In BC and Quebec the Liberals look to be on borrowed time. In BC the provincial Liberals will disappear as a force just like the Socreds before them. Crusty Clark has nowhere to go but down in the polls given her gong show.
By Friday we will know whether Ontario is still in the Liberal camp and if so as a majority government or a minority.
The turnout for the P.E.I. election Monday, at 76.4 per cent, was the lowest since at least 1966, and perhaps the lowest ever.
Wow, most jurisdictions in the country would love to see voter turnout that high. Federally, cracking the 60% turnout figure for the first time in over a decade was an improvement.
Prince Edward Island is indeed the only place left in Canada that is remotely safe for the Liberals. They won a massive majority, the NDP was shut out.
Depends what you mean by safe. I suppose it's the "safest", as in it remains solid there provincially and has 3 of 4 federal ridings, but across the country the Liberals remain the most succesful party provincially. They hold the 3 biggest provinces in Canada (Ontario, Quebec & BC) as well as a couple of the other provinces. I'm not aware of the NDP or PC's ever having done that.
The BC Liberals are Liberals in name only and the Liberals are the only truly federalist alternative provincially in Quebec. The NDP has held Ontario, BC, Saskatchewan and the Yukon at the same time.
The turnout for the P.E.I. election Monday, at 76.4 per cent, was the lowest since at least 1966, and perhaps the lowest ever.
Monday's numbers from Elections PEI are still unofficial, but if the numbers hold up it will be the lowest turnout since the agency started keeping records in the May 1966 election. In that year 85.65 per cent of registered voters cast a ballot.
The lowest turnout recorded before Monday was 78.20 per cent in 1982, also the only election in which the number was below 80 per cent.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/story/2011/10/04/peiv...
Turnout was over 80% even when Hurricane Juan crossed the island on election day in 2003.
Consider, too, that the federal Libs and Cons carried liabilities that their provincial counterparts didn't. It was the Red Tories and left-Libs who couldn't stomach either Harper or Iggy who opted for the NDP...
Every PEIer had a chance to vote for the NDP in the Federal election. This is not true in the Provincial election since the NDP ran candidates in only 13 of 27 ridings.
In fact, the number of candidates that ran had an important impact on the fact that the Greens came ahead of the NDP, IMHO. If you divide the number of candidates running into the number of votes receieved by each party, the average number of votes received by each party's candidates in this week's election in PEI were:
Liberal - 1,419
PC - 1,109
NDP - 168
Green - 147
Island Party -57
Independent - 15
The overall level of support was less of course -- Joe Byrne running in Charlottetown in the May 2011 federal election alone got almost twice the vote of all of the provincial NDP candidates combined. Simply put, the PEI NDP running candidates in many fewer ridings than the Greens ran candidates in does a lot to explain how the Greens came ahead of the New Democrats in the overall vote in the provincial election.
To give these results some perspective, provincially, PEI is a true two-party system. There has never been a provincial general election in PEI where third parties have exceeded 8.5% of the total vote. The cumulative votes for the NDP, Green Party and Island Party in 2011 barely edge out the NDP results from 2000 as the strongest vote share for parties other than the Liberals/PCs (but not in total votes cast due to the decreased turnout).
The NDP only began running candidates provincially in PEI in 1974. Former NDP leader Dr. Herb Dickieson, elected in 1997, is the lone third party candidate ever elected to the PEI legislature. Dr. Dickieson is also the sole third party candidate to finish second in any PEI provincial general election, that result coming in 2000 when he lost his bid for re-election by 23 votes.
The simple fact is that the NDP did well federally and faceplanted provincially within a span of months. Those results do not square. Especially given the surge that every single NDP provincial section has seen in the last slew of elections. The PEI NDP was a failure.
You'll get no argument from me that the PEI-NDP was a failure in 2011, has generally always been a failure, and will remain a failure for the foreseeable future. The fact the 2011 election date was fixed in 2007 and the party couldn't field anything close to a full slate of candidates (and didn't actively start recruiting candidates until Summer 2011) is illustrative of the problems in the PEI-NDP.
NDP Atlantic caucus carries out consultations in PEI
The NDP has an Atlantic deputy leader now and it is a pretty broad consensus that she is a rising star. Here is a call to all babblers: do you know any progressive maritimers? could you organise a meet and greet? do you have ideas for what Megan or the NDP should be doing better, in Atlantic Canada?
Drop Megan Leslie a line: megan.leslie at parl.gc.ca
Would you believe the PEI NDP is now in second at 26% in PEI - they only got 3% in the 2011 election - that is an 850% increase!!
Are the PC's imploding in PEI? An opening for the NDP to replace them as the main alternative to the Liberals?
----
October 03, 2013
PC MLA Hal Perry crosses floor to join Ghiz Liberals
Hal Perry, MLA for Tignish-Palmer Road, is leaving the Progressive Conservative Caucus and joining the Liberals.
Liberal Premier Robert Ghiz called a surprise news conference this morning to make the announcement.
Ghiz said Perry approached him two weeks ago, looking to cross the floor. He said Perry wanted to leave Tory Opposition mainly due to his concerns over the federal Conservative government’s EI changes.
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More:
http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/News/Local/2013-10-03/article-3416609/Hal-P...
.
.
Looks like there was another implosion today in the PEI PC's. What is going on down there?
-----
Olive Crane kicked out of PC caucus
October 04, 2013
Former Progressive Conservative leader Olive Crane says she's been booted from the Tory Opposition caucus.
In a telephone interview with The Guardian, Crane says Opposition and Interim PC Leader Steven Myers telephoned her this afternoon to give her the bad news.
She says he did not explain why.
“He said it’s just not working and that I hate to do this on the phone but I want to tell you you’re out of caucus,” she said.
Myers called an impromptu news conference just moments ago announcing the news, but only invited two specific journalists.
Myers said he has informed the Speaker by letter that Crane is no longer a member of the PC caucus.
-----
Read more:
http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/News/Local/2013-10-04/article-3418414/BREAK...
Olive Crane removed from Tory caucus in P.E.I.
THE CANADIAN PRESS
Friday, October 4, 2013 7:24PM ADT
CHARLOTTETOWN -- The interim leader of Prince Edward Island's Progressive Conservatives says he has removed former leader Olive Crane from the Tory caucus.
In a video posted on the Charlottetown Guardian website, Steven Myers told reporters that he notified the Speaker on Friday that Crane was no longer a member of the party's caucus, adding that he spoke to the politician as well.
------
Read more:
http://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/olive-crane-removed-from-tory-caucus-in-p-e-i...
Are the PC's imploding in PEI? An opening for the NDP to replace them as the main alternative to the Liberals?
The PEI NDP are already ahead of the PCs in the latest (September) polls. This is probably contributing in a major way to the turmoil in the PCs.
Support for the NDP stands at 32 percent (up from 21%), while 23 percent support the Progressive Conservative Party (compared with 22%)
http://cra.ca/ndp-gaining-ground-in-pe-voter-preference/
P.E.I. Premier Robert Ghiz has announced that he is resigning as leader of the provincial Liberal Party.
Geez, if the Premier of a province calls an election and no one on Babble notices - does it really count as an election?
Earlier this evening, Premier Wade MacLauchlan of PEI (a Liberal) announced that the province will be going to the polls on May 4th.
He made the announcement at his own nominating meeting of his local Liberal constituency. Which seems to be hugely inapproprate to me, but maybe they have different ways of doing things on the Island. (Or maybe its just your usual sense of Liberal entitlement.)
The new premier, Wade MacLauchlan, is openly gay. We now have two openly gay/lesbian premiers in Canada
Hunky_Monkey wrote: The new premier, Wade MacLauchlan, is openly gay.
This is true. And apparently the reason he announced the election at his own riding's nomination meeting was that he does not yet have a seat in the House, having just been elected party leader / Premier.
If the NDP PEI party is smart, they would pool all their resources into one winable seat.
And then build from there.
They should take a page from the NB Greens and target a riding where a major University is located.
I hope they don't make the same mistake the NDP NB party did.
There is no such thing as a "major university" in PEI
There is no such thing as a "major university" in PEI
What about the University of Prince Edward Island? Who is the incumbent in that riding?
Couldn't the NDP PEI leader run in that riding and attract the student vote?
UPEI is not what anyone would call a "major university" its about the size of a high school and its in Charlottetown
Yeah but it is the only one in PEI, so would that qualify it as the major University in the province?
UPEI is in Charlottetown Sherwood, where the NDP finished third last time with 127 votes. Many of its students live across University Av in Charlottetown Lewis Point, where the NDP scooped up 275 votes (third) last election. Not great numbers, but better than the overall, since the NDP finished fourth Island-wide. If wikipedia can be trusted, that is. And Wade MacLauchlan, the premier, was previously president of the university. (He's nominated in the wonderfully named York-Oyster Bed riding). I believe the Liberals are the incumbents in almost every seat and little is likely to change on that score.
Stockholm, your comments reflect an odious regional bias.
Agreed. Your comments reflect a disrespect for Canada's smallest province and its university. PEI politics are another matter and, I believe, the subject of this thread.Stockholm, your comments reflect an odious regional bias.
To be fair, has anything of historic importance ever happened in Charlottetown?
Some minor conference in 1865 where Canadian interlopers crashed the Maritime party, Unionist. ;^)
Major university = BIG universities with tens of thousands of students (ie: U of T, McGill, U of M, UBC, York, Dalhousie)
small universities with populations comparable to a high school (ie: UPEI, Mount Allison, UNBC etc...) I would refer to simply as "universities' without the adjective "major"...UPEI does not even have any graduate programs
[url=http://www.upei.ca/programsandcourses/island-studies]UPEI's Master of Arts in Island Studies[/url]
Not that this will be greeted by Stockholm as a major grad programme. ;)
Some minor conference in 1865 where Canadian interlopers crashed the Maritime party, Unionist. ;^)
Oh, yeah, well, that, ok.
Pause a moment to consider our four-legged friends across Atlantic Canada. If they're in need of medical attention, odds are the vet that treats them is a distinguished graduate of the Atlantic Veterinary College, at UPEI.
And probably to its credit, UPEI did not graduate either of PEI's most famous citizens: Anne of Green Gables crossed over to the mainland to study. While Mike Duffy only hung around campus for a term or two (it was called St Dunstan's back then) before dropping out and getting a job. (And never looked back, as they say!)
NDP leader Mike Redmond will be the party's candidate for District 3 Montague–Kilmuir.
Redmond was the only person seeking the nomination the meeting held on Friday evening.
He has high hopes for the party. ...
There's only ever been one NDP member of the legislature, Herb Dickeson. He was elected in 1996, but lost his seat in the 2000 election.
Political scientist Don Desserud says campaigning to form government or make sweeping changes probably won't work for the P.E.I. NDP, but focusing on getting Redmond a seat could.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/elections/prince-edward-island-votes/features/ndp...
Seeing this comment on a website, I couldn't help but laugh and post it.
Vote PC, We are accountable, we are not the Liberals, we are an open government, Ghiz was bad, MacLauchlan is Ghiz, we have no ideas but we are not the Liberals.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/elections/prince-edward-island-votes/on-the-p-e-i...
I don't know whether the following article indicates a scandal brewing during the PEI election or a corporation taking advantage of the election to try to make some money or seek revenge fpr a perceived wrong, but the issue bares watching. However, the government is most likely going to avoid serious ramifications because it promptly denied the lawsuit has any merit and legal proceedings take so long.
PEI has denied it conspired to undermine the economic interests of a U.S.-based technology company that was involved in the province’s ill-fated attempt to become an international online gambling hub.
Capital Markets Technologies filed a $25-million lawsuit last week alleging breach of contract and conspiracy. The lawsuit was filed three days after Premier Wade MacLauchlan launched an election campaign in which the failed eGaming initiative has figured prominently. On Monday, Conservative Leader Rob Lantz called on the province to release all documents related to the venture.
Earlier this year, The Globe and Mail reported on a covert plan to transform Canada’s smallest province into a global eGaming capital. The story revealed lax oversight and weak conflict-of-interest rules that enabled government officials to invest personally in companies that were working on the project.
Only hours after the 55-page claim was filed, the government released its statement of defence denying all the allegations, none of which have been proven in court. ...
The lawsuit named the province and several current and former government officials, including recently resigned finance minister Wes Sheridan and former premier Robert Ghiz’s one-time chief of staff Chris LeClair.
John Findlay, the lawyer representing Capital Markets Technologies, said the province’s rebuttal seems more concerned with salvaging the Liberals’ political reputation during an election campaign than responding to the accusations.
“It’s really just a general denial,” Mr. Findlay said. “It seemed to have more political overtones than legal overtones.”
Capital Markets Technologies is central to the strange and complex story of Prince Edward Island’s gambling venture. CMT is based in the United States, but since 2010, it has operated a local PEI subsidiary that has gone by three different names — Financial Markets Technologies, Trinity Bay Technologies, and 7645686 (its legal name). Furthermore, CMT was a part-owner of a U.K.-based business called Simplex, which ran a high-level financial platform used by banks.
PEI worked with Simplex on the eGaming file. A Globe and Mail investigation revealed earlier this year that the connection was formed through CMT, and the two companies maintained a close relationship. The gaming plan fell apart in February, 2012, and the province signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with CMT’s subsidiary to work on bringing the financial platform to the island. But the 90-day period covered by the agreement ended without a deal.
In his lawsuit, CMT executive Paul Maines alleges that shortly after the MOU expired, Mr. Sheridan and Mr. LeClair made a pitch to PEI’s economic development wing to proceed with the financial platform with a different company. ...
The province denies this. In its defence, the government says the MOU fell apart because CMT’s subsidiary did not provide adequate information.
The extent to which Mr. Maines and CMT played a role in the online gambling initiative will be central to the case, even though the lawsuit stems from the fallout over the failed MOU. The province’s position is that it had no idea CMT was connected to that agreement. The statement of defence reads: “CMT was not a party to the MOU; there was no understanding or relationship of any kind between the government and CMT.”
Mr. Maines’s lawyer, Mr. Findlay, will have to prove that, given the number of years eGaming was in the planning stages, there is no way the government could not have realized it was dealing with the same group of people.
“On its face, I find that hard to believe. The relationships were all there. They all knew who everybody was,” Mr. Findlay said. ...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/pei-denies-breach-of-contra...
Although the PEI government funds out-of-province funding for abortion services, none are provided in PEI. The NDP, as well as the Greens, have recommitted to providing these services if elected to government, which of course is not going to happen in PEI this time. However, they raised the issue again at the women's debate. Both the PCs and the Liberals, who are called progressives by Liberal posters, promise to continue this regressive policy.
Both Liberal Premier Wade MacLauchlan and Progressive Conservative Leader Rob Lantz said they would not change the status quo on abortion access in P.E.I.
“As a small jurisdiction there are a number of medical procedures, including abortion, that are provided and funded on an out-of-province basis, and we wouldn’t see that part changing,” MacLauchlan said.
Lantz said abortion is not on his agenda and not part of the PC party platform.
http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/Decision-15/2015-04-14/article-4110474/NDP,...
What is this?
Friendly Pharmacist Key Player In Ghiz-Maclauchlan E Gaming Handed Millions
http://redlikeme.ca/friendly-pharmacist-key-player-in-ghiz-maclauchlan-e...
First poll of the campaign:
http://www.abingdon.ca/media/2015/04/Abingdon-Research-poll-of-PEI-elect...
Old habits die slowly in PEI as the Cons and Libs continue their usual dogfight, but the NDP's (at 15%) and Greens' (at 6%) combined totals are a historic high in support for third parties during an election. The NDP chances are best in central PEI where they have 18%.
The Corporate Research Associates (CRA) poll of 579 Prince Edward Island residents shows support among decided and leaning voters for the Liberal party at 44 per cent. That's a 14-point drop since the last quarterly CRA poll in February. ...
Meanwhile, 15 per cent of decided and leaning voters said they would vote NDP and another six per cent said they would vote Green.
The NDP and Green parties' combined support of 21 per cent marks the highest polling results for third parties ever in P.E.I. going into an election.
"If that were to hold, that would be a big change in voting behaviour on the Island, and a lot of that voting behaviour actually hurts the Liberals because people who vote NDP tend to be more sympathetic for the Liberals," said Mills.
NDP Leader Mike Redmond has dropped from 14 to 10 per cent in personal popularity and now stands neck-and-neck with Green party Leader Peter Bevan-Baker, who is at nine per cent.
As for regional party support, the battleground appears to be in central P.E.I.
The Liberals and Tories are just two points apart in Queens County and NDP support is higher at 18 per cent.
"A lot of support that the Liberals previously had in that county has gone to the NDP," Mills said.
That's why he believes Redmond's zero-hour decision to change districts from downtown Charlottetown to Montague on the eve of the election was a mistake.
"He's actually going to hurt his party by not running where they are the strongest, and that may be where the NDP vote may not hold up and go back to the Liberals," Mills said.
The Green Party has focused much of its efforts into trying to get Bevan-Baker elected in his home district of Kellys Cross-Cumberland.
But Mills says at six per cent support in Queens County, that goal is a long shot. ...
Mills says he believes this final week of the campaign will be critical for the Liberals and the Tories in determining the outcome of the election.
The leaders debates will likely play a key role, he added. The Guardian's leaders' debate is on Thursday, April 30.
http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/Decision-15/2015-04-25/article-4124329/Libe...
Old habits die slowly in PEI as the Cons and Libs continue their usual dogfight, but the NDP's (at 15%) and Greens' (at 6%) combined totals are a historic high in support for third parties during an election. The NDP chances are best in central PEI where they have 18%.
The Corporate Research Associates (CRA) poll of 579 Prince Edward Island residents shows support among decided and leaning voters for the Liberal party at 44 per cent. That's a 14-point drop since the last quarterly CRA poll in February. ...
Meanwhile, 15 per cent of decided and leaning voters said they would vote NDP and another six per cent said they would vote Green.
The NDP and Green parties' combined support of 21 per cent marks the highest polling results for third parties ever in P.E.I. going into an election.
"If that were to hold, that would be a big change in voting behaviour on the Island, and a lot of that voting behaviour actually hurts the Liberals because people who vote NDP tend to be more sympathetic for the Liberals," said Mills.
NDP Leader Mike Redmond has dropped from 14 to 10 per cent in personal popularity and now stands neck-and-neck with Green party Leader Peter Bevan-Baker, who is at nine per cent.
As for regional party support, the battleground appears to be in central P.E.I.
The Liberals and Tories are just two points apart in Queens County and NDP support is higher at 18 per cent.
"A lot of support that the Liberals previously had in that county has gone to the NDP," Mills said.
That's why he believes Redmond's zero-hour decision to change districts from downtown Charlottetown to Montague on the eve of the election was a mistake.
"He's actually going to hurt his party by not running where they are the strongest, and that may be where the NDP vote may not hold up and go back to the Liberals," Mills said.
The Green Party has focused much of its efforts into trying to get Bevan-Baker elected in his home district of Kellys Cross-Cumberland.
But Mills says at six per cent support in Queens County, that goal is a long shot. ...
Mills says he believes this final week of the campaign will be critical for the Liberals and the Tories in determining the outcome of the election.
The leaders debates will likely play a key role, he added. The Guardian's leaders' debate is on Thursday, April 30.
http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/Decision-15/2015-04-25/article-4124329/Libe...
This comment is hilarious:
April 25, 2015 - 12:02
579 people polled is not even close to a decent sample size to get an accurate representation of Islanders thoughts/opinions.
So what would be a good sample size for all of Canada? 500,000?
Those indicating support for the NDP tend to see all of the following issues as important according to the pollster, indicating they are not at all happy with what the Libs or Cons are selling in PEI.
Which one of the following issues should the government's main priority be after the May 4 election?
Health care 30%
Job creation 24%
Accountability in government 20%
Provincial government deficit and debt 15%
Education 10% ...There’s a good reason why the Progressive Conservative party has focused much of its election messaging on government accountability and why the Liberals have focused on job creation.
These are the issues their supporters care about the most, according to polling data compiled by Corporate Research Associates for The Guardian and the Journal-Pioneer.
Results show that health care is the No. 1 issue of concern to Islanders, with the majority of all respondents – 30 per cent – saying this should be government’s main priority after the election.
Job creation came in second at 24 per cent and accountability in government was third at 20 per cent.
But among decided and leaning voters who support the PC party, accountability was tied for first place with health care for top issue at 27 per cent.
For Liberal supporters, job creation polled even higher than health care at 34 per cent.
Since health is the top issue for supporters of all three Liberal, PC and NDP parties, there is less to gain from focusing too much on this issue in campaign messaging says Don Mills, chairman and CEO of CRA. ...
“The same percentage of Liberal as PCs are concerned about health care,” Mills said.
“The advantage to the Liberals is on job creation, so if they want to get re-elected they should concentrate their message on jobs.” ....
As for NDP supporters, almost all issued included in this poll were highly rated.
Mills says he believes this means the NDP is appealing less on specific issues and more to voters who are simply looking for an alternative to the two main parties in P.E.I.
“I think it speaks to the frustrations that people are starting to have with the Liberals and the PCs.”
These results are based on a telephone survey of 579 adult Prince Edward Islanders conducted by CRA with overall results accurate to within plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.
Party results are based only on decided and leaning voters, with a slightly higher margin of 4.5 per cent.
http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/Decision-15/2015-04-27/article-4125512/Poll...
Former NDP MP Alexa McDonough says party could make election breakthrough
http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/Decision-15/2015-04-29/article-4128550/Form...
The Green Party has released a poll for District 17, Kellys Cross-Cumberland — the district where party Leader Peter Bevan-Baker is running.
The poll shows, among decided voters, support for Bevan-Baker is at 37.8 per cent.
Green Party leader Peter Bevan-Baker has been officially recognized with third party status in Prince Edward Island's Legislature.
Although i posted the following two items under the Alberta and British Columbia thread because they show global warming is impacting us now in a major way, both of them are of high relevance to PEI.
Sea level rise is also causing problems in Canada. One place in Canada that already has been affected in a major way is the First Nations community of Lennox Island, which lies just off the northern coast of Prince Edward Island.
Just another example of why the costs of fossil fuel exploitation far outway any benefits.
Lennox Island is a small Mi'kmaq community of 450 people off the coast of P.E.I. It's also a kind of canary in the coal mine when it comes to climate change.
Rising sea levels, storm surges and coastal erosion threaten its very existence; an estimated 300 football fields of land have already fallen into the sea.
In Canada, Lennox Island is a place where you can see the effects of climate change happening right now — and it's a community preparing for a changing world.
Scientists agree that the world's climate has warmed over the past 120 years and that the warming is a result of human activities. The effects of this change in climate include melting ice caps, rising sea levels, drought in some parts of the world and extreme storms in other areas.
Looking west from the shores of Lennox Island sits the shining waters of Malpeque Bay. Locals say they used to play baseball where boats now float. ...
A generation ago, [community planner Gilbert] Sark says, Lennox Island measured 1,300 acres. Now it is down to 1,100. "We lose Lennox, we lose a lot," he says. "Honestly, I worry about Lennox Island not being here … In my son's and my daughter's generation, maybe my grandkids' generation, there may be no Lennox Island. It will be eroding away if something is not done." ...
As the oceans warm up and the sea levels rise, the tides get stronger as well. Seasonal storm surges are also more powerful than before, he says.
And with warmer winters, the banks don't stay frozen as long — so that natural protection is reduced as well. ...
"When I came to the island about five years ago," says Fenech, "I thought I'd have to convince a lot of people about climate change.
"But people were coming up to me to share their stories about what they were seeing — increasing temperatures, drier conditions and especially coastal erosion. Everybody has a story in which they come back after a particularly bad winter, and they find metres of their shoreline just completely disappeared." ...
ETA: During a storm surge, [University of PEI climatologist Adam] Fenech says he has seen the water come up and lick the edge of the sewage lagoon on Lennox Island.
If the sewage lagoon is breached, it won't just pollute the fishery of Malpeque Bay, it could also contaminate the community's drinking water and make the island uninhabitable.
"It's precarious," says Fenech. "And it's precarious right now."
http://www.cbc.ca/news/multimedia/it-s-a-little-scary-on-lennox-island-n...
Although i posted the following two items under the Alberta and British Columbia thread because they show global warming is impacting us now in a major way, both of them are of high relevance to PEI.
Sea level rise is also causing problems in Canada. One place in Canada that already has been affected in a major way is the First Nations community of Lennox Island, which lies just off the northern coast of Prince Edward Island.
Just another example of why the costs of fossil fuel exploitation far outway any benefits.
Lennox Island is a small Mi'kmaq community of 450 people off the coast of P.E.I. It's also a kind of canary in the coal mine when it comes to climate change.
Rising sea levels, storm surges and coastal erosion threaten its very existence; an estimated 300 football fields of land have already fallen into the sea.
In Canada, Lennox Island is a place where you can see the effects of climate change happening right now — and it's a community preparing for a changing world.
Scientists agree that the world's climate has warmed over the past 120 years and that the warming is a result of human activities. The effects of this change in climate include melting ice caps, rising sea levels, drought in some parts of the world and extreme storms in other areas.
Looking west from the shores of Lennox Island sits the shining waters of Malpeque Bay. Locals say they used to play baseball where boats now float. ...
A generation ago, [community planner Gilbert] Sark says, Lennox Island measured 1,300 acres. Now it is down to 1,100. "We lose Lennox, we lose a lot," he says. "Honestly, I worry about Lennox Island not being here … In my son's and my daughter's generation, maybe my grandkids' generation, there may be no Lennox Island. It will be eroding away if something is not done." ...
As the oceans warm up and the sea levels rise, the tides get stronger as well. Seasonal storm surges are also more powerful than before, he says.
And with warmer winters, the banks don't stay frozen as long — so that natural protection is reduced as well. ...
"When I came to the island about five years ago," says Fenech, "I thought I'd have to convince a lot of people about climate change.
"But people were coming up to me to share their stories about what they were seeing — increasing temperatures, drier conditions and especially coastal erosion. Everybody has a story in which they come back after a particularly bad winter, and they find metres of their shoreline just completely disappeared." ...
ETA: During a storm surge, [University of PEI climatologist Adam] Fenech says he has seen the water come up and lick the edge of the sewage lagoon on Lennox Island.
If the sewage lagoon is breached, it won't just pollute the fishery of Malpeque Bay, it could also contaminate the community's drinking water and make the island uninhabitable.
"It's precarious," says Fenech. "And it's precarious right now."
http://www.cbc.ca/news/multimedia/it-s-a-little-scary-on-lennox-island-n...
The CBC National url below contains a 11 minute video on the loss of land on Lennox island and the First Nations community that lives there.
In the video, the University of Prince Edward Island climatologist Adam French discusses and shows a video game developed by one of his students of how rising sea levels have already reduced the 1300 acre island to 1100 acres and how successive increases in sea level would wipe out most of the island. French notes that seeing what happens visually as sea level rises by means of the video game has had far more impact on viewers than all of the scientific atricles on the subject that he has written over the years.
A documentary on The National Wednesday night highlighted the effects that climate change and rising sea levels have had on the P.E.I. community of Lennox Island.
Climate scientists have said that 200 years ago, Lennox Island was 300 football fields bigger than it is today. In 50 years, they say, 50 per cent of Lennox Island could be underwater. ...
How do you prepare for climate change?
If it's coastal erosion, there's really only two major things you can do. You can retreat, move your property if it's under threat. Or armour. But there's a problem with armouring because here on P.E.I. we don't have any hard stone so we have to import it from off-Island. It's quite expensive. And in the long run, it doesn't really work. Eventually the sea is going to win. ...
What do you say to people who think climate change is a hoax?
I'd say come to Lennox Island and I'll show you some of the changes that have occurred. Lennox Island is very demonstrative of the changes that are occurring here on the East Coast. There are even bigger changes that are going on in Canada's far north. You just need to visit and you need to talk to the people. Some of them will tell you we've seen things like this over the last 100 years and it's no different but most will be telling you about unprecedented changes. Things like "We used to play baseball out where those boats are docked."
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-climate-change-le...
