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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More Fear Mongering in the Tar Sands, Courtesy of G & M.

Protests in oil sands raise anxieties

Oil companies say activists are most at risk, but one security specialist warns the oil patch is a sitting duck for terrorists

NATHAN VANDERKLIPPE

CALGARY — From Monday's Globe and Mail
Published on Monday, Oct. 12, 2009

The parade of Greenpeace protesters marching through the heart of Alberta's oil sands in recent weeks has provided an embarrassing glimpse at the state of the industry's security, says a former special forces operative who has helped safeguard Canada's nuclear plants.

NWT projects to be promoted to the feds

Guy Quenneville
Northern News Services
Published Monday, October 12, 2009

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - In what the GNWT is calling "a big step forward," the NWT Chamber of Commerce has successfully pushed three key NWT infrastructure developments with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, which will now lobby for those projects - as well as reforming the NWT regulatory regime - with the federal government.

Sunoco idles NJ Refinery, plans to expand Philadelphia

Sunoco Announces Strategic Actions to Strengthen Competitive Position; Idles Eagle Point Refinery, Reduces Quarterly Dividend to $0.15 Per Share
Tue Oct 6, 2009 4:01pm EDT
PHILADELPHIA--(Business Wire)--

Sunoco, Inc. (NYSE:SUN) announced today it is indefinitely idling all process
units at its Eagle Point refinery located in Westville, New Jersey in an effort
to reduce losses in its refining business at a time when a recessionary economy,
weak demand for refined products, and increased global refining capacity have

"Don't react as protesters want" -- corporate spin on recent actions against tar sands

This unsigned editorial is not in the slightest endorsed by this website, but reproduced for your information.

-M

Don't react as protesters want
Edmonton Journal
October 7, 2009

How should industry, government and ordinary Albertans deal with Greenpeace protesters trying to put a spotlight on an industry they view as an environmental crime?

Demand their arrest?Ignore them? Maybe even learn from them?

Northern Alberta economy braces for next boom

Northern Alberta economy braces for next boom
By Archie McLean, Canwest News Service
October 3, 2009

The economic slowdown has been good for Fort McMurray. But with things picking up again in the oilsands, many wonder if they’re prepared to weather the next boom.

FORT MCMURRAY, Alta. — In recent years, simply treating employees well wasn't enough to keep them serving customers in Fort McMurray.

Reaching far and wide for workers

Reaching far and wide for workers
Canada broadens scope to alleviate skills shortage

By Derek Sankey, For the Calgary Herald
July 25, 2008

The new reality for Canadian companies looking to recruit workers increasingly means casting a wider net across the world while government and education leaders lead the charge overseas in the face of economic restraints.

Suncor takes Greenpeace to court

Here's the latest - Suncor is suing Greenpeace for disrupting its
operations last week.

(BTW - it is absolutely outrageous that the reporter (or his editor)
is linking the tar sands actions to the Encana gas pipeline bombings
in this article, with the inference being GP is somehow connected to
the bombings.)

Suncor takes Greenpeace to court - $1.5M lawsuit comes after protest at mine

By Shaun Polczer, Calgary HeraldOctober 9, 2009 9:08 PM

CALGARY - Environmental protesters say they will continue to target

A Place at the Table?

A Place at the Table?
The Great Bear Rainforest and ForestEthics

from "Offsetting Resistance: The effects of foundation funding from the Great Bear Rainforest to the Athabasca River", a special report by Dru Oja Jay and Macdonald Stainsby.

Released September, 2009.

http://www.offsettingresistance.ca/

"Imperial welcomes regulator move on Arctic gas line"

Imperial welcomes regulator move on Arctic gas line

Vancouver Sun
NEWS SERVICES
OCTOBER 8, 2009

Imperial Oil Ltd. welcomed word from Canadian regulators on Thursday that
final arguments in the review of the $16.2-billion Mackenzie gas pipeline
are set for April, but it could not say if the timeline would allow
construction in 2010.

Imperial, lead partner in the long-delayed Arctic gas project, said the
National Energy Board's announcement of the date adds some certainty to
the process that began with its application to build the pipeline five
years ago.

'H2Oil' Tears up the Tar Sands

Documentary focusing on Fort Chipewyan becomes a powerful tool for climate change activists.

By Dawn Paley, October 8, 2009, TheTyee.ca

When Lionel Lepine's plane landed in London, England in August after a long flight from northern Alberta, his initial reaction was culture shock. It was Lepine's first time flying overseas. The occasion was the Climate Camp for Action, an event now in its third year, which brings together hundreds of grassroots activists who are willing to take direct action in the fight against climate change.