While controversy and First Nations resistance have held up Enbridge's plans for an oil pipeline across northern B.C. for export via tanker through Kitimat, there is another massive pipeline-for-export project following much the same track which is forging ahead, with relatively little notice or notoriety.

Encana, Apache Canada and EOG Resources are partners in a project to construct a natural gas pipeline to feed a huge liquefaction plant near Kitimat, to load liquefied natural gas (LNG) onto tankers for export. It is slated for opening in 2015.

On Sept 8, Finance Minister Kevin Falcon released a much anticipated update on provincial finances.

The Minister's presentation focused on highlighting the cost of the move back to PST/GST, providing some large numbers for the media headlines, instead of looking at the big picture.

In case you missed the media coverage, the provincial coffers are projected to suffer a loss of $2.8 billion over the next three years, relative to the estimates presented in February's Budget 2011. The Ministry estimates that $2.3 billion of the loss is brought about by the HST defeat and the move back to the PST/GST system.

On one level, the B.C. government's new Review of BC Hydro marks an about-face by the Liberals under Christy Clark, calling quits to Gordon Campbell's fantasyland of a "green energy powerhouse." On a deeper level, however, it represents a deepening of the Campbell agenda to privatize the public utility. Campbell's fantasy was that we'd become massive exporters of clean electricity mined from our rivers and wind, sold at a premium into the power-hungry California market. This represented a major shift in the mandate of BC Hydro.

If it were true that BC Hydro could effectively plan and operate its system with 20 per cent fewer workers, as the government panel has recently suggested in its Review of BC Hydro, one would have to assume that the BC Hydro Executive and Board, as well as the BC Utilities Commission, have all grossly failed in their management and oversight responsibilities. And one could further assume that the government would want to investigate how such a failure of responsibilities by its own appointees could have taken place.

The call for the creation of an Auditor General for B.C.'s municipalities almost seems like a "no-brainer," doesn't it?

Charlie Smith had a good article in the Georgia Straight outlining reasons why a municipal AG would be a good idea. Some people, in some municipalities, have had problems with transparency. And while the Province does have an "Inspector of Municipalities," this position is useless when someone has an actual problem with local government actions.

This year, members of the Lax Kw'alaams First Nation expect to fill the holds of nine ocean freighters in Prince Rupert with raw logs from B.C.'s north coast -- logs that will then be shipped across the Pacific Ocean to ports in China.

The northern coastal Nation has been active in logging for some time, and with its opening of its own trade office in Beijing two years ago has stepped up its direct efforts to boost trade with one of the world's most rapidly industrializing economies.

It has been a year since word began to percolate in the Hudson's Hope area that Talisman Energy Inc. was eyeing the Williston Reservoir a short distance east of town as a long-term source of water for use in developing its gas resources.

Yet in the intervening months -- months in which local residents watched as an unprecedented rush on water resources got underway -- there was virtually no word from the provincial government about what its intentions were with regards to Talisman or a number of other energy companies with similar plans to divert large quantities of water from the region's rivers, lakes and streams.

It is spun in government press releases as a "first" for any jurisdiction in North America, an achievement that places British Columbia "on the leading edge" of efforts to combat climate change.

But scratch the surface just a little and questions arise about the legitimacy of Environment Minister Terry Lake's recent claim that "from this point forward, every government building in our province will be carbon neutral."

Besides the carbon tax, one of the most important B.C. government climate action initiatives has been the adoption of Carbon Neutral Government. That is, count emissions from public buildings and travel, reduce them as much as possible and pay for carbon offsets to negate the rest. As of the 2010 calendar year, the B.C. government announced mission accomplished, at the end of June.