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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Fuelling Disaster: Beyond Alberta’s Culture of Resource Dependence

by Gordon Laird, Parkland Institute Editorialist Alberta

Court ruling means Alberta's recreational drug users risk their jobs

Sobering thoughts
Court ruling means Alberta's recreational drug users risk their jobs
By MINDY JACOBS // Fri, January 4, 2008

Casual pot smokers in Alberta who want to work in safety-sensitive positions had better pack up and move to Ontario. They're no longer welcome in the oilpatch.

A ruling by the Alberta Court of Appeal gives the green light to companies to fire -- or refuse to hire -- recreational pot users if they pose a potential safety risk.

AFL: Government foreign worker office long overdue - but still misses the point

Government foreign worker office long overdue - but still misses the point

Labour cautiously optimistic over government's foreign worker advocates

EDMONTON, Dec. 10 /CNW/ - The Alberta Federation of Labour reacted with
guarded optimism to the Government's new measures announced today to protect
temporary foreign workers.
The two special advisory offices for temporary foreign workers are a
welcome - if long overdue - measure," says AFL President Gil McGowan. "The AFL
had set up its own temporary foreign workers' advocate office last spring as a

Sex workers cashing in on Alberta's oil boom

Sex workers cashing in on Alberta's oil boom
Last Updated: Monday, April 16, 2007 | 3:30 AM MT
CBC News

Alberta's red-hot economy appears to be fuelling a flourishing sex trade as prostitutes follow men to the oil and gas fields.

And they're making big money when they get there, the sex-trade workers say.

"Truckers are big business and they're on the road for long stretches of time and they want to have adult entertainment," says Chastity, one of the strippers frequently seen working the bars in small boomtowns such as High Level, Alta.

$100 oil puts a new shine on Alberta

$100 oil puts a new shine on Alberta
Record prices will fuel the world's interest in the oil sands, even as extraction costs soar
DAVID PARKINSON // January 3, 2008

Deepening nervousness over long-term global energy supplies will put Canada's rich oil sands even more in the global energy spotlight, economists said yesterday as crude touched $100 (U.S.) a barrel for the first time.

"Industry refutes allegations of widespread mistreatment of temporary foreign workers"

This article is put out by the "Journal of Commerce", and is a taste of the lengths that the system is going to in order to create the vast slavery pool that is the "Temporary Foreign Worker" program. Take note of their "explanations". Keep in mind that if the goals for production -- five times current levels, as spelled out by the Security and Prosperity Partnership [SPP]-- are to even be considered, TENS OF THOUSANDS of such workers will be needed for all aspects of tar sands 'development'.

--M

Industry refutes allegations of widespread mistreatment of temporary foreign workers

Muslims drawn to Grande Prairie

Muslims drawn to Grande Prairie
Population surge puts strain on local services
Tom McMillan, The Edmonton Journal
Published: Wednesday, January 02

Grande Prairie's Muslim population is in the midst of a rapid growth spurt, leaving the community scrambling to find facilities for education and prayer.

"A few years ago, there were eight or nine Muslim families here," said Edward Houssain, president of the Islamic Association of Grande Prairie and District. "Now, there are more than anyone knows."

B’y-gone Era

B’y-gone ERA
A story of over there, from over here

PETER WORDEN
Special to The Telegram

Lonely and full of not-so-happy-go-lucky individualism, Alberta’s oil patch is a unique place. No doubt about that. No doubt, also, an important chapter in Newfoundland’s story is being written on the Prairies.
Tired jokes float around about Newfoundland’s second-largest city being Fort McMurray; that Newfoundland’s Come Home Year is Alberta’s “Go Home” Year; that Alberta is New Newfoundland.

Canada's forests aren't bailing us out, study says

Canada's forests aren't bailing us out, study says
Not getting better at absorbing gases. And longer growing seasons no help, after all
Thursday » January 3 » 2008
TOM SPEARS
CanWest News Service

Last year brought glum news that Canada's forests are only a so-so defence against global warming. Today, it gets a little worse: We thought our forests were getting better at soaking up greenhouse gases, but they're not.

Oil Hits $100 a Barrel for the First Time

January 2, 2008
Oil Hits $100 a Barrel for the First Time
By JAD MOUAWAD

Oil prices reached the symbolic level of $100 a barrel for the first
time on Wednesday, a long-awaited milestone in an era of rapidly
escalating energy demand.

Crude oil futures for February delivery hit $100 on the New York
Mercantile Exchange shortly after noon New York time, before falling
back slightly. Oil prices, which had fallen to a low of $50 a barrel
at the beginning of 2007, have quadrupled since 2003.

Futures settled at $99.62, up $3.64 on the day.