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Council retreat, CECAP update highlight council agenda

FIRST LOOK: Plenty to discuss at last council meeting of 2018
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File photo by Braden Dupuis

While the agenda for the last council meeting of 2018—scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 18 at 5:30 p.m. at the Maury Young Arts Centre—is relatively light, there should be plenty to discuss regardless.

While mayor and council were in their first strategic planning retreat last week (to be detailed at the Dec. 18 meeting), a letter addressed to a Canadian oil company signed by Mayor Jack Crompton made national headlines—and not the good kind.

The letter in question was sent to Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNRL), along with 19 other oil producers, and requests that the companies begin taking financial responsibility for the "climate-related harm caused in our community by your products."

While the letter is dated Nov. 15 and signed by Crompton, it was actually an initiative of the previous council, which passed a motion Sept. 4 to add the Resort Municipality of Whistler to the list of municipalities sending "climate accountability" letters to demand 20 of the world's largest fossil fuel companies pay their fair share of costs associated with climate change.

The climate accountability campaign is a project of West Coast Environmental Law, and was brought to council by community groups My Sea to Sky and the Association of Whistler Area Residents for the Environment.

(Read more here: https://www.piquenewsmagazine.com/whistler/whistler-draws-ire-of-oil-industry-with-climate-request/Content?oid=12469314).

Despite an updated statement and subsequent explanatory video from Crompton, the original letter represents the damage done in the eyes of some—CIBC has removed the oil and gas portion of its annual investment conference in Whistler next month following outrage from the industry (a spokesperson declined to quantify how many delegates that represents, but said the conference itself is still going ahead).

The letter will no doubt be addressed publicly at the Dec. 18 meeting.

Sticking with the theme of climate, Whistler's own Community Energy and Climate Action Plan (CECAP) is also on the agenda.

The report will provide council with an update on CECAP progress made from September to December 2018. It's the first quarterly CECAP report since council passed a motion in August asking staff for more frequent updates.

Check back with Pique for more from the meeting.