Social Impacts. Overnight injections of migrant workers will not build healthy communities and can have severely adverse impacts on existing communities, especially those of indigenous nations on their traditional lands. Such development brings vices and long term displacement too often. Drugs, alcohol and associated violence spreads. Hunting becomes difficult when the land is threatened, leading to a further loss of culture and tradition. In towns like Fort McMurray there is no planning for the future, but merely consumption in the present. However transient the individuals may be, the populations will not leave, as “development” takes on a logic all its own. All levels of run away development are subordinate to that development, not social need.
The Nuclear Push
Mining lobby wants uranium ban lifted
November 24, 2008
by David Parker, Asaf Rashid, Angela Day
HANTS COUNTY, NOVA SCOTIA–As the global demand for energy increases and resources dwindle, a collusion of provincial government and extractive industry officials are pushing to establish a uranium mining industry in rural Nova Scotia through a "voluntary planning” process.
Risk-free pipeline projects make sense
Deborah Yedlin, Calgary Herald
Published: Tuesday, November 25, 2008
In the midst of the market mayhem, something surprising happened last week; two Calgary-based pipeline companies raised almost $2 billion from the debt and equity markets.
First out of the blocks was TransCanada Pipelines, tapping the public equity markets for a total take of $1 billion priced at $33 per share. The shares closed Monday at $32.22, up 27 cents.
Controversy rocks lead-up to 2010 Olympics
Real News // November 26, 2008 (Video below)
2010 Olympics promotional train tour becomes target for protests across Canada
Company may delay McKay River project
2008-11-25
By KRISTINE OWRAM, THE CANADIAN PRESS
TORONTO -- Petro-Canada CEO Ron Brenneman says the company is considering a delay of its McKay River oilsands expansion and a $1-billion equipment improvement at its Montreal refinery to reduce costs.
Brenneman, speaking to media ahead of the company's investor day, said the McKay River expansion in northern Alberta, as well as its Montreal coker, haven't yet received regulatory and corporate approvals.
Tue, November 25, 2008
Oilsands surviving downturn
Projects benefit as economic crisis makes contractors and suppliers hungrier for work
By MARKUS ERMISCH, SUN MEDIA
While delays of several oilsands projects have again raised the question whether it is cheaper to upgrade bitumen in the U.S. rather than in Alberta, the sagging loonie, easing inflation and lower demand for labour could be working in the oilpatch's favour.
Claims of industrial genocide in northern AB
Click here to email Troy Adams
11/24/2008
A speaker at a conference of people opposed to oilsands development in northern Alberta says aboriginals face a ``genocide'' as companies release waste into rivers that flow through their communities.
Mike Mercredi told the Everyone's Downstream 2 conference in Edmonton that it's a slow, industrial genocide.
"Indians: Oil sands development 'genocide'"
EDMONTON, Alberta, Nov. 24 (UPI) -- A Canadian Indian rights advocate claims oil sands development in Alberta is akin to genocide from water contamination on reservation lands.
Speaking at a conference in Edmonton Sunday, Mike Mercredi, 33, said death rates at the Fort Chipewyan reservation's 1,200 people 400 miles northeast of Edmonton were on the rise, the Edmonton Sun reported.
Mon, November 24, 2008
'It's killing us off'
Oilsands development a danger to aboriginal community: Band member
By KEVIN CRUSH, SUN MEDIA
Mike Mercredi, a community member of Fort Chipewyan, was on hand yesterday at Edmonton’s Native Friendship Centre to talk about the impact an oilsands development is having on his First Nations community.
Fort Chipewyan is facing a "genocide" from oilsands development, says a member of the First Nation.
Could jittery sponsors drop the torch?
Globe and Mail, November 18, 2008
ROD MICKLEBURGH // VANCOUVER
— Are economic vultures beginning to hover over the 2010 Winter
Olympics? Or is it business as usual despite concerns that many parts
of the world, including North America, are slipping into recession?
The questions are pertinent because more than half of the Games'
$1.63-billion operating budget is to be covered by corporate
sponsorships, and at least two key 2010 sponsors, Nortel and GM Canada,
are having an exceedingly tough time making any kind of ends meet.
Energy consumption up across the board in 2007: StatsCan
Canadian Press
November 18, 2008
OTTAWA — A new study says Canada's demand for energy rose 5.5 per cent last year as consumption increased in the country's industrial, transportation, residential and commercial sectors.
Statistics Canada reports Canadians consumed 7,968 petajoules of energy in 2007, up from 7,551 in 2006.
The agency says one petajoule equals roughly the amount of energy required to operate the Montreal subway system for one year.
