Indigenous

Is the Mackenzie Pipeline dead?
Peter Foster
National Post
August 18, 2009

Here’s a thorny question to pose as Prime Minister Stephen Harper moves
about the Canadian North this week promoting Arctic sovereignty and
use-it-or-lose it development: is the Mackenzie Valley natural gas
pipeline dead?

A year ago, Imperial’s CEO Bruce March declared that he was as optimistic
about Mackenzie development as he had been “in five or six years.” As
recently as January, Minister of the Environment Jim Prentice was talking

Peace wants say on massive dam

Region wants consideration before any studies on $6-billion Site C

BY SCOTT SIMPSON, CANWEST NEWS SERVICE
AUGUST 19, 2009

Northeast British Columbia won't yield to B.C. Hydro's Site C mega-hydroelectric project without a fight.

Directors of the Peace River Regional District have voted to recommend the B.C. government reject Hydro's request to undertake geotechnical surveys of potential locations for the estimated $6-billion Site C dam and its reservoir.

Nuclear power's sick legacy

By Helen Caldicott

The noted American writer Mary McCarthy once famously observed of the equally
noted but politically discredited playwright Lillian Hellman: "every word she
utters is a lie, including 'and' and 'but' ". As we have seen over the past
10 years, the same can be said of the Howard Government from the
children-overboard scandal to "there will never be a GST" to "yes, there are
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq". Now - joined by misguided and
misinformed members of the ALP and a few scientists who should know better -

Environmentalists trying to stop sound bombs

Updated: Fri Aug. 14 2009 09:31:54

The Canadian Press

Environmentalists are in Federal Court hoping to block seismic testing that will send high decibel blasts into the ocean off Vancouver Island, possibly harming whales and other marine life in the area.

A U.S. research team wants to investigate the tectonic plates making up the ocean sub-floor around the Endeavour Hydrothermal Vents marine protected area, 250 kilometres west of Vancouver Island.

Members of First Nations along the corridor being discussed have said that such "consultations" should not take place, since they have already indicated an explicit NO to pipelines, tanker traffic, ports and more. Holding these very hearings is a clear VIOLATION of indigenous sovereignty. This position deserves support.

--M

Funding offered for Northern Gateway environmental assessment
By Amelia Bellamy-Royds August 7, 2009 05:25 pm

B.C. launches major stimulus program for oil and gas
By Shaun Polczer, Calgary Herald
August 6, 2009

CALGARY - The British Columbia government this morning announced a major stimulus program to kick-start its oil and gas industry, including a package of royalty incentives and legislative changes.

In a statement, the government said the program is designed to produce "immediate economic benefits" for the province.

ACFN member climbs flagpole to protest oilsands
Activists call on wife of RBC CEO to help protect communities

By SHAWN BELL, SRJ Reporter 05.AUG.09

An Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation member climbed a 50-foot flagpole in downtown Toronto on July 29 to protest the Royal Bank of Canada’s (RBC) involvement in financing the oilsands.
Eriel Deranger was one of two Rainforest Action Network (RAN) protesters who hung a 30-foot high banner in front of RBC’s Canadian headquarters, calling on the wife of RBC’s CEO to encourage her husband to withdraw financing for new oilsands projects.

Palin's Pipeline: Clean Energy for the Lower 48 or Power for the Tar Sands?
by Abby Schultz - Jun 29th, 2009

Where the natural gas from the Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline will end up is a murky question tied up in a 30-year-old treaty, expansion of Canadian tar sands operations, and trends in natural gas supplies both in the United States and in Canada.

Dene Chief Upset Over Canadian Defence Report
By SHAWN BELL, SRJ Reporter 21.JUL.09

Bill Erasmus Dene National Chief

The Dene Nation has denounced a new report that claims Treaty 8 First Nations pose a threat of violence to oilsands and other resource development in Western Canada.
The report, prepared for the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute by Tom Flanagan, states that incidences of violence and protests over resource development will continue as Aboriginal rights and environmentalist movements grow.

Road to coast preferable to highway
Guy Quenneville
Northern News Services
Published Monday, July 20, 2009

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - In Lou Covello's mind, the NWT and Nunavut chamber's most controversial suggestion is not the development of mining towns but the construction of a road through the Slave Geological Province - host to a considerable concentration of mineral deposits - from Yellowknife to the Coronation Gulf.

The proposed road would be more economically rewarding than the Mackenzie Valley Highway, said Covello, the president of the NWT Nunavut Chamber of Mines.