Tar Sands Realities and Resistance
Conference was held at:
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
November 23-25th, 2007
Everyone’s Downstream was a conference designed to explore the links between oppression and self-determination on many levels: indigenous land rights, gender, ecological rights, workers democracy, anti-racism and anti-border perspectives as they relate directly to the tar sands of Northern Alberta. Speakers from a multitude of indigenous nations, social justice groups, and environmental organizations will discuss the social impacts of the tar sands on workers, women, indigenous nations, ecology, migrant populations, homelessness, and the anti-war movement.
The conference included:
November 23rd
Dominion Launch of Tar Sands Special Issue
with Dru Oja Jay ed., brought to you by APIRG.
6:30p.m, Business Building 1-05
(APIRG/Dominion Event with help from oilsandstruth.org)
November 24 9:00a.m-5:00p.m
Engineering, Teaching and Learning Complex, UofA,
Room ETLC 1 001
A series of panel discussions led by our guests.
November 25th 9:00a.m-5:00p.m
Telus Building, UofA Campus
Room TEL 217-219
A chance for the multitude of groups and individuals attending to sit down and discuss a collective way forward.
The size of the tar sands issue can seem daunting, but in reality few issues have presented an opportunity for a social justice movement to truly articulate a different vision of organizing the world that has as many entry points, and can provide as large of an impact. The scale and scope of the tar sands is huge and has tremendously deep implications for the way we approach questions that span the social justice spectrum. With a coordinated response involving all sectors of North American social justice movements currently impacted by the largest industrial project in human history we have the possibility to change the course of human and ecological fate like nowhere else.
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Conference schedule was:
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November 23rd
Dominion Launch of Tar Sands Special Issue
with Dru Oja Jay ed.
6:30p.m-9:30p.m, Business Building 1-05
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November 24th
Engineering, Teaching and Learning Complex, UofA,
Room ETLC 1 001
8:30a.m- Coffee
9:00a.m-10:10 "Literally Downstream"
• Leila Darwish, Sierra Club, Tar Sands 101
• George Poitras, Mikisew Cree First Nation
• Allan Adam, Chief, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation
• Herb Norwegian, Grand Chief Dehcho First Nations
10:10 coffee break
10:20-12:30 "Heading out West"
• Morris Amos, Gitamaat Village Haisla Nation, Tar Sands Tanker
Traffic on the West Coast
• Brenda Brochu, Peace River Environmental Society: Nuclear to fuel tar
sands?
• Tara Marsden, Carrier Sekani Tribal Council. Enbridge Gateway Pipeline
12:30 Lunch provided by Food Not Bombs
1:30-2:30
"What, where and why: Peak oil and mapping proposed pipelines"
• Tom Keefer, Peak Oil, Class Struggle and the Thermodynamics of Production
• Petr Cizek, Mapping the Tar Sands, The Bigger Picture
2:45-5:00
"Tar Sands & Human Rights: Exploiting migrants and fueling war"
• Janice Sparrow, coming in from the tar sands to discuss life in the camps.
• Julián Castro-Rea, Associate Professor, Political Science, U of
Alberta -- SPP and the Tar Sands
• Chauncey Carr, No One Is Illegal-- Vancouver, migrant rights organizing
• Ricardo Acuna, Parkland Institute, Tar Sands connection to US Wars
in The Middle East
• Jaggi Singh, No One Is Illegal--Montréal & Block the
Empire--Montreal, anti-war organizing
5:00 on... Further Q& A with light snacks from Food Not Bombs
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November 25th, 2007
Telus Building, UofA Campus
Room TEL 217-219
9:00-10:15 "The human face of the tar sands and resistance"
• Clayton Thomas-Muller, Indigenous Environmental Network
• Sharmeen Khan, the Whiteness of Green
• Jocelyn Saskiw, Adamant Eve: Gender and the Boom
• Julio Garcia, Albertans Demand Affordable Housing (Adah): the boom
and the housing crisis
10:30-12:30
"Healthy Relations: practicing solidarity with indigenous struggles"
• Peter Kulchyski , Indigenous People's Solidarity Movement--Winnipeg,
and working in Denendeh
• Colin Piquette, Friends of the Lubicon Alberta
• Jocelyn Cheechoo, Rainforest Action Network, solidarity with Grassy
Narrows.
12:30-1:00 Lunch Provided by Food Not Bombs
1:30 to 5:00 (and beyond) "Ongoing organizing: What can we do together?"
Planning, networking and organizing together, meeting with one another
and discussions involving any and all participants and organizers who
attended or spoke over the prior two days. Getting down to brass
tacks.
Facilitators:
• Geeta Sehgal, Greenpeace Stop the Tar Sands Campaign
• Clayton Thomas-Muller, introductions and organizing now and in the future
Brought to you by http://OilSandsTruth.org with help from CJSR FM 88,
The Parkland Institute, Alberta Public Interest Research Group
(APIRG), Public Interest Alberta (PIA), Greenpeace-- Stop the Tar
Sands Campaign, Rainforest Action Network (RAN), Sierra Club (Prairie
Chapter), The Dominion-- Canada's Grassroots Newspaper.
Facebook group, search: Everyones Downstream
