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.
Iraq War
Five years of war in Iraq have hit home in Edmonton
DAVID BERRY / david@vueweekly.com
The further we get away from the actual date, the better Canada’s decision to not get involved with the US invasion of Iraq looks. Five years after the US launched its ill-conceived assault on the Middle Eastern nation, there aren’t many—except perhaps those in the highest offices of the American government—who consider the situation anything but a quagmire.
Clip from the article below:
He said Alberta, because of its ongoing labour woes, has become "ground zero" for the Temporary Foreign Worker program, which has expanded into "a huge social and economic experiment that's in the process of going horribly wrong."
**
As one can see by both crunching the numbers on energy input needs for tar sands expansion proposals or by glancing at the 2030 proposed pipelines map on the sidebar of this site, this gas is not destinted, for the large component, for Chicago. It would be destined for the Albertan energy grid to turn tar sands deposits into "oil".
--M
Pipeline path to Canada assailed
ALASKA GAS: Critics of TransCanada's plan cite profit, exclusivity.
By WESLEY LOY wloy@adn.com
Published: March 25th, 2008 12:03 AM
Imperial CEO says oilsands needs to burnish its image
Claudia Cattaneo, Financial Post Published: Wednesday, March 12, 2008
When Tim Hearn started working at Imperial Oil Ltd. 41 years ago, oil was worth US$1.80 a barrel and natural gas 16¢ per thousand cubic feet.
With oil prices nearing US$110 and gas prices US$10,Mr. Hearn, 64, is retiring on March 31 as CEO and chairman of Imperial, leaving behind a company with no debt and pushing forward some of Canada's largest oil and gas projects. Mr. Hearn will be replaced by Bruce March, 51, an Exxon Mobil Corp. refining executive.
Contamination threatens the North Coast way of life
Iain Hunter, Special to Times Colonist
Published: Saturday, March 29, 2008
I'm told that when other people in British Columbia turn off a few lights at 8 p.m. today to observe Earth Hour, the folks in Hartley Bay are making a bit more of a sacrifice by shutting down the town's only generator.
It's said to be a dry run for the day when they can close the thing down for good and switch to greener and safer hydro generation, for they've been reminded what could lie ahead.
Tar Sands Exploration in Saskatchewan: The Environmental Impacts
Global Research, March 31, 2008
Saskatchewan Environmental Society
ENVIRONMENTALISTS CALL FOR FREEZE ON OIL SANDS EXPLORATION PERMITS
Stelmach named ‘Canadian Fossil Fool of the Year’ by environmental groups
Award
SCOTT HARRIS / scott@vueweekly.com
Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach has been crowned “Canadian Fossil Fool of the Year” by a coalition of youth environmental organizations.
Stelmach was given the award, also dubbed a “Foolie,” for promoting increased production in Alberta’s tar sands and in recognition of the provincial government’s recent climate change plan, which focusses on intensity-based targets rather than absolute reductions in emissions.
Alberta hit with 800 complaints from foreign workers
Accommodation, unfair wage deductions cited
Kelly Cryderman, Calgary Herald
Published: Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Just a day before a House of Commons committee meets in Edmonton to discuss the issue of temporary foreign workers, the province revealed it has received more than 800 complaints from foreign labourers in the past 31/2 months.
The most common complaints revolve around perceived unfair wage deductions, fees charged by recruitment agencies and accommodation issues.
Groups slam foreign worker program
By BROOKES MERRITT, SUN MEDIA
Alberta's temporary foreign worker program has no oversight and is mired in so much bureaucracy that employers are allowed to treat hopeful immigrants like indentured labour.
That's what a federal committee travelling Canada to examine immigration issues heard in Edmonton yesterday, during a lengthy meeting in which several interest groups blasted the provincial and federal governments.
'INHERENTLY EXPLOITIVE'
Oilsands tailings mined for minerals
By CAROL CHRISTIAN
Today staff
Tuesday April 01, 2008
Mineral rich waste from oilsands mining may soon be the source used to produce a long list of manufactured products from ceramic tiles and paints to electronics and medical appliances.
This could all come about thanks to a pilot project initiated by Titanium Corporation, and funded, in part, through Alberta Energy’s Innovation Fund. The Alberta grant is valued at $3.5 million, an amount being matched by the Toronto-based company.
