Oil Sands Truth: Shut Down the Tar Sands

Social Impacts

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.

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Boiling Point!

Boiling Point!
Polaris report finds water in First Nations communities a “violation of fundamental human rights”
by Kim Petersen
July 30, 2008

Neskantaga First Nation is one of the communities profiled in the Polaris report. It has been under a boil water advisory since 1995. “What other community do you know of in Canada that has been on boil water advisory for 13 years?"

In May, the Polaris Institute, a citizen-focused think tank, released Boiling Point!, a report about the “violation of fundamental human rights” occurring in First Nation communities across Canada.

Increase of Migrant Workers in Canada Opens Door to Abuses

Increase of Migrant Workers in Canada Opens Door to Abuses
By Am Johal, IPS News. Posted July 31, 2008.

Canada's construction boom has brought in thousands of foreign workers. They're being horribly exploited.
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VANCOUVER, Jul 15 (IPS) -- Western Canada's construction boom, spurred on by the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver and oil sands development in Alberta, has led to a massive increase in foreign temporary workers coming to the region.

Enbridge Gateway line gains footing; profit jumps

Enbridge Gateway line gains footing; profit jumps
Thu Jul 31, 2008 9:29pm IST
By Jeffrey Jones

CALGARY, Alberta, July 31 (Reuters) - Enbridge Inc (ENB.TO: Quote, Profile, Research) is making big strides with a multibillion-dollar plan to ship crude from Canada's oil sands to Asia, the pipeline operator said on Thursday as it reported a more than fourfold jump in second-quarter profit.

Enbridge, Canada's No. 2 pipeline company, also boosted its forecast for 2008 earnings. Its shares jumped 4 percent.

N.B. inmates training to be oil rig workers

N.B. inmates training to be oil rig workers
Last Updated: Monday, July 7, 2008
CBC News

Inmates at the Westmoreland Institution in New Brunswick are being provided with the chance to train to be oil workers.

The Dorchester-based minimum-security penitentiary is offering a 20-day course to teach inmates the basics of becoming a roughneck on an oil rig.

A similar program has also been offered to inmates who are on parole and has had a high success rate, said Isabelle Leblanc-Gallant, who is setting up the job training at the institution.

Peak Oil Happened Already

Peak Oil Happened Already
by Douglas Smyth
opednews.com
July 18, 2008

LABOUR: AFL denounces “out of control” import of “disposable” foreign workers in Alberta

(AlbertaIndex, July 29, Tuesday) --- The Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) has hit out at the provincial and federal governments as well as employers for letting the number of “disposable” foreign workers flooding into Alberta to reach “out of control” proportions.

(Calgary) City population growth to boost housing demand

City population growth to boost housing demand
Kathy McCormick, Calgary Herald
Published: Saturday, July 26, 2008

In spite of the lower number of housing construction starts this year, people are moving to Calgary -- and they're buying homes in the suburbs, says the latest city census.

Lessons in simplicity on warming

Lessons in simplicity on warming
Jul 29, 2008 04:30 AM
Albert Koehl

The most useful lessons to be learned in the fight against global warming can probably be gleaned from grade-school problem-solving exercises – for example, that letting air out of the tires of a truck that doesn't quite fit under a bridge is easier than raising the bridge. In other words, difficult problems don't always call for complicated solutions.

Investors urged to kick the tar sands habit

New report claims carbon intensive projects to extract oil from Canadian tar sands present unacceptable business risks
James Murray, BusinessGreen, 29 Jul 2008

Investors are to be urged to shun controversial projects to extract oil from North American tar fields following the publication of a major new report that claims the carbon intensive processes involved represent an unacceptable environmental and business risk.