Canada would be a different place without our 80,000 registered charities dedicated to everything from health to economic policy to the environment. We'd be much poorer without the two million employees and millions of volunteers who devote their time to causes that strengthen our nation.

When I discovered that Enbridge and the University of Calgary have partnered to launch the Enbridge Centre for Corporate Sustainability, I had to glance at my calendar. March 27. Still four days until April Fool's. It would have been a tremendous joke if they were not dreadfully serious.

Enbridge, as most readers are likely aware, is now infamous for their proposed tragedy known as the Northern Gateway pipeline. Designed to transport millions of barrels of tar sands oil to port, it threatens dozens of local watersheds and a fragile coastal ecosystem, as well as the expansion of the environmental catastrophe that is the Alberta tar sands.

Book launch of The Enpipe Line: 70,000+ kilometres of poetry written in resistance to the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines proposal

The Deets:

Friday March 23, 2012

7:00 pm

505 Burrard Street, Vancouver / Coast Salish Territory

(in front of Enbridge's Northern Gateway Pipelines office)

Vancouver, BC

The Call Out:

***Post-reading reception at Artspeak, 233 Carrall, Vancouver / Coast Salish Territory***

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released a report by yours truly on the economic costs and benefits of the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline. In particular, I take aim at the outrageous claims about jobs made by the feds and Enbridge as part of their sales pitch. The report takes a closer look at the input-output modelling of job impacts, and considers alternative investments of $5 billion in the green economy. On the cost side of the ledger, I look at existing employment in the region that could be affected, and environmental costs associated with oil spills and GHG emissions.