Awareness of Peak Oil varies greatly among the Lower Mainland’s municipal, provincial and federal politicians. City Councillors like Gregor Robertson, David Cadman, Suzanne Anton and Heather Deal are all knowledgeable on the subject, where Peter Ladner seems less aware, and avoids the subject. Mayors like Richard Walton (North Vancouver District), Darrell Mussatto (North Vancouver City) and Ken Melamed (Whistler) are all highly informed. Betty Krawczyk, mayoral candidate for the Work Less Party, has spoken publicly on the issue.
At the provincial level, Jane Sterk of the Green Party is knowledgeable and outspoken about peak oil, whereas neither Premier Gordon Campbell or Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon have ever mentioned it. Carole James of BC’s NDP party has also remained silent on the subject. On the other hand, Raj Chouhan (MLA, Burnaby Edmonds) is aware of peak oil and has been outspoken on related issues like Gateway.
Adriane Carr, the federal Green Party’s Deputy Leader, is aware and outspoken on the subject, and some MP’s like Peter Julian (Burnaby - New Westminster) are aware. The federal NDP website shows no hits in a search for peak oil, and Prime Minister Harper has only hinted at the subject, but never used the term.
Awareness is not action, of course, and there are plenty of reasons why a city as green-minded as Vancouver isn’t in the forefront of cities worldwide in preparing for peak oil. With only 8% of the tax pie, cities don’t have the money to handle even their immediate crises, and the provincial and federal governments are constantly downloading more responsibilities on the cities. So funding for a municipal-level peak oil response is utterly inadequate, suggesting that some sort of tax revolt may be necessary if we want to keep the money here to do what needs doing. (Note: the phrase “tax revolt” should be taken as purely metaphorical, or perhaps as political satire, by any government official in charge of jailing troublemakers.)
Furthermore, municipal politicians no longer have any say in TransLink - power over our transportation infrastructure (including the Gateway project) has effectively been moved to the provincial level. Though Premier Campbell is committed to some action toward mitigating climate change, that still hasn’t been integrated with Peak Oil and the necessity of moving towards electrification and other mass transit.
Peter Ladner told a VPO member that it’s too much hassle to talk about peak oil publicly because it requires too much education and explanation - other politicians may feel the same way. Those who are highly partisan may avoid using short-term political capital to implement solutions to a long-term problem, for which some future politician (possibly not of their party) will get all the credit.
Then, of course, there’s the fact that many politicians work closely with business leaders and power brokers, so their priorities tend to coincide with whatever supports the accepted economic model of ever-expanding growth. To acknowledge Peak Oil, for them, is not only to lose future campaign contributions, but to admit that the underpinnings of our economy are bogus, because neo-classical economics does not account for the Earth’s resources (or the imminent lack thereof).
Most importantly, perhaps, even the best politicians are reluctant to talk to their constituents about problems for which they don’t have sound-bite solutions. All of us - the public, the media, and the politicians themselves - share the blame for creating an atmosphere under which politicians are afraid to tell the truth, and are often penalized for doing so. It’s up to us to make them aware that we want - that we demand to know the truth.
Vancouver Peak Oil has those solutions, and plans to publicize them in a Peak Oil Task Force report. But our resources are extremely limited, and we need support to get the public, the regional organizations like Metro Vancouver, and the politicians working together with the VPO to make it happen. If you want to be part of that, go to our TAKE ACTION page, download our Task Force petition, join the VPO, attend our meetings and panels, write letters - without you, we won’t be able to get the Lower Mainland ready for peak oil in time. But with your help, we will.
