BC Business
The original series, which first aired in 1993, made ample use of the Vancouver cityscape
Seriously, Mulder? Good news for X-philes: agents Fox and Mulder will be back in Vancouver this summer to film another season of cult hit The X Files—or so confirmed actor David Duchovny in an interview with the New York Times. “I love Vancouver,” Duchovny told the Times. “The issue back in the day was I’d just gotten married… and I wanted to start a family. I couldn’t be in Canada 10 months out of the year.” The series, over the five seasons starting in 1993 that it was shot in Vancouver (at such shoot locations such as the BC Hydro Building, the Vanterm overpass and Lighthouse Park), proved that the city could work as a stand-in for the U.S.
Combatting climate change What is to be done about carbon emissions? The relatively unsexy topic of B.C.’s tax regime for major carbon emitters—and the upcoming global climate change conference in Paris this December—were fodder for a roundtable with B.C. Minister for the Environment Mary Polak, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertston and host Nicholas Chapuis, the ambassador of France to Canada, at SFU on Thursday evening.
After lauding the province as prescient for introducing the carbon tax in 2008, Robertson commented that it was “regrettable” that the tax will be frozen at $30 per tonne until 2018, adding that an increase in the tax in just the Lower Mainland would be enough to pay for transit spending in the future.
As for the future of the carbon tax—and any measure meant to cap Canada’s emissions—Polak said that she did not expect the federal government to introduce a carbon tax but that the feds had “begun a process” to meet their commitments to reduce emissions for 2020. Ambassador Chapuis added that the French government, which is hosting the summit, had yet to receive Canada’s commitments.
Business bees A new program in Surrey is looking to train students for one of B.C.’s buzziest professions. Kwantlen Polytechnic will launch B.C.’s first commercial beekeeping program in 2016, with initial spaces for 16 students. A cottage beekeeper can take care of up to 300 hives. Bees are also playing an important role in pollinating the growing number of farms that have turned away from traditional chemical alternatives. But with fewer commercial bee colonies than are required to pollinate B.C. crops, farmers in the province have been left to importing colonies from Alberta.