Indigenous nations have protected the earth on their territories for thousands of years. With the government of Canada ignoring their sovereignty, nations not only see massive theft of resources that could help alleviate social problems, but their exacerbation through their further alienation from their own lands, often accompanying being overrun by development and southern workers, while having no self-determination during this process. In the south of Canada industrial farming displaced many nations with often genocidal results. In the north, a modern equivalent of that fate is only just beginning, wrought on by industrial oil and gas drilling schemes (among many industrial plans) that are condemning entire societies, languages and cultures to a precarious future, becoming minorities in their lands for the first time.
Impacts of tar sands under scrutiny
By Sara Constantineau
News Writer
McGill Daily
An independent publication is trying to shock the public into understanding the social, environmental, and economic impacts of the Alberta tar sands.
The Dominion, an independent news cooperative, has launched a special issue about the tar sands with presentations at universities across Canada. The lead editors of the issue were at Concordia on Thursday night presenting their research and exclusive footage.
Editorial: Reconsidering the tar sands
McGill Daily
Going by mainstream media coverage, the Athabasca tar sands in Alberta are like a 21st century Wild West: breathless reports speak about the “boom” economy, bushels of money being made, and about how everything is gigantic. But as the tar sands have become the centrepiece of a new energy corridor sending oil and gas to the U.S., scant attention has been paid to the profound economic, ecological, and social costs that are at stake.
Future of Alberta oil could be decided in B.C
Charles Frank , CanWest News Service
Published: Sunday, November 18, 2007
The future of Western Canada's energy industry may well be defined by what happens far from Alberta's foothills in the quiet town of Kitimat on British Columbia's picturesque coast.
This article is interesting not only for the garbage it states, such as: "Environmental groups argue the massive tankers have no business travelling in the pristine and wildlife-rich waters, which they believe are protected by a more than three-decade-old moratorium on such traffic.
"The primary beneficiary of these projects is not British Columbians -- it's Albertans and Americans," says Will Horter, executive director of the Dogwood Initiative [...]"
Feds target medical whistleblower: doctor claims
Mike De Souza , CanWest News Service
Published: Monday, November 12, 2007
Dr. John O'Connor first suspected something was wrong a few years ago after discovering a rare form of cancer in a small northern Alberta community of 1,200 people.
He recognized the illness since it was the same one that had claimed the life of his father in Ireland more than 15 years earlier. He had never expected to see it again and was alarmed to find it in at least five different patients.
Challenge Corporate Power, Embrace True Democracy
by Vandana Shiva
AlterNet (October 01 2007)
Editor's note: the following remarks were made this September at a
conference on "Confronting the Global Triple Crisis - Climate Change,
Peak Oil, Global Resource Depletion & Extinction", in Washington DC. For
more information, visit the International Forum on Globalization's website.
Before I came here I was very fortunate to join the group of scientists
and religious leaders who made a trip to the Arctic to witness the
The Richest First Nation in Canada
Ecological and political life in Fort MacKay
by Macdonald Stainsby
The Dominion - http://www.dominionpaper.ca
The primarily Indigenous, mostly Cree (also 'Chipewyan Dene') community of Fort MacKay--just north of the internationally famous tar sand "boom" city of Fort McMurray--is said to be the "richest First Nation in Canada." The alleged wealth is largely due to the fact that the community is surrounded by, and on top of, tar sand.
Study Finds Carcinogens in Water Near Alberta Oil Sands Projects
By IAN AUSTEN
Published: November 9, 2007
OTTAWA, Nov. 7 — High levels of carcinogens and toxic substances have been found in fish, water and sediment downstream from Alberta’s huge oil sands projects, according to a new study.
The 75-page report, written by Kevin P. Timoney, an ecologist with Treeline Environmental Research, was commissioned by the local health authority of Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, where many residents say they believe the oil sands developments to the south are damaging their health.
New report finds elevated arsenic risk in Fort Chipewyan
By MATTHEW HEINDL
Fort McMurray Today staff
Friday November 09, 2007
A new study that claims high levels of arsenic and mercury are in the Athabasca River has many calling for a halt to oilsands growth, but two Alberta government departments are not supporting its findings.
More than 70 people in Fort Chipewyan met Wednesday night to hear Dr. Kevin Timoney of Treeline Ecological Research deliver his findings on river sediment deposits downstream of the oilsands.
By RENATO GANDIA, SUN MEDIA
High levels of cancer-causing toxins are being found in areas downstream of Fort McMurray's oilsands, says a study commissioned by residents of Alberta's oldest community.
Waters in Fort Chipewyan contain high levels of arsenic, the fish are contaminated with high levels of mercury and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons - another pollutant - are higher than they should be, said Kevin Timoney.
Timoney is the ecologist who studied the waters and sediments in the Peace-Athabasca Delta near Fort Chipewyan, 610 air km northeast of Edmonton.
