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.
Review panel hears final recommendations on Mackenzie pipeline
BOB WEBER
The Canadian Press
November 6, 2007
In two years of hearings in 26 northern communities, a panel reviewing the potential environmental and social impacts of a $16-billion natural gas pipeline down the Mackenzie Valley took in enough submissions to block a herd of caribou.
Protect land ahead of pipeline, review panel told on last days of hearings
November 5, 2007 - 17:53
By: Bob Weber, THE CANADIAN PRESS
In two years of hearings in 26 northern communities, a panel reviewing the potential environmental and social impacts of a $16-billion natural gas pipeline down the Mackenzie Valley took in enough submissions to block a herd of caribou.
Dear Minister Prentice,
Re: Pipelines Across Treaty # One Territory
I have yet to receive a response from you on the October 10th letter I sent to you regarding the Enbridge Alberta Clipper pipeline. This pipeline as proposed will cross Treaty one territory and is currently in the National Energy Board approval process. The federal government must take this matter seriously and you as the Minister in charge of pipelines must be proactive in addressing the concerns of First Nations in these matters.
INAC “no” to UR-Energy uranium drilling in the Thelon
By LEA STORRY, SRJ Editor 31.OCT.07
The beauty of the NWT’s Upper Thelon is safe...for now. Chuck Strahl, the minister of Indian and northern affairs Canada (INAC), formally accepted the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board (Review Board) recommendation that exploration work proposed by UR-Energy be rejected without an environmental impact review.
Quote:
“I think we look forward a little more optimistically because I don’t think anyone would be more aware than us of the challenges of sustaining gas production in Alberta,” he said.
It is arrogant when I see this, and mentally put it along side what MGP proponents in their office in Inuvik explained about the gas going to fuel the tar sands: "It is not up to our control as producers to determine who buys it on a free market".
Gateway to Solidarity?
Pipelines and Indigenous communities in Northern BC
October 19, 2007
by Carla Lewis
The Dominion - http://www.dominionpaper.ca
The coast near Kitimat will soon be a route for tankers carrying oil, diluents and liquid natural gas if the Gateway pipeline is constructed.
Two years ago, pipelines were the furthest concern from anyone's mind. But today, most Indigenous communities in British Columbia have heard of the proposed pipelines and company names like "Enbridge" and, to a lesser extent, "Pembina" are tossed around like Kleenex.
October 24, 2007
A New Wave of Exploitation
Canada, Alberta defy UN, sell off rights to disputed Lubicon land
by Kevin Thomas
The Dominion - http://www.dominionpaper.ca
Elder Reinie Jobin examines Lubicon land razed by oil companies. The Lubicon were not consulted or notified. Photo: Friends of the Lubicon
Over the span of 38 years, Northern Alberta has changed from a pristine environment rich in cultural and biological diversity to a landscape resembling a war zone marked with 200-foot-deep pits and thousands of acres of destroyed boreal forests. Lakes and rivers have been contaminated and groundwater systems drained. The impact of the tar sands industry is what I am talking about. This industry has also resulted in the disruption to the Dene First Nations and their treaty rights, including the cultural disruption to the Cree and Metis communities.
Beaufort find is oil, not gas
Devon Canada gas hunt yields oil; company seeks partners; oil poses challenges
By Gary Park
For Petroleum News
Devon Canada has posted the first oil find in the Canadian Beaufort Sea in 25 years — a twist of fortune for the company which had been hoping for trillions of cubic feet of gas to spur progress on the Mackenzie Gas Project.
“We had expected gas, so we are somewhat surprised, but this is a lot better than just water,” Dennis Johnston, Devon Canada’s frontier exploration manager, told Petroleum News.
Playing politics with pipe
TransCanada’s Keystone project wins NEB approval, but disdain from unions for exporting refining jobs to the United States
Dale Lunan
Back in the day, opposition to big-inch pipeline projects would come from a host of stakeholders with a direct connection to any new pipeline: First Nations protecting sacred grounds and traditional hunting territories; environmentalists concerned about the impact of pipeline construction on fragile ecosystems; farmers and ranchers worried about the loss, temporary or otherwise, of productive land.
