If you believe that democracy needs journalism like humans need oxygen, then you should at least consider the argument that Canada needs more CBC. Until the private sector figures out how to make news profitable again, writes Dale Eisler, Mothercorp is our best bet for ensuring that Canadian journalism survives the transition from print and cable to the internet. Already the country’s largest news-gathering operation, it should quit sports and entertainment, go all news all the time, be resolutely fair and objective, and erect an impenetrable firewall between itself and the State.

Only Nixon could go to China they said of the former U.S. president’s history-changing outreach to Chinese Communist dictator Mao Zedong in 1972. Now it seems that only a new NDP government in Alberta with an ambitious plan to reduce carbon emissions and a new Liberal prime minister in Ottawa with an unequivocal commitment to fighting climate change can obtain a “social licence” for Canada’s beleaguered oil industry. Given how little licence was obtained during the Harper Conservative era, writes Dale Eisler, the new approach is worth a try.

The $1.4 billion Boundary Dam Carbon Capture and Storage project that went online at a coal-fired power plant in southeastern Saskatchewan this month will eliminate 90 percent of the plant’s carbon emissions. Not enough to save the planet from apocalyptic climate change forecasts, unfortunately, but perhaps enough to save Canada’s reputation and economy from the international campaign to de-legitimize our energy industry. Dale Eisler explains…