B.C.’s Economic Future Is Bigger Than Oil and Gas

British Columbia Canada — Economic Future
 Is Bigger Than Oil and Gas

British Columbia's, Canada -  Economic Future Is -  Bigger Than Oil and Gas

B.C.’s Other Resource Economy Is Already Here

The jobs beneath our streets and along our coast may be one of the biggest economic opportunities we are overlooking

For most British Columbians, a big economic project is easy to recognize.

A new mine is announced and we hear how many billions of dollars will be invested. An LNG project gets approved and we hear about thousands of construction jobs. A pipeline is expanded and governments talk about exports, workers and economic growth.

Those jobs are real, and they matter. British Columbia needs miners, welders, mechanics, electricians, engineers, truck drivers, equipment operators and the industries that employ them.

But there is another resource economy already operating around us that receives remarkably little attention when we talk about B.C.’s economic future.

It is the ocean.

$15,720 in Victoria FOI Fees for Water and Stormwater Records

 

$15,720 in FOI Estimates — CITY OF VICTORIA - for Records About Your Money and Your Water

$10,935 + $4,335 + $450 = $15,720.

Those are the original search-and-preparation estimates attached to three City of Victoria Freedom of Information requests about stormwater, sewer infrastructure, pollution, public spending and the health information behind swimming at Banfield Park.

Not a new engineering study. Not a new environmental investigation.

Access to existing records.

Among the records sought are publicly funded reports, consultant studies, appendices, monitoring results and the accounting behind municipal infrastructure work.

The $450 request concerns something any parent standing beside the Banfield dock can understand: who was consulted about the health risks, what advice was received, and what assessment supported opening or promoting the area for swimming?

The City estimated 11 hours searching and seven hours preparing those records. Its letter required a $225 deposit before processing could continue. The request covered consultations, reports, risk assessments and related correspondence—not simply one named report.

Before another child jumps into the water, shouldn’t that information be straightforward to find?

This started in the water, not in an FOI office

Canada Wants Europe to Trust Its Environmental Standards — While Cutting the Machinery That Proves Them

 

Canada Wants Europe to Trust Its Environmental Standards — While Cutting the Machinery That Proves Them

Prime Minister Mark Carney went to Europe with an attractive offer.

Canada has energy. We have critical minerals. We have LNG and hydrogen. We have fish, forests, freshwater, Arctic access and enormous natural resources.

Europe has something Canada badly needs: a massive market and an opportunity to become less dependent on the United States and other increasingly uncertain trading partners.

There is nothing wrong with Canada looking east across the Atlantic.

In fact, it probably makes sense.

But there is an uncomfortable question buried underneath all the talk of trusted partners, strategic autonomy and regulatory cooperation:

If Europe is being asked to trust Canada's environmental standards, who in Canada is going to do the science, monitoring, inspection and enforcement needed to prove those standards are actually being met?

That question matters because while Ottawa is promising Europe reliable Canadian resources produced under a strong regulatory system, Ottawa is also cutting and restructuring the departments responsible for fisheries protection, pollution control, environmental science and human health.

At the same time, Canada is speeding up approvals for major projects.

That is where this story gets interesting.

Carney's Offer to Europe

Speaking to the European Parliament on September 17, Carney laid out an ambitious vision for a much deeper Canada-European Union relationship.

CRD STORMWATER: Esquimalt — The Place of Shitty Waters?

 

Esquimalt — The Place of Shitty Waters?

The CRD keeps finding sewage indicators and High-rated storm drains beside Esquimalt’s shoreline. At this pace, “When can we swim?” begins to sound like “Never.”

“The Place of Shitty Waters” is a deliberately blunt description of what we are allowing to happen around Esquimalt. It is not a translation of Esquimalt and is not presented as an Indigenous place-name.

Picture a family walking down to the water on a warm summer day. The children are carrying towels. Someone has brought a paddleboard. The water looks inviting, and from the beach there is no obvious sign that anything is wrong.

Now look a little closer.

At Kinver, two storm drains beside beach access have been rated High for Public Health Concern for three consecutive years. At Sturdee, another High-rated drain sits about seven metres from beach-access stairs. Around the same shoreline system, the Capital Regional District has recorded sewer odour, murky water, macerated paper, biofilm, bacterial mats and extraordinary concentrations of E. coli coming from stormwater discharges.

None of that is visible from a postcard.

It is buried in the technical appendices of the CRD’s 2025 Core Area Stormwater Quality Program Report, published in 2026. The report identifies six Esquimalt stormwater discharges as High for Public Health Concern:

744B, 781, 805, 806, 812 and 814.

Those six pipe numbers tell the real story of Esquimalt’s shoreline. Not the plans, promises, studies or council presentations—the water still coming out of the pipes. The CRD confirms that this is its current 2025 Core Area report.

What Does “High” Mean?

CRD’s High rating is a prioritization tool. It is not a beach-closure order, and it does not mean every litre of water around Esquimalt is unsafe at every hour of every day. CRD expressly says the system is not a complete human-health risk assessment.

Saanich Stormwater: Would Council Swim in This Water?

 

CRD 2025 Stormwater Report — 

Would Saanich Mayor and Council Swim in This Water?

From Tod Inlet to Cordova Bay, Cadboro Bay, Elk and Beaver Lakes, the Colquitz, Portage Inlet, Cecelia Creek and the Gorge, few municipalities affect as many different receiving waters as Saanich. So why are we still finding sewage indicators, contaminated creeks, algae warnings and beaches under advisory?

Here is a simple question for Saanich Mayor, Council and senior staff.

Would you swim in it?

Not on the perfect sunny afternoon after three clean samples.

Would you swim beside the storm drain when CRD has measured thousands of E. coli?

Would you put your grandchildren into a creek where bacteria have reached 12,000 with no rain?

Would you swim downstream of a watershed where CRD has recorded sewage odour, contaminated sediment, metals and tire chemicals?

Would you tell your family not to worry because the polluted pipe happens to be listed under another municipality?

That is where this story begins.

Because Saanich is not just another municipality with a few storm drains.

Saanich drains almost everywhere.

East toward Cadboro Bay, Cordova Bay and Haro Strait.

West toward Tod Creek, Tod Inlet and Saanich Inlet.

North and inward through Elk and Beaver Lakes, O'Donnell Creek and Haliburton Brook.

South through the Colquitz River into Portage Inlet and the Gorge.

Southeast through Bowker Creek toward Oak Bay.

And through the huge buried Cecelia Creek watershed into Selkirk Waters and the Gorge.

The research record identifies all of these as receiving systems Saanich either drains into or materially affects.

That makes Saanich's stormwater story different.

You cannot judge it by counting the handful of pipes sitting neatly inside a municipal column in a CRD table.

You have to follow the water.

And when you do, the picture gets considerably dirtier.

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The CRD report says Saanich has one High outfall. The water tells a bigger story.

Victoria Stormwater: How Many More Generations Must Inherit Pollution?

 

Victoria Stormwater: 

We Know the Pipe Numbers. 

Fix Them.

CRD’s 2025 report documents sewage indicators, chemical hot spots and long-running problem drains entering Victoria Harbour, the Gorge and Oak Bay. Our children should not inherit another generation of reports and excuses.

The Capital Regional District has released its 2025 Core Area Stormwater Quality Program Report.

It does not uncover a new problem.

It confirms that governments have spent decades measuring many of the same polluted pipes.

The drains are numbered. The catchments are mapped. Sewage indicators have been measured. Industrial and business discharges have been found. Cross-connections between sewage and stormwater systems have been identified.

CRD monitors, investigates and helps trace contamination. But CRD is clear: municipalities own and operate their storm drains and are responsible for remedial work where possible.[1]

In plain English:

CRD can identify the sick pipe. The municipality still has to fix it.

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Fourteen years. Four fewer high-rated discharges.

SOURCE CONTROL BEFORE RESTORATION Offsets, Remediation and Bioremediation Are Different Tools — and They Must Be Used in the Right Order

 

SOURCE CONTROL BEFORE RESTORATION

Offsets, Remediation and Bioremediation Are Different Tools 

— and They Must Be Used in the Right Order

Across Canada, governments, industries and community organizations spend millions of dollars restoring fish habitat, rebuilding shorelines, creating wetlands and compensating for habitat lost to development.

Much of that work is necessary and worthwhile.

But there is a basic problem in the way some projects are planned and described:

A habitat offset, a remediation project and a bioremediation project are not the same thing.

They can happen at the same location. They can support one another. A remediated industrial shoreline can eventually become excellent fish habitat. A constructed wetland can treat polluted runoff while also providing habitat.

But each tool begins with a different purpose:

• An offset compensates for unavoidable new environmental damage.

• Remediation corrects or manages an existing environmental problem.

• Bioremediation uses living systems to help treat that problem.

• Restoration rebuilds ecological function.

The trouble begins when these separate jobs are bundled together and the whole package is called an offset.