Oil Sands Truth: Shut Down the Tar Sands

Indigenous

Indigenous nations have protected the earth on their territories for thousands of years. With the government of Canada ignoring their sovereignty, nations not only see massive theft of resources that could help alleviate social problems, but their exacerbation through their further alienation from their own lands, often accompanying being overrun by development and southern workers, while having no self-determination during this process. In the south of Canada industrial farming displaced many nations with often genocidal results. In the north, a modern equivalent of that fate is only just beginning, wrought on by industrial oil and gas drilling schemes (among many industrial plans) that are condemning entire societies, languages and cultures to a precarious future, becoming minorities in their lands for the first time.

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RCMP seek input on providing culturally sensitive security during 2010 Games

RCMP seek input on providing culturally sensitive security during 2010 Games
By Charlie Smith - Publish Date: July 19, 2009

Olympic security officials have approached a local multicultural organization for help in providing culturally sensitive security during the 2010 Games.

On behalf of Sukhvinder Vinning, vice president of the Multifaith Action Society, former Vancouver city councillor Nancy Chiavario has sent an e-mail announcing an opportunity for people to discuss issues pertinent to their faiths with an RCMP officer.

The Beaver Lake Cree Nation vs the Tar Sands

July 15th, 2009

The following article was written by Drew Mildon, a lawyer at the Canadian law firm Woodward and Company. Woodward and Company is overseeing the Beaver Lake Cree Nation law suit against the Government of Canada.

At what price 'white man's money'?

The candidates vying to succeed Grand Chief Phil Fontaine next week pretty much agree that economic development is the key to prosperity for Canada's native people. Many others, however, fear the cost. The Globe and Mail's Shawn McCarthy reports

Shawn McCarthy OTTAWA - From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Saturday, Jul. 18, 2009

Each spring, Art Sterritt and his family gather at his wife's ancestral home among B.C.'s Gitga'at people to harvest seaweed, clams and cockles on the shores of Hartley Bay near Kitimat.

[Tar sands?] Alternatives for Alaska gas

Alternatives for Alaska gas
In-state processing would add value

Bob Thomas, Community Perspective

Published Sunday, July 12, 2009

Alberta First Nation gets anti-tar sands help from U.K. co-op

Alberta First Nation gets anti-oilsands help from U.K. co-op
By Vinesh Pratap, Global News
July 7, 2009

LAC LA BICHE, Alta. — A consumer co-operative based in the United Kingdom is joining a small First Nations community in Alberta in its fight to stop the expansion of oilsands development in the province.

The Co-operative Group, a Manchester-based bank, says it will continue to support the 900-member Beaver Lake Cree Nation in Lac La Biche as it prepares to take on the Alberta and Canadian governments in a lawsuit.

[Enbridge Gateway] Summit aimed for informed decisions

Summit aimed for informed decisions

Published: July 08, 2009 6:00 AM

Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline proposal and the Alberta oil sands development as a whole were the targets of an All Nations Energy Summit held recently in Moricetown.

Representatives of First Nations from the Athabaskan to Kitamaat were in attendance to voice their opinion about the tar sands and the destruction of their traditional lands.

O’Connor says he was ‘bullied’ by committee

O’Connor says he was ‘bullied’ by committee
CAROL CHRISTIAN
July 6, 2009
Today staff

When local physician Dr. John O'Connor appeared June 11 in Ottawa before the federal committee looking into the impact of oilsands development on freshwater, it wasn't the enlightening question and answer session he expected.

Instead he was grilled about his credentials, background and the last remaining complaint filed by Health Canada of causing undue alarm when he blew the whistle on elevated cancer rates in Fort Chipewyan.

An alternative anniversary

An alternative anniversary
Charlotte Hilling
Northern News Services
Published Friday, July 3, 2009

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - The social justice coalition Alternatives North has been making life easier for some, and uncomfortable for others, according to a raft of speakers at the 17th anniversary get together last Friday.

Union of Northern Workers president Todd Parsons said he would struggle to cope with his workload if it were not for the volunteer organization.

"I could not do all this work by myself - and because Alternatives North exists - I don't have to," he said.

"Little Hope In the Mackenzie Gas Project"

Little hope in the pipeline

Repeated delays of Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline have Inuvik seeing red

By Claudia Cattaneo, Financial Post
July 2, 2009

Inuvik, N.W.T. -- The conversation in this town of 3,500 in the Western Arctic should be about aboriginal self-sufficiency, environmentally responsible Northern development and a new clean-energy storehouse with immense potential. After all, the proposed $16.2-billion Mackenzie Valley natural-gas pipeline project was supposed to be under construction by now.

Resistance to Enbridge Clipper [Minnesota, Wisconsin] Growing

Opponents Try Late Rally Against Enbridge Clipper
Published July 01 2009
Duluth News Tribune

Opponents of the Enbridge Alberta Clipper pipeline rallied Tuesday in Duluth to announce they are trying legal and political efforts to stop the oil pipeline.

Marty Cobenais, with the Indigenous Environmental Network, based in Bemidji, describes the pollution and environmental destruction caused by mining tar sands in Alberta at a news conference Tuesday in Duluth.