Andrew Nikiforuk won't be speaking here in Terrace or at the Salmon Nation Summit in Prince Rupert due to illness.
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His latest investigative book, Slick Water, examines the moral and legal implications of hydraulic fracturing, a brute force technology, that contaminates aquifers and causes earthquakes. In particular the book highlights the remarkable story of oil patch consultant Jessica Ernst.
"Since 2008 I have advocated for a national debate about the pace and scale of tar sands development. I have also endorsed a conservative and Norwegian-like solution to Alberta’s chaotic bitumen development," he says on his website.
"Former [Alberta] Premier Peter Lougheed articulated the solution as early 2004 with the following principles: Slow Down. Behave Like An Owner. Collect Our Fair Share. Save For the Rainy Day. Approve One Project At a Time. Clean Up the Mess. Add Value To the Resource. To Lougheed’s original list, I would add a national carbon tax."
For more than three decades, Nikiforuk has written about energy, economics and the West for a variety of Canadian publications including the Walrus, Maclean’s, Canadian Business, The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business, Chatelaine, Georgia Straight, Equinox and Harrowsmith
In the late 1990s, he investigated the social and ecological impacts of intensive livestock industries and the legacy of northern uranium mining for the Calgary Herald.
His public policy position papers on water diversion in the Great Lakes (2004) and water, energy and North American integration (2007) for the Program on Water Issues at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre sparked both discussion and reform.
Nikiforuk’s journalism has won seven National Magazine Awards since 1989 and top honours for investigative writing from the Association of Canadian Journalists.