is, rightly or wrongly, an attempt to  circumvent this important questoin of jurisdiction and right adewuate consultation. Simogyet Malii’s explication of the depths of ‘cultural’ apprioriation seems briliant to me but it must be an obvious fact to the First Peoples with whom reconciliation is acknowledged in the formalities of state, but  the continued aporopriation and exoloitation of whose sacred and material possesions is ongoing.

 

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/beyond-appropriation-of-our-culture-the-most-important-fight-is-for-our-land/article35406652/

Image: https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2016/01/25/Lelu-Declaration/

Not the Chief!

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4 Tunai itu Raja

Image: 7 Cash is King, copyright by Niranjan Rajah. Preparatory image for photographic work developed from an original illustration by Gord Hill.

With the 150th birthday of Canada approaching this weekend and with the various recent Department of Justice filings of charges in the United States implicating Malaysian  crown business practices, it seems apt to reflect on the relations of my two nations. The cogent event here is the looming but contested arrival of Malaysian Oil and Gas giant PETRONAS on Lelu island in the Canadian province of British Columbia. This meeting of hegemonies takes place on land that is technically unceded and therefore under the authority of traditional Chieftains of the indigenous peoples of the land in Question. Two such groups , the Gitanyow of the Gitxsan nation and the Gitwilgyoots of the Tshimshian nation, have filed  lawsuits and are seeking a judicial review of the Federal Government’s approval of the Petronas led LNG project on the basis of inadequate consultation with their respective authorities. Lelu island lies within traditional Gitwilgyoots territory.

In a counter measure the elected Lax Kw’alaams Band band council in northern British Columbia, and PETRONAS subsidiary, Pacific NorthWest LNG, made representations at the Federal court earlier in the present month of June 2017, seeking to deny the ancestral authority of Simogyet Yahaan, of the Gitwilgyoots Tribe of the Tsimshian peoples. In other words the purported hereditary chief’s standing is being questioned by the elected chiefs. As an immigrant to these shores from Malaysia,  a nation that is embroiled in the mother of all financial and political controversies, I find it both tragic and ironic that this attempted usurpation is being carried out by the natives themselves, under the auspices of the exemplar of Malaysian corporate prowess.

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/16/us-acts-to-seize-assets-allegedly-looted-from-malaysia-fund-1mdb.html

 

Hearts, Minds + Stomachs

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food

According to The Northern View  “Students in Hartley Bay are able to eat healthy meals in the morning for two straight years now” due to the generosity of donations made by PETRONAS owned Pacific NorthWest LNG to the Breakfast Club of Canada. Commendable acts of charity and community engagement by corporate entities are, in themselves, beyond reproach. If this image of benevolence and need is indeed true, children are benefiting and no one should object … and yet, one might be obliged to interrogate the ethos of our social contract, if the proper feeding of the nation’s children depends on global corporate charity.

http://www.thenorthernview.com/community/hartley-bay-breakfast-program-receives-continued-support-from-pacific-northwest-lng/

Contemporary Warriors (2)

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new-chief cropGord Hill is a Warrior with a pen.This is an image he uses to address the nexus economic and legal realities of native Canada. He addresses the goal of the state to assimilate Indigenous peoples, via the conversion of reserve lands to private property under the pretext of creating economic self-sufficiency.  ‘Self-government’ agreements come with development contracts and treaty agreements remove the natives from the ambit of the Indian Act and change their reserve lands to private property.

This is a reposting of my post from Dec 1 2015
https://koboikembaralagi.wordpress.com/2015/12/01/contemporary-warriors/

New LNG Vote

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In October 2016 APTN Investigates aired ‘Lelu Island: A Resistance’, a documentary by Rob Smith. It investigates how the Lax Kw’alaams community vote against the Petronas LNG project was overturned in a new vote organized by a new band council. According to APTN 8,000 members voted out of 3,600 band members. The question on the ballot was one authorizing continued negotiations, including the arguably of concluding those negotiations. It did not specifically present the deal and seek categorical approval from the community for the project. Here is the ballot question as presented on APTN. “Provided the environment is protected, do you support council concluding agreements to maximize benefits for the Lax Kw’alaams members and continue discussions with governments and proponents to achieve successful outcomes for the Lax Kw’alaams”. Aboriginal Peoples Television Network is a Canadian broadcast and Category A cable television network established with government support in 1992. APTN has a national broadcast licence.

BC LNG Update

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lax_kwalaams_benefits_agreement.png__0x500_q95_autocrop_crop-smart_subsampling-2_upscale

As the BC election campaign progresses towards the May 9th polling date, there are suggestions that the governing Liberal Party is suffering of the consequences of premier Clark’s seemingly unfulfillable promises of an LNG economy for the province. The sudden change in market conditions caused major projects to withdraw and today there is only one major project, the Petronas led Pacific NorthWest LNG investment, that still might go ahead. It is clear, however, that Petronas cannot withstand the risks in the wider LNG future alone, as there are reports that it has offered a $1 billion stake in another gas project to Shell, ExxonMobil, Thailand’s PTT Exploration & Production and Japanese firms. This has no direct bearing on the BC situation but it is an indication of the sensitivity of the LNG giant to the current market conditions. Meanwhile, auguring well for BC LNG and the Provincial Liberals, the Lax Kw’alaams, Metlakatla and the Kitselas First Nation have all signed benefits agreements in the context of the Pacific NorthWest LNG project. Opposition by hereditary chiefs led by Yahan Wesley notwithstanding, first nations stakeholders have been signing on to the project, steadily shifting from the earlier refusal of offers of compensation. Of anecdotal interest is the fact that Malaysian leaders of the Pacific NorthWest LNG management team, who have thus far been behind the scenes, have started appearing in the BC media  – Standing on the extreme right at the rear is Pacific NorthWest LNG chief operating officer and former Head of LNG Projects for PETRONAS, Wan Badrul Hisham.
http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/239634653.shtml
http://www.upstreamonline.com/live/1240209/petronas-offers-stake-in-malaysia-lng-project
https://www.biv.com/article/2017/2/lax-kwalaams-throw-support-behind-petronas-36b-lng/
http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/b-c-government-signs-lng-benefit-agreements-with-northwestern-kitselas-first-nation

Koboi Balik Kampung 1

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1 MUDIK PULANG Koboi Balik Kampung Series, 12 Chromogenic Prints in a Limited Edition of 9, Niranjan Rajah, 2015
1 MUDIK PULANG
Koboi Balik Kampung, 12 Chromogenic Prints, 30″ X 20″, Limited Edition of 9, Copyright 2015 by Niranjan Rajah

The Koboi Balik Kampung photographic series was shot during my visit to Kuala Lumpur from Vancouver in 2013. The 13th general elections had just concluded in Malaysia and the excitement was still in the air. Meanwhile, the government of British Columbia had announced a multi-billion dollar LNG investment by PETRONAS. Indeed, I had returned home (balik kampung) to news of Malaysian hegemony in the British Columbian LNG market and to the stirrings of discontent, my ‘home away from home’. As the contradictory affectations of Malaysian pride and British Columbian dread resound in me, the irony of this merging of worlds has become an irrepressible muse and the impetus for starting this blog.