The Dominion - Dru Oja Jay

What if Natives Stop Subsidizing Canada?

Tim McSorley — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:01:13 +0000

This piece was originally posted on the Media Co-op. For more #IdleNoMore coverage, click here.

MONTREAL—There is a prevailing myth that Canada's more than 600 First Nations and native communities live off of money—subsidies—from the Canadian government. This myth, though it is loudly proclaimed and widely believed, is remarkable for its boldness; widely accessible, verifiable facts show that the opposite is true.

Indigenous people have been subsidizing Canada for a very long time.

Conservatives have leaked documents in an attempt to discredit chief Theresa Spence, currently on hunger strike in Ottawa. Reporters like Jeffrey Simpson and Christie Blatchford have ridiculed the demands of native leaders and the protest movement Idle No More. Their ridicule rests on this foundational untruth: that it is hard-earned tax dollars of Canadians that pays for housing, schools and health services in First Nations. The myth carries a host of racist assumptions on its back. It enables prominent voices like Simpson and Blatchford to liken protesters' demands to "living in a dream palace" or "horse manure," respectively.

It's true that Canada's federal government controls large portions of the cash flow First Nations depend on. Much of the money used by First Nations to provide services does come from the federal budget. But the accuracy of the myth ends there.

On the whole, the money that First Nations receive is a small fraction of the value of the resources, and the government revenue that comes out of their territories. Let's look a few examples.

Barriere Lake

The Algonquins of Barriere Lake have a traditional territory that spans 10,000 square kilometres. For thousands of years, they have made continuous use of the land. They have never signed a treaty giving up their rights to the land. An estimated $100 million per year in revenues are extracted every year from their territory in the form of logging, hydroelectric dams, and recreational hunting and fishing.

And yet the community lives in third-world conditions. A diesel generator provides power, few jobs are available, and families live in dilapidated bungalows. These are not the lifestyles of a community with a $100 million economy in its back yard. In some cases, governments are willing to spend lavishly. They spared no expense, for example, sending 50 fully-equipped riot police from Montreal to break up a peaceful road blockade with tear gas and physical coercion.

Barriere Lake is subsidizing the logging industry, Canada, and Quebec.

The community isn't asking for the subsidies to stop, just for some jobs and a say in how their traditional territories are used. They've been fighting for these demands for decades.

Attawapiskat

Attawapiskat has been in the news because their ongoing housing crisis came to the attention of the media in 2011 (MP Charlie Angus referred to the poverty-stricken community as "Haiti at 40 below"). More recently, Chief Theresa Spence has made headlines for her ongoing hunger strike. The community is near James Bay, in Ontario's far north.

Right now, DeBeers is constructing a $1 billion mine on the traditional territory of the Āhtawāpiskatowi ininiwak. Anticipated revenues will top $6.7 billion. Currently, the Conservative government is subjecting the budget of the Cree to extensive scrutiny. But the total amount transferred to the First Nation since 2006—$90 million—is a little more than one percent of the anticipated mine revenues. As a percentage, that's a little over half of Harper's cut to GST.

Royalties from the mine do not go to the First Nation, but straight to the provincial government. The community has received some temporary jobs in the mine, and future generations will have to deal with the consequences of a giant open pit mine in their back yard.

Attawapiskat is subsidizing DeBeers, Canada and Ontario.

Lubicon

The Lubicon Cree, who never signed a treaty ceding their land rights, have waged a decades-long campaign for land rights. During this time, over $14 billion in oil and gas has been removed from their traditional territory. During the same period, the community has gone without running water, endured divisive attacks from the government, and suffered the environmental consequences of unchecked extraction.

Sour gas flaring next to the community resulted in an epidemic of health problems, and stillborn babies. Moose and other animals fled the area, rendering the community's previously self-sufficient lifestyle untenable overnight. In 2011, an oil pipeline burst, spilling 4.5 million litres of oil onto Lubicon territory. The Lubicon remain without a treaty, and the extraction continues.

The Lubicon Cree are subsidizing the oil and gas sector, Alberta and Canada.

What will Canada do without its subsidies?

From the days of beaver trapping to today's aspirations of becoming an energy superpower, Canada's economy has always been based on natural resources. With 90% of its settler population amassed along the southern border, exploitation of the land's wealth almost always happens at the expense of the Indigenous population.

Canada's economy could not have been build without massive subsidies: of land, resource wealth, and the incalculable cost of generations of suffering.

Overall numbers are difficult to pin down, but consider the following: Canadian governments received $9 billion in taxes and royalties in 2011 from mining companies, which is a tiny portion of overall mining profits; $3.8 billion came from exports of hydroelectricity alone in 2008, and 60 per cent of Canada's electricity comes from hydroelectric dams; one estimate has tar sands extraction bringing in $1.2 trillion in royalties over 35 years; the forestry industry was worth $38.2 billion in 2006, and contributes billions in royalties and taxes.

By contrast, annual government spending on First Nations is $5.36 billion, which comes to about $7,200 per person. By contrast, per capita government spending in Ottawa is around $14,900. By any reasonable measure, it's clear that First Nations are the ones subsidizing Canada. (2005 figures; the amount is slightly higher today.)

These industries are mostly take place on an Indigenous nation's traditional territory, laying waste to the land in the process, submerging, denuding, polluting and removing. The human costs are far greater; brutal tactics aimed at erasing native peoples' identity and connection with the land have created human tragedies several generations deep and a legacy of fierce and principled resistance that continues today.

Canada has developed myriad mechanisms to keep the pressure on and the resources flowing. But policies of large-scale land theft and subordination of peoples are not disposed to half measures. From the active violence of residential schools to the targetted neglect of underfunded reserve schools, from RCMP and armed forces rifles to provincial police tear gas canisters, the extraction of these subsidies has always been treated like a game of Risk, but with real consequences.

Break the treaty, press the advantage, and don't let a weaker player rebuild.

Idle? Know More.

The last residential school was shut down in 1996. Canadians today would like to imagine themselves more humane than past generations, but few can name the Indigenous nations of this land or the treaties that allow Canada and Canadians to exist.

Understanding the subsidies native people give to Canada is just the beginning. Equally crucial is understanding the mechanisms by which the government forces native people to choose every day between living conditions out of a World Vision advertisement and hopelessness on one hand, and the pollution and social problems of short-term resource exploitation projects on the other.

Empathy and remorse are great reasons to act to dismantle this ugly system of expropriation. But an even better reason is that Indigenous nations present the best and only partners in taking care of our environment. Protecting our rivers, lakes, forests and oceans is best done by people with a multi-millenial relationship with the land.

As the people who live downstream and downwind, and who have an ongoing relationship to the land, Cree, Dene, Anishnabe, Inuit, Ojibway and other nations are among the best placed and most motivated to slow down and stop the industrial gigaprojects that are threatening all of our lives.

Movements like Idle No More give a population asleep at the wheel the chance to wake up and hear what native communities have been saying for hundreds of years: it's time to withdraw our consent from this dead end regime, and chart a new course.

Dru Oja Jay is a writer, organizer, Media Co-op co-founder. Co-author of Paved with Good Intentions and Offsetting Resistance.

Barriere Lake Protest

DeBeers Victor Mine

Infographic: Degrees of Disaster

dru — Fri, 06 May 2011 05:02:33 +0000

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This infographic was published in A People's Forecast: The Climate Justice Issue, our 2011 special issue. To read more articles as they are published, click here.

"Egypt is a Linchpin"

dru — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 05:57:08 +0000

Subhead:

Interview with Montreal organizer Mostafa Henaway on protests in Egypt and solidarity in Canada

Cover Image:

egypt_small.JPG

MP3:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/mediacoopfiles/mediacoop/mostafa-Egypt-EDITED.mp3

Body:

Photo by Ehab Lotayef

About 50 demonstrators gathered January 25 in a festive show of support for hundreds of thousands of Egyptians marching in the streets of many cities, demanding a major reorganization of their country's economy and the removal of the leadership of the National Democratic Party, in power since 1952.

In this interview, community organizer Mostafa Henaway discusses the scene at the Montreal protests. Henaway also discusses reactions within the diaspora, the demands the demonstrators are making of their government and Canada's stance in the region.

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View: more photos of the demonstration, video of the demonstration

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A message from Montreal demonstrators:

Egyptian Day of Protest

January 25, 2011

We, Canadians of Egyptian origin and Egyptians residing in Canada, are supporting the demands of the popular demonstrations taking place all around Egypt, today, January 25, 2011, which can be summarized in the following points:

1) We demand the government should confront the problem of poverty before it explodes. It should respect the rule law as formulated by the Egyptian judiciary: to increase minimum wage, and to improve public services, especially in the areas of health and education. The government should also provide a subsidy of up to 500 Egyptian pounds for each university graduate who cannot find a job in his/her field, for a specific period of time.

2) We demand the abolition of the state of emergency that controls the security apparatus and the arrest of numerous political dissidents to government policies and their imprisonment in detention camps, without due process. We abhor the violation of human rights and the systematic torture of civilians in police stations. We demand the implementation of the provisions provided by the judiciary in respect of the law.
3) We demand the dismissal of the Minister of Interior Affairs, Mr. Habib El-Adli, for failing to secure the Christian minority from the terrorist attacks that took place in Alexandria, on New Year's Eve and for failing to stem the proliferation of crimes that occurred at the hands of officers or agents of the Ministry of the Interior.

4) We demand that the presidential term be limited to two consecutive terms because absolute power corrupts. There is no developed country in the world, that allows its executive power to remain in office for more than two decades. It is our right, not only to choose our president, but also to oppose any attempt to prolong the term of the presidency for life, otherwise our republic will become to a kingdom.

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For more information in English:

Powers of Eight

dru — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 21:20:04 +0000

powersofeight.png

The G8 accounts for a small portion of the world’s population, but a majority of its power. Through their influence over international financial institutions and their economic and military dominance, the G8 countries shape the world’s economic structures.

Download a pdf version of this infographic.

Sovereigntists, Environmental Groups Oppose Trailbreaker

dru — Wed, 05 May 2010 05:08:22 +0000

Pipeline reversal would bring 200,000 barrels daily of tar sands crude through Quebec

MONTREAL—Opposition is mounting to a planned pipeline reversal that would bring 200,000 barrels per day of tar sands bitumen through the island of Montreal and Quebec’s Eastern Townships. Environmental groups, Quebec sovereigntists and small-town mayors have been mobilizing opposition to the proposal known as the Enbridge Trailbreaker project.

The reversal of the Portland-Montreal pipeline is part of a large initiative to reverse and augment pipelines to carry tar sands crude from Chicago to Portland, Maine, where it would be loaded on tankers and transferred to refineries in Philadelphia and on the Gulf Coast of Mexico.

Bloc Quebecois Member of Parliament Christian Ouellet, speaking at a public meeting in Granby on April 24, said the decision to reverse the 60-year-old pipeline is being made by the National Energy Board in Ottawa. Approximately 200 people attended the meeting at the Hotel le Granbyen.

“The decision-making is going over the heads of Quebeckers,” said Ouellet. “We want a public hearing in every community along the pipeline route.”

Quebec’s Liberal government has so far refused to hold its own consultations.

“[Enbridge and Portland Montreal Pipeline] say that they’re good corporate citizens, and they say that’s good enough, but in the Gulf things broke, and they’re good corporate citizens over there, too,” said Ouellet, referring to the Deepwater Horizon, a BP oil-drilling platform that recently exploded, spilling hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Guy Durand of the Environmental Committee of Dunham said that “people were already worried” about the pipeline proposal during an August 2008 information session, which in his opinion provided “incomplete information” to Dunham town council.

Dunham elected Jean-Guy Demers as Mayor in 2009. Demers campaigned against the pipeline reversal and the construction of a pumping station in Dunham, saying, "I will do everything in my power” to reverse the previous council’s decision to move forward with the pumping station. Since the election, the town council has voted five:two against the pumping station.

Citizens and elected officials in the region are worried that a flow reversal in the 60-year-old pipeline, coupled with the increase in pressure necessary to cross the Sutton Mountains, would increase the risk of a spill. In 1999, the pipeline, which currently flows from Portland, Maine, to Montreal, ruptured near St-Cesaire, leaking 45,000 litres of oil into the adjacent marsh. Twenty other spills have been reported during the pipeline’s operation.

Several attendees at the Granby public meeting expressed concern over potential water contamination in the event of a spill, since the pipeline crosses several rivers.

“Simply installing a toilet in a national park requires an environmental impact assessment,” said Daniel Cyr of COVABAR, a group dedicated to the protection of the Richelieu River. “Why is it unreasonable to ask for one for the pipeline reversal?” Cyr added that one litre of oil can contaminate as many as 2,000,000 litres of water.

Presenters warned meeting attendees about the ecological impacts of the bitumen to be passing through southern Quebec, including massive strip mining, runaway carbon emissions, and large-scale water pollution. One presenter referred to the tar sands as “Canada’s Mordor,” an allusion to the dark, mutant-infested industrial wasteland featured in The Lord of the Rings.

Jean Binette of the Environmental Committee of Dunham presented examples of past pipeline accidents, citing dramatic spills of thousands of barrels of oil from modern pipelines in Alaska and Minnesota. According to a Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration report, more than 2,000,000 barrels of oil were spilled as a result of pipeline ruptures in the US between 1986 and 2007, causing over $1 billion in damage.

“We don’t get a cent; the oil goes through—that’s it,” said Bloc Quebecois Member of Parliament Robert Vincent. “If it fails, we’re the ones who pay. It’s our drinking water that is contaminated.”

Dru Oja Jay is an Editor at The Dominion.

Anti-trailbreaker info-session

Secret Meeting Planned, then Cancelled, between ENGOs and Tar Sands Companies

dru — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 12:50:54 +0000

Invitees included Tzeporah Berman, World Wildlife Fund, ForestEthics

MONTREAL—A secret meeting between top Canadian Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations (ENGOs) and tar sands corporations was cancelled after word of the meeting spread beyond the initial invitees, according to two emails leaked to The Dominion.

Billed as a "fireside chat" and an opportunity for "deeper dialogue" in a room at the Vancouver Art Gallery, the invitation was sent by Marlo Raynolds of the Pembina Institute on behalf of himself and Gord Lambert of Suncor. Suncor is the fifth-largest oil company in North America, and the Pembina institute is a high-profile advocate for sustainable energy in Alberta. The invitation was marked "confidential."

Ten representatives each from tar sands operators and high-profile environmental groups were invited to the "informal, beer in hand" gathering. The David Suzuki Foundation, Environmental Defence Canada, Forest Ethics, Pollution Probe and Tides Canada were among the invited environmental groups. Merran Smith of ForestEthics was listed without affiliation, as was Tzeporah Berman, who worked to privatize BC's rivers as director of PowerUp Canada, and who is slated to start work this month as Greenpeace International's Climate Campaigner. Among invited oil companies were Shell, ConocoPhilips, Total and Statoil. Leading tar sands investor Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) was also on the guestlist.

The event would be, the invitation explained, "an opportunity for a few ENGOs and a few companies to share their thoughts on the current state of relations and explore ideas on how a deeper dialogue might occur."

Three days later, Raynolds sent a second email, cancelling the gathering, owing to "the level of tension" between "a subset of companies and a subset of ENGOs." The followup email specified a legal dispute. Sources in Albertan environmental circles suggested pressure to cancel came from threats to expose the meeting publicly.

"I personally believe we all need to find a way to create the space and conditions necessary for deeper and meaningful conversations to find some solutions," wrote Raynolds, explaining the cancellation. "I do hope that in the coming months, we can work to create those conditions."

The invitation to the secret meeting came as several of the invited groups had signed on to an open letter to Enbridge, asking it to cancel the Northern Gateway Pipeline, which would pipe tar sands crude to BC's central coast, to be put on oil tankers. The letter was published as a full page ad in the Globe and Mail.

In 2008, the Pembina Institute and the Canadian Boreal Initiative (financed by the Pew Charitable Trusts; see "Can Pew's Charity be Trusted?," November 2007) released a report proposing "conservation offsets" as a way to mitigate the destruction of biodiversity by tar sands operations.

According to Pembina, conservation offsets "allow resource companies to compensate for the unavoidable impact to biodiversity from their development projects by conserving lands of equal or greater biological value, with the objective of having no net loss in biodiversity."

Pembina acknowledged a contribution of $44,000 from tar sands operator Nexen for the "costs of the document."

Petr Cizek, a land use planner and long-time critic of ENGOs' campaigns because of their lack of transparency and accountability, said it is to be expected that prominent environmental groups will meet in secret with oil companies.

"Is this surprising? No. Is this blatant? Yes," Cizek said.

"The issue isn't negotiation or compromise. I've done lots of both in my time. The issue is whether the negotiations are transparent and the organizations are democratic. Virtually none of these organizations are democratic," he said.

Environmentalists invited to the secret meeting have come under fire by grassroots environmental activists for their secretive, back-room approach to negotiations with corporations in previous campaigns. Tzeporah Berman and Merran Smith both acted as negotiators when ForestEthics and other BC ENGOs accepted a deal that protected 20 per cent of the Great Bear Rainforest.

Some grassroots organizations and First Nations were furious at the deal, which settled for half the minimum protected area outlined in protocol agreements signed by environmental groups and First Nations prior to the negotiations. (The area protected by the Great Bear deal was later increased to 30 per cent after First Nations' land use plans forced reconsideration of some of the concessions.)

Cizek said he is not bothered by the outcome of negotiations, but by the lack of accountability and public oversight.

"My issue isn't the fact that they protected only 30 per cent, or that they protected the wrong 30 per cent. In some cases, maybe that is all that you can achieve. These negotiations can be really ugly. I've been there," he said.

"My issue is that they lied to and betrayed and broke a deal they had with the smaller organizations."

In a 2009 interview published in the report Offsetting Resistance, Valhalla Wilderness Society (one of the smaller organizations Cizek mentioned) Director Anne Sherrod made the connection between the Great Bear Rainforest agreement and the tar sands.

"These are greenwashing deals. I am speaking out about this because there is evidence that the collaborative agreement industry may be moving to the tar sands," said Sherrod.

"I want everyone to know that issues where people are dying of cancer from serious pollution is no place for this kind of thing. Open public process is your best friend in situations like this. Insist on it."

Dru Oja Jay is a member of the Dominion editorial collective. He is co-author, with Macdonald Stainsby, of the report Offsetting Resistance: The effects of foundation funding from the Great Bear Rainforest to the Athabasca River.

Suncor Toad

Fighting for Sutikalh

dru — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:51:37 +0000

St’át’imc unity has kept BC-backed ski resort at bay for ten years

Since first contact with European settlers, St'át'imc people (also known as the Lillooet) have fought against land theft and destruction by resource extraction and development. Their traditional territory surrounds the Lillooet River, stretching from Whistler to the town of Lillooet.

The St'át'imc way of life has always been inextricably tied to the land. For thousands of years, the St'át'imc have hunted, fished, and gathered medicine in the mountains, valleys and rivers of their land. Starting in the 19th century with the 1858 gold rush, and continuing through the 20th century to the present, settler governments encouraged settlement, clearcut logging and hydroelectric dams. The resulting overfishing, destruction of land and blockage of waterways caused food shortages and forced displacement of the indigenous population. Prime lands cultivated or occupied by St'át'imc were often simply stolen without compensation. One St'át'imc chief complained: "Our friends the whites they have been taking our lands away from us and there is nothing left to us and everything that we use they stop us from using it."

In 1911, all the Lillooet chiefs signed a joint statement declaration: "We are aware the BC government claims our Country, like all other Indian territories in BC; but we deny their right to it. We never gave it nor sold it to them. They certainly never got the title to the Country from us, neither by agreement nor conquest, and none other than us could have any right to give them title." In 1927, the Indian Act was ammended to outlaw organizing to challenge land theft.

Photos by Dru Oja Jay unless otherwise noted

For more on the Sutikalh occupation, read this longer account.

Sutikalh 1

Sutikalh 2

Sutikalh 3

Sutikalh 4

Sutikalh 5

Sutikalh 6

Sutikalh 7

Strangers Scour the Land

Maya Rolbin-Ghanie — Thu, 28 May 2009 05:28:11 +0000

The search for Maisy and Shannon continues

KITIGAN ZIBI ANISHINABEG–Maisy Odjick, 17, and her friend Shannon Alexander, now 18, vanished from Shannon's father's apartment in Maniwaki, Quebec, September 6, 2008. Both are from Kitigan Zibi, an Algonquin reserve adjacent to Maniwaki. Since September, neither the Kitigan Zibi Police Services nor the Sûreté du Québec has collected any evidence pertaining to the whereabouts of the two girls. When Maisy and Shannon vanished, their wallets and their money were left behind. The police are not ruling out the possibility that the two girls are "runaways." In addition, the police have repeatedly neglected to communicate with and report back to the two families. The little media attention this case has attracted may be attributed to the constant and determined efforts at media outreach by Maisy's mother, Laurie Odjick.

The two ground searches since the disappearance - December 7, 2008, and May 2, 2009 - were led by Search and Rescue Global 1; both times the Odjick family was the main organizer. According to Search Leader Lawrence Conway, the search for Maisy and Shannon is the first family-organized search he has ever taken part in. Normally, the police call rescue teams and arrange searches.

Indigenous women in Canada are five times more likely than other women to die as the result of violence. The official number of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Canada since 1980 is 520, two-thirds of whom were murdered and about one-quarter of whom are still missing. Roughly half of these murders and disappearances occurred in the last nine years and over 300 cases are as of yet unsolved. Indigenous grassroots activists and communities put the number of cases closer to 1800.

Amnesty International, the United Nations, and the Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC) have all put forth comprehensive recommendations to the Canadian government to address the violence and discrimination faced by Indigenous women, but so far no action has been taken beyond a small amount of funding allotted for research.

NWAC President Beverley Jacobs points out that even working with a number like 520, taken proportionately that "would equal 18,000 women among Canada's white population. If there were 18,000 white women missing and murdered, it would be headlines. There would be something done immediately."

Maya Rolbin-Ghanie is an independent journalist and Indigenous solidarity activist living in Montreal. Dru Oja Jay is an editor with The Dominion.

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Intellectual Author

dru — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 06:00:00 +0000

Michael Ignatieff's potent mix of imperialism and human rights

HALIFAX–During his time as a professor of human rights at Harvard, Michael Ignatieff became something of a sensation in the US foreign policy establishment and elite circles. He wrote frequently for The New York Times Magazine, where his articles were featured on the cover no less than four times, with titles like "Could We Lose the War on Terror?," and "American Empire: The Burden."

Ignatieff's articles for the Times take the view that US military operations constitute an "Empire Lite," and "America's entire war on terror is an exercise in imperialism."

His written work strikes the tone of an unflinching observer, describing power relations in their stark reality. "The relationship between the locals and the internationals is inherently colonial," he writes of NGOs and troops in Afghanistan in "Nation Building Lite" in 2002.

"The unpleasant underside of nation-building is that the internationals' first priority is [...] increasing their budgets and giving themselves good jobs. The last priority is financing the Afghan government."

Following his usual pattern, after identifying the problem, Ignatieff goes on to endorse this reality as the only apparent recourse for "failed states."

"Imperialism used to be the white man's burden. This gave it a bad reputation. But imperialism doesn't stop being necessary just because it becomes politically incorrect," Ignatieff writes in the same article.

"Nations sometimes fail, and when they do, only outside help – imperial power – can get them back on their feet."

It is, he concludes, the "kind of imperialism you get in a human rights era."

At that time, Ignatieff backed the US bombing and invasion of Iraq, and repeatedly made the case for it by invoking human rights as a motivating factor.

In 2007, after he began his political career in Canada, and after close to a million people were killed in Iraq, he nominally recanted his views – again in the Times Magazine.

Concluding his apologia, Ignatieff recasted his support for the invasion and occupation of Iraq as a pitch for his political leadership. "Democratic peoples," he writes, "should always be looking for something more than prudence in a leader: daring, vision and – what goes with both – a willingness to risk failure."

During the same period, Ignatieff was intimately involved in developing the "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P), a doctrine guiding the use of "humanitarian intervention" in "failed states." According to one insider, Ignatieff was one of three who drafted the initial R2P report. In a 2008 promotional video, Ignatieff explains that R2P is "the idea that if a country is unwilling or unable to protect its own people, if it's responsible for ethnic cleansing or massacres, or if it's denying relief aid to its own people, then another country should step in and help."

While R2P is theoretically intended to prevent genocidal massacres, critics maintain that giving powerful countries the go-ahead to invade "failed states" will inevitably be abused.

In a long exposé published by UpsideDownWorld.org, Researcher Anthony Fenton makes the case that the overthrow of Haiti's democratically elected government was actually the first "test case" of R2P. Fenton points to a history of activities aimed at destabilizing Haiti's government – which had resisted the excesses of externally imposed "reforms" – undertaken by US and Canadian governments. During the campaign of destabilization, Fenton notes, R2P was frequently invoked in discussions about Haiti.

In memos sent by the Canadian Embassy in Porte-Au-Prince in the weeks leading up to the coup acquired by Fenotn via an access to information request, Ambassador Kenneth Cook speculated that the international community "will have to consider the options including whether a case can be made for [R2P]."

The government of Canada has refused to release uncensored memos from the time of the coup itself.

In February 2004, Canadian troops invaded Haiti while President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was physically removed from the country by US Special Forces. Most elected officials were forced into hiding. The violence that followed dwarfed even the most puffed-up human rights concerns cited to justify the coup.

A study by The Lancet, a top international medical journal, estimated 8,000 people were murdered and 35,000 were raped in the post-coup period. During the same time, Canada had been overseeing Haiti's police force, which was a principle source of post-coup violence.

Since the 2004 coup, Haiti is seldom mentioned by R2P advocates. Fenton writes, "Dozens of papers, panels, symposiums, and conferences seem to have studiously avoided Haiti when discussing R2P [since the coup]."

One exception to the silence about R2P in Haiti stands out.

"Stabilization efforts in Afghanistan, Haiti and Iraq are testing grounds," writes policy analyst and R2P advocate Stephen Baranyi, "for fourth generation peace operations and approaches in fragile states."

"One problem is that the strategic interests of major Western powers – and not R2P criteria like massive human rights violations – drove decisions to intervene in these cases."

The credibility of R2P is "damaged," writes Baranyi, by "de facto collaboration with paramilitary leaders" and a lack of "open debate."

In calling for an "open debate," Baranyi is alone.

Ignatieff has been applauded by some for his candor in examining the results of the Iraq invasion he once backed. In the case of Haiti, however, there has been none of the introspection or public self-questioning that have proven to be such an effective component of Ignatieff's rhetorical arsenal.

As Liberal leader, Ignatieff continues to advocate for R2P. He now mentions Burma, Zimbabwe and Sudan as possible candidates for R2P interventions. The "test case" of Haiti is no longer cited.

Former Prime Minister Paul Martin remarked of Ignatieff, with unwitting insight: "Michael has inherited both a very deep understanding of Canada's role in the world and of, in fact, the kinds of upheavals that the world is capable of thrusting upon unsuspecting populations."

Dru Oja Jay is an editor with The Dominion.

Ignatieff at Conference

Israel Bombs Gaza, Killing Hundreds

dru — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 23:24:34 +0000

Emergency demonstrations attract thousands worldwide

MONTREAL, QUEBEC–On December 27, 2008, Israeli military forces initiated "Operation Cast Lead," a bombing offensive against the Gaza Strip. F-16 jets and Apache helicopters, which are manufactured in part in Canada and largely paid for by an estimated $3 billion in annual US military aid, dropped 100 tonnes of bombs in the first day. Reported targets included municipal buildings, police stations, mosques, homes, cross-border tunnels, and a university. According to on-the-ground reports, facilities that have been hit by bombs include hospitals, medical storage facilities and fuel depots.

As of December 30, over 363 people have been killed, and over 1,700 injured. According to a UN report, at least 39 of the deaths were children. Casualties have thus far included government functionaries, children, women, traffic police in training, and bystanders. In some cases, attacks began when children were on their way home from school.

Operation Cast Lead was named in reference to a children's Channukah song written by Israel's national poet, Hayyim Nahman Bialik. The attacks began on the sixth day of the Jewish festival of lights, an official holiday in Israel.

The aim of the operation, according to Israeli officials' initial comments, was to put a stop to Palestinian rocket and mortar attacks against towns close to the Gaza strip, such as Sderot and Ashqelon. In the last seven years, an estimated 24 Israelis (16 within Israel, eight in now-vacated Gaza settlements) have been killed and 433 have been injured by Palestinian rocket and mortar attacks. The attacks have caused post-traumatic stress disorder among residents of the affected towns.

"After this operation there will not be a single Hamas building left standing in Gaza, and we plan to change the rules of the game," armed forces deputy chief of staff Brigadier General Dan Harel told journalists.

"We are hitting not only terrorists and launchers, but also the whole Hamas government and all its wings," he added.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak has said that Israeli forces "will expand to a ground attack if that is needed."

Since Israeli forces vacated settlements and pulled out of Gaza in 2005, they have maintained control over Gaza's airspace, borders, and coastal waters. Since 2007, in response to the election of Hamas, Israel has maintained a tightening siege of Gaza. Shipments of food, fuel, clothing, cooking oil and medicine have been severely restricted, and many Gazans rely on cross-border tunnels to smuggle in basic supplies. Malnutrition affects an estimated 70 per cent of Gaza's population of 1.5 million. After Israeli forces bombed Gaza's main power plant in 2006, the sole remaining plant fell into disrepair, leaving the majority of Gazans without electricity. Israel has turned away several ships carrying food and aid supplies.

Ehud Olmert's advisor, Dov Weisglass, described the siege thus: "The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not make them die of hunger."

Demonstrations and Criticism

Immediately following the bombing, emergency protests were organized around the world, with tens of thousands taking to the streets in England, Denmark, Italy, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, India, Australia, New Zealand, and many other countries.

In Canada, emergency protests brought out an estimated 200 in Halifax, 600 in Montreal, 200 in Ottawa, 800 in Toronto, and 300 in Vancouver. Additional demonstrations are planned in Montreal, Vancouver and Winnipeg.

The New Democratic Party called on the government of Canada to immediately call for an end to the attacks. The Liberal Party and the Conservative government both released statements supporting Israel's "right to defend itself" and condemning rocket attacks.

"The people who’ve been subjected to this don’t have the right to defend themselves, but Israel has the right to defend," Dr. Ismail Zayid said to reporters at a protest in Halifax.

Demonstrators in Montreal shouted slogans like "Israel assassin, Harper complice" (Israel assassinates, Harper is complicit) and "Québec, Gaza, solidarité."

A press release from the Toronto-based Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid condemned what it called "the single worst massacre in Gaza since it was illegally occupied in 1967," and called for an end to the "two-year siege" that "has restricted all flow of aid, medical supplies, fuel and other necessities of life into the territory."

Vancouver organizers also condemned "official US and Canadian complicity."

"Targeting Hamas targets, when any civilian employed by the Hamas government, be they traffic police, civil police or in the Ministries, counts as a target, is an immoral declaration of war against a civilian population," Canadian Gaza-based solidarity activist Eva Bartlett wrote in a blog entry.

In Israel, some observers have ascribed the attacks to positioning for Israeli elections coming in February. "Israeli leaders are competing over who is the toughest and who is ready to kill more," Michael Warschawski of the Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem told journalist Jonathan Cook. Writing shortly before the bombing began, Yoel Marcus observed that "the hysterical reaction by the public as a whole and politicians in particular stems mainly from the fact that the country is in an election period."

Ali Abunimah called for increased support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, initiated in 2005 by Palestinian Civil Society organizations. "Palestinians everywhere are asking for solidarity, real solidarity, in the form of sustained, determined political action," Abunimah wrote on the day the bombing began.

Media coverage was criticized for omitting the historical context of Palestinian dispossession. Writing in the Independent, Robert Fisk said, "The fact that the five sisters killed in Jabalya camp had grandparents who came from the very land whose more recent owners have now bombed them to death simply does not appear" in media coverage of the bombing.

Dru Oja Jay is an editor at the Dominion.

Gaza Protest, London

Gaza Montreal

Pain Compliance as Indigenous Relations

dru — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 18:54:07 +0000

Inside the Barriere Lake Algonquins' blockade of highway 117

I'm perched on an embankment overlooking Highway 117, an obscure but economically important link between Montreal and northern Quebec. To look at most maps, there's nothing here, five hours north of Montreal, well out of the cottage towns and ski resorts of the Laurentians and still two hours short of the cluster of resource extraction economies around Val d'Or (in English, Valley of Gold), where mining now focuses more on metals like copper, zinc and lead. I'm in the middle of a four hour stretch where most travellers could be forgiven for thinking was nothing but a few hunting lodges, logging roads and Hydro Quebec turnouts.

A girl, young enough that I have to bend down to hear what she's saying, climbs up the embankment and points at the highway.

"Look where we're colouring," she says.

I look. In the middle of the highway, a handful of kids--her age--are gathered around a card table, drawing on sheets of paper and colouring books with markers. Next to them, a dozen protesters hold signs, facing away from the kids' table. The signs say things like "no more pepper spray/arrests/batons," and "honour signed agreements."

Beyond the protesters, several trees lay across the road. A large banner reads "Honour your word," and "protect the environment, share the land's wealth."

Beyond the banner, a row of green-uniformed police officers spans the highway. They are slowly advancing.

As they get closer, the protesters begin yelling at the police.

"All we want is our agreement."

"Go home."

"Send in a negotiator."

The girl is standing beside me. "I'm scared," she says matter-of-factly.

The police advance slowly, advancing several steps, then stopping. Advancing again.

The line of police divides, leaving an opening. A column of perhaps fifty riot police emerges. They wear gas masks, oversized helmets in the Death Star style, and body armour under baggy uniforms. Each one carries a black baton. At times, some of them will hit their black-gloved hand with the baton, making what, to the person behind the mask, was probably a satisfying smack.

The police officer in charge issues a half-hearted warning over the cries of increasingly angry demonstrators.

"Leave the highway, or you will be arrested."

Seeing the masked troops, some run. I notice several children fleeing, but others stay, and more gather on the highway to protect the blockade. Elders and youth are the most abundant. I later realize that most of the adults cannot risk arrest because of conditions imposed on them after previous demonstrations.

The riot police silently line up on the far side of the highway, and begin pushing the demonstrators back. A crowd has gathered in front of the police, holding signs and yelling at the police. A scuffle breaks out, cops pulling protesters, protesters pulling their own away. An elder is arrested. I run on to the highway, trying to get a closer look.

Behind the colouring table, there is a row of concrete-filled barrels with PVC pipe running through them. A mix of Algonquin demonstrators and supporters from Ottawa and Montreal have attached their arms to these "lock boxes" with rope and carabiners in an attempt to forestall police breaking up the blockade. Next to them are tables and campfires, which a short time ago were used to serve bacon and eggs, and then beaver and moose, to those gathered at the blockade. Several people whose trips had been delayed by the blockade had joined in, drinking tea from pots warmed by small campfires, before police separated onlookers from blockade participants.

Seperated by a 100-metre buffer zone, the police could nonetheless be heard cracking jokes about "caisses de bieres," an eerie allusion to police transcripts revealed by the Ipperwash Inquiry, where police made racist jokes about Dudley George before they shot and killed him.

It also brought to mind the slur that made headlines a week before, when Algonquin spokesperson Norman Matchewan confronted regional Member of Parliament and cabinet Minister Lawrence Cannon. Speaking to Matchewan, Cannon's assistant said that negotiations could be conducted "if you're sober." She was caught on camera, and the "gaffe" was eventually reported coast to coast as one more example of a dangerous misstep by Harper's otherwise disciplined election campaign.

The onlookers were unable to see the sign advertising a ban on alcohol and drugs from the blockade, but that was a fraction of the gap between the Algonquins' understanding of the situation and those of the Quebeckers. It's a gap that is too often filled with racist assumptions before it can inspire curiosity.

I hear a loud pop. People scream, run away. Acrid white smoke billows from a canister launched by police, and I feel a familiar hollow sting in my throat and sinuses. My eyes burn, and well up, but I'm relatively unaffected. Elders, youth and kids around me are coughing and choking, tears streaming down faces. Another canister is launched. More running and tears. The police, apparently aware of existing negative connotations, will later deny that they used tear gas, preferring the term "chemical irritant".

A single CBC radio reporter maneuvres around tear gas and riot police, holding her microphone, looking stunned. The television cameras left an hour or so ago.

Immune to the effects of the gas, riot police rush to push people off the highway. The people in lock-boxes are still there, caught, for the moment, in the tear gas. One demonstrator stays behind to wipe their faces with water to lessen the effects. He will be tackled by three riot cops and arrested later.

Police move to shield the remaining blockaders from view, forming a human wall around the lock-boxes. Peering between riot police standing with batons at the ready, we can see an official (he's wearing a different uniform) giving orders. We see those locked in kicking or flailing in agony. We will later learn that police used "pain compliance" methods. We will hear from those who were locked in that the police pinched and pushed at pressure points, causing severe pain. We will hear that police told those locked in that by remaining, they were causing more pain to their comrades. We will hear that police used a crowbar to attempt to pry one blockader's arm loose. We will hear about sexual harassment. We will argue about whether or not "torture" is too strong a word to describe what the police did. We will decide that causing someone pain in order to convince them to do something they do not want to do does in fact qualify as torture, but that the media will not take us seriously if we use that word. An elder will say that "pain compliance" is a good description of the government's policies towards the Algonquins of Barriere Lake.

Barriere Lake is where we're headed now, though not voluntarily. Every few minutes, the assembled riot police rush forward, pushing the fifty or so demonstrators further up the access road that leads to Rapid Lake, the fifty-nine acre reserve that is, for the federal and provincial governments, the only officially recognized territory of the 500-member community of Barriere Lake, named for its traditional summer settlement at a nearby lake. The reserve was created in 1961.

Though they have lived here for thousands of years, the rest of the territory has been treated as terra nullius, empty land, and exploited accordingly. Hydro Quebec has built dams without consulting the community, in at least one case submerging a burial ground. Later, they improved their behaviour by notifying the community ahead of planned dam construction. The community was forced to move another burial ground to a nearby island.

Logging companies were allowed to clear the land with impunity, and with no benefit to the community. For years, community members peacefully blockaded logging roads, risking violence from loggers and violence from police.

Despite the presence of several Hydro Quebec dams, the community is still powered by a diesel generator. According to one estimate, $100 million in revenue is extracted from the Barriere Lake Algonquins' traditional territory every year. Of that $100 million, the community receives nothing, and employment opportunities are scarce.

Many of those at the blockade had been sent to residential schools as children. There, they were abused physically and sexually, and punished for speaking their mother tongue. The psychological legacy of this trauma has been compounded by the enforced austerity of the reserve, where unemployment, deep poverty and inadequate housing is the norm. Families sleep as many as 15 to a house, and many houses have fallen into disrepair.

Against this seemingly desperate backdrop, the community's resilience is impressive. Elders say that their connection to the land, which they see as intimately tied to their language, is alive and well. Community members hunt for food, rely on traditional knowledge to gather medicine and food, and are well acquainted with the land they still live on, despite the 59-acre boundary.

Their resilience extends to political dealings. After years of peaceful blockades of logging roads, the community signed the Trilateral Agreement with Canada and Quebec, a landmark resource-sharing agreement that was praised by the UN. One academic observer wrote that the agreement "constitutes a category of its own and is unmatched in its vision as well as in the problems its proponents have had to overcome."

"This Agreement was designed to address a situation, where a small aboriginal community, the Algonquins of Barriere Lake in La Verendrye Park, pursuing an essentially land-based way of life, saw themselves confronted with aggressive resource exploitation in their traditional use area..."

Cognizant that government policy does not recognize and accommodate aboriginal title to the land (at least, not in the current political climate), they came up with an innovative approach of curbing the logging, recreational hunting and damming that had taken place on their traditional territory while giving the community a say in where and when outside uses of the land would happen. The community spent considerable time and resources mapping out all of its traditional use areas, detailing their uses of the indigenous plant and animal life. The report advocates policies that "sustain and expand the environmental resource base," while enabling their traditional way of life to continue.

The first phase of the agreement was signed in 1991. Since then, the Federal and Provincial governments have done much to try to back out of it. Twice, they have played politics with divisions within the community, imposing minority faction Band governments against the customary leadership selection rules that Indian Affairs is supposed to uphold.

The last time they did that was in March. Under a Third Party Manager imposed by Indian Affairs in 2006, new staff were placed in schools, who punished children for speaking Algonquin. Peaceful blockades attempting to keep the imposed band chief off the reserve were met with pepper spray and arrests. Members of the last legitimately appointed chief and council and their supporters have faced systematic police harassment.

Since March, the Algonquins of Barriere Lake have demonstrated several times, always demanding the same things: that the government observe a leadership reselection process and acknowledge the result, and that the government uphold its obligations under the Trilateral Agreement. They have been to Ottawa several times. In one case, Algonquins and several supporters (I was among them) staged a sit-in in Lawrence Cannon's office.

Rather than promise to meet the demands or negotiate with the protesters, Cannon ordered police to remove us. Six were arrested.

Media coverage has been anemic. Officials have taken the cynical but effective tack of framing it as a complicated situation, with many competing interests and personalities. The truth of this is allowed to overshadow, if not block out completely, what is straightforward about the agreement, the community, and their desire to be able to continue their way of life and govern themselves with dignity. Faced with deadlines, journalists do the equivalent of throwing their hands in the air, allowing themselves to reduce Barriere Lake's conflict with the government to a "dispute" over "leadership". Racist assumptions do the heavy lifting, and the message becomes "Indians fighting over money."

A kid is in the back of a truck that's moving away from the advancing line of riot police. He's got a faux-gold-encrusted cap on that reads "millionaire." He sings the chorus of War's 1975 single:

"Why can't we be friends, why can't weee be friends."

The police are pushing us further up the access road that leads to the reserve. The Algonquins begin to react as if to an insult.

"What, are you going to walk with us all the way to Rapid Lake?"

"Are you going to trap us on that fifty-nine acres?"

"We'll keep coming back, we'll keep fighting."

The last protesters, isolated from hearing the yells of demonstrators, and made to feel excruciating pain with blankets over their heads, "clip out" from the lock-boxes, but we can no longer see them. The police have pushed us a few hundred metres back. Algonquins fall trees in the road and build fires to block their advance. The riot police step around the fires and keep coming.

It is past dark, five kilometres away from the highway, at the reserve. A former chief walks by.

"I guess we've got their answer, eh?"

He smiles as he says it.

Community members have gathered around a campfire. An elder addresses the non-native supporters.

"We're glad you came," she said.

"Now you see what they do to us."

Kids on the reserve are playing police-themed versions of childhood games. "I arrested you."

It's the next morning. The community is preparing a feast for the afternoon. Moose meat, fried bannock, fish caught between shifts at the blockade. An elder sits in his kitchen, fielding calls from the media. The coverage of the blockade and subsequent attack, initially minimal, has expanded to some of the national newspapers and radio. Countless organizations are hearing about Barriere Lake for the first time.

"We're going to keep fighting."

His tone makes it clear that there was never any doubt.

» Watch a Video of the events described here

» View more photos of the blockade

Kid with sign

Kids with Signs

Police attempt arrest

January in Review

dru — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 03:35:43 +0000

News from social movements

Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI)-- aka "Big Trout Lake"-- Chief Donny Morris announced that he is ready to go to jail to defend his community's sovereignty. "I'm prepared to give myself up if the court decides I've disrespected the November ruling to allow Platinex on our land. I'm prepared to acknowledge that," Morris stated in a press release. Two years ago Ontario-based mining company Platinex sued the KI First Nation for $10 billion for preventing mining on their land in the far northwest of Ontario. In November 2007, KI withdrew from the legal proceedings, citing over $600,000 in debt accumulated while fighting the province and Platinex. Morris' contempt of court charges stemmed from an encounter with Platinex, where the chief escorted officials from the company back to their plane, and threatened to file trespassing charges if they came back. Observers expect the people of the remote fly-in community to continue to resist attempts by Platinex to mine their lands. Future resistance, however, is unlikely to be undertaken through the courts.

Six Nations leaders have put towns and cities along the Grand River on notice that the land still belongs to the people of Six Nations. The stretch of land, which extends from Lake Erie to the area lying to the northwest of Toronto, was granted to the Six Nations Confederacy in the 1784 Haldimand Proclamation. "There's no more of this sweeping it under the rug. It's not OK to steal land anymore and we're going to make people aware of that," one representative told the CBC.

Three hundred supporters of Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey, the first two war resisters to cross into Canada after refusing to deploy to Iraq with the US military, gathered in Toronto calling upon the Canadian parliament to pass a motion allowing them to remain in Canada. The rally was attended by Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae, as well as Toronto NDP MP Olivia Chow. Similar rallies and actions were held in 11 cities across the country. Days before, a rally of 50 Iraq veterans gathered at the Canadian Embassy in Washington urging the Canadian government to provide sanctuary to all military service personnel looking to escape deployments with the US military. In November the Canadian Supreme Court refused to hear the cases of Hinzman and Hughey, on the grounds that they had previously been turned down by the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board, which considered the illegality of the Iraq war under international law inadmissible. There are at least 30 war resisters in Canada at the moment.

A group calling itself the Wreath Underground vandalized buildings on Vancouver's University of British Columbia (UBC) campus. The group released a communiqué, taking credit for the actions and opposing commercial and Olympic-related developments that resulted in the destruction of public space on campus. The action comes in the context of an ongoing campaign by Students for a Democratic Society UBC (SDS-UBC) to prevent further privatization of public spaces on the UBC campus. SDS-UBC says the University's development plan's purpose "is to make the centre of campus a corporate/private space to which students only have access as customers or condo owners/renters." SDS-UBC is organizing a conference in March entitled "Resisting the University," which will address "privatization and commodification of education."

Hundreds rallied and marched in Montreal in support of Abdelkader Belaouni, a 40-year old blind Algerian refugee who has been living in sanctuary in St. Gabriel's Church for over two years. Solidarity pickets and embassy visits were also held in most major cities across Canada and in several cities internationally, including Tokyo, New York, Beirut, Paris, Durban, and London. Belaouni's supporters were demanding that federal Minister of Immigration Diane Finley grant a stay of the deportation order, and grant him permanent resident status in Canada. Belaouni fled Algeria's brutal civil war in 1996, arriving first in the United States. He came to Montreal in 2003 and applied for refugee status. His application was rejected by Immigration and Refugee Board judge Laurier Thibault, who had close to a 100% rejection rate amongst refugee claimants. Belaouni entered sanctuary in early 2006, and has since received international support for his case, including from Laibar Singh, currently in sanctuary in Vancouver. Said Singh in a statement issued days before the solidarity march: "The Canadian government says it raises its voice for the less fortunate around the world but if it can't see us, who can it see?"

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Derek Sikua affirmed his full support of the Australian-dominated occupation force, known as RAMSI. The force, consisting of over 2,000 soldiers, along with bureaucrats and "advisors," who took effective control of much of the Islands' state apparatus, including prisons, police, courts, public service, and central bank. Critics called the move a "neo-colonial" effort to "safeguard Australian corporate interests and maintain its regional domination." Former Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare had angered Australian diplomats when he moved to roll back some of RAMSI's powers over spending and pave the way for an eventual withdrawal. He was ousted in a parliamentary vote, and replaced with a Sikua-led coalition, which has been enthusiastically current pro-occupation.

Despite Canada's official stance of non-participation in the invasion of Iraq, another Canadian general has been sent to work with the command group overseeing the US-led occupation and counterinsurgency war. Brigadier-General Nicolas Matern of the Special Forces is the third Canadian general to serve in the command group, as part of an inter-military exchange program. According to a report from the US State Dept., "the governments of the United States and Canada collaborated on a broad array of initiatives, exercises, and joint operations that spanned virtually all agencies and every level of government."

An anti-Olympics speaking tour visited 18 cities and Indigenous communities, calling attention to destruction caused by development fuelled by the Olympics. "There is an infrastructure being created for 2010 that will result in the further destruction of mountains and valleys that are traditionally Salish, St’at’imc, and Squamish territory," said Dustin Johnson. Resistance to "Sun Peaks" development on Secwepemc lands, one of many areas affected by the Olympics, extends back a decade. There have been dozens of arrests, and government-supervised destruction of a house and two traditional sweatlodges. Johnson and Kanahus Pellkey of the Native Youth Movement are calling for direct action to shut down the Olympic Games.

Itchy the Bedbug, Creepy the Cockroach and Chewy the Rat will be the official mascots of Vancouver's Poverty Olympics. Organizers, who hope to draw attention to Vancouver's "world class poverty," decried the lack of funding for social housing and the devastating effect of rapid gentrification on Vancouver's vast population of poor and homeless.

A recent report estimated that between 8,000 and 15,500 British Columbia residents are "absolutely homeless," while an estimated 39,000 are "inadequately housed." BC Forest and Housing Minister Rich Coleman had previously estimated the number of homeless at roughly 5,000.

A Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) report warned of the possibility of "violent protests" during the Olympic Games in 2010. The heavily-censored public version of the report has raised concerns about "how far CSIS will go." "We're more than a little worried about the potential for infiltration of non-profit societies and legitimate protest groups," a representative of the BC Civil Liberties Association told the Canadian Press. The Anti-Poverty Committee (APC) is one of the groups targeted by police and intelligence agencies. APC representative Mary Claremont said, "This is what we have been protesting... the coming Olympic police state. People thought we were nuts, but look, from 40 kilometers of electric fence, surveillance cameras, civil city, CSIS... it's here."

A group of academics and media watch groups filed a complaint with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), alleging that media coverage of the attempted deportation of Laibar Singh was "not accurate... or comprehensive". CBC TV, CBC Radio, CKNW, CTV, and Global TV are cited in the complaint, which states that Singh was falsely said to have come to Canada "illegally" or that he "was illegal" in Canada prior to taking sanctuary. The complaint says that repetition of falsities despite widely available accurate information "fuelled ignorance in the public sphere and has negatively influenced perceptions of Mr. Laibar Singh and all asylum seekers to Canada."

Security Certificate detainee Mohammed Harkat was seized, then released again by Police and Canadian Border Services agents. Widely referred to in media reports as a "terrorism suspect" Harkat is being held without charges under Bill C-3, "anti-terrorism" legislation passed after September 11, 2001. "I think it's a political move," Sophie Harkat told the Ottawa Citizen in an interview, adding that the government seeks to "stir fear" in the leadup to a vote over bill C-3. If the government does not vote to renew Bill C-3 before the end of March, existing security certificates--including the one under which Harkat is being held--will be struck down, in keeping with a Supreme Court ruling that found the legislation unconstitutional.

Alberta tar sands giant Suncor has given final approval for a plan to increase output by 200,000 barrels per day in a $20 billion expansion project. The company says that the increase is part of a plan to double the company's output to 550,000 barrels per day by 2012.

Energy company TransCanada has moved forward with plans to build a natural gas pipeline across unceded territory belonging to the Lubicon Cree. In a letter to TransCanada, Lubicon legal counsel F. M. Lennarson wrote that the "response of the Lubicon people is that they are the aboriginal owners of the land that TransCanada wishes to violate with this huge new pipeline." The pipeline will transport natural gas to the tar sands, allowing for expanded tar sands processing capacity.

Ecuadorian officials revoked a total of 587 mining concessions effectively cancelling Canadian-based Ascendant Copper’s bid to the controversial Junin Project. The transnational corporation is under intense scrutiny for impacts on local communities and environmental degradation. Human rights lawyers contend that the mere purchase of the mining concession is in breach of community members’ rights, and Ecuador’s constitution.

Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra was at the center of a political scandal in the United States involving Bill Clinton and a mining deal in Kazakhstan potentially worth tens of millions of dollars. According to the New York Times, Giustra gained access to Clinton's inner circle after he donated $31 million dollars to the former US President's foundation. Giustra subsequently accompanied Clinton on a trip to Kazakhstan, where he signed a deal that "stunned the mining industry, turning an unknown shell company into one of the world’s largest uranium producers," according to the Times.

George Habash, Palestinian leader, and founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), died January 26th, 2008 at the age of eighty-two after six decades of struggle. Habash dreamt of Arab unity and an end to the dispossession of Palestinians. Seen by supporters as “the conscience of the Palestinian revolution,” Habash effected his politic treating the poor for free as a medical doctor, and through the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the largest secular resistance group in Palestine. U.S., Canadian, and Israeli governments have branded Habash as a terrorist for bombings and hijackings carried out by the PFLP during the 1970’s. Many Palestinians, however will remember Habash as a man who “embodied Palestinian and Arab aspirations.”

Despite reports of rising environmental consciousness among Canadians, car ownership and usage is on the rise. A study conducted by Statistics Canada found that 74 per cent of Canadian adults made all of their trips by car. A similar study in 1998 found 70 per cent using cars for all of their trips, while the number was 68 per cent in 1992. The study found a strong connection between low density neighbourhoods and high car use, while those living in high-density neighbourhoods were relatively far less likely to use cars.

Representatives from Venezuela's grassroots social movements gathered to discuss ways to advance a grassroots socialist agenda, while addressing growing bureaucracy within the Chavez-led government. "There is a reformist sector that has been working internally to construct a force to build a counterweight to the revolutionary sector that is in the government," said one participant. Another spoke of a "return to the street," adding "we didn't realize that the bureaucracy isolated us from this reality and this deterioration in which we are living."

In response to the ongoing Israeli siege of Gaza, a convoy of Arab and Israeli peace activists held a demonstration of between 1500 and 2000 at the Eretz border crossing, calling for an end to the Israeli siege of the Gaza strip and the immediate lifting of the blockade of badly needed medical equipment, fuel, and food. The demonstration, which was organized by organizations such as Gush-Shalom and the International Coalition Against House Demolitions, was held in conjunction with the delivery of 5 tons of food aid to the border crossing near Gaza city. A demonstration of 200 Palestinians was held in Gaza at the same time, from which speeches were broadcast to the Eretz gathering via amplified cellphones. The Israeli military barred the aid supplies from entry into Gaza, ordering that they be stored at a nearby Kibbutz. Organizers have pledged to petition the Israeli supreme court in order to allow the aid supplies to be delivered to Gaza, where 83 Palestinians, including 16 children, have died due to the ongoing Israeli siege.

NYM Speaking Tour

Haldimand Tract

What the Tar Sands Need

dru — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 20:39:45 +0000

Processing requires massive inputs of water, energy, land, labour

Water

For each barrel of oil produced from the tar sands, between two and 4.5 barrels of water is needed. The water is used in the process of extracting bitumen from the naturally occurring the tar sand. The bitumen is later "upgraded" into synthetic crude oil.

In 2007, the government of Alberta approved the withdrawal of 119.5 billion gallons of water for tar sands extraction, of which an estimated 82 per cent came from the Athabasca River. Of that, extraction companies were only required to return 10 billion gallons to the river.

Most of the water used ends up in giant, toxic tailing ponds. As of 2006, tailing ponds covered 50-square kilometers of former boreal forest. By 2010, according to the Oil Sands Tailings Research Facility, the industry will have generated 8 billion tons of waste sand and 1 billion cubic metres of waste water--enough to fill 400,000 olympic-sized swimming pools. Today, the largest human-made dam by volume of materials is the Syncrude tailing pond, a few kilometres from the Athabasca river.

The waste sand and water contain naphtha and paraffin, which are used in the extraction process, and oil leftovers like benzene, naphthenic acid and polyaromatic hydrocarbon, among others. Chemicals found in the tailing ponds are known to cause liver problems and brain hemorrhaging in mammals, and deformities and death in birds.

It is difficult to estimate the volume of toxins that make their way into the Athabsca, but downstream communities like Fort Chipewyan have reported high occurrences of rare cancers, lupus, multiple sclerosis and other diseases in recent years. Local fishermen have reported boils and deformities in fish. One winter, an oil slick was discovered under the ice. Syncrude later admitted that there had been a spill about 200 kilometres upstream.

The Athabasca also feeds Great Slave Lake, Deh Cho (the Mackenzie River) and vast northern watersheds. Water from the Athabasca flows all the way to the Arctic Ocean, and plays an essential role in the lives of indigenous communities and vast areas of Boreal forest.

Energy

Between digging up the tar sand, separating out the bitumen, and subsequently upgrading it to synthetic heavy crude, the extraction process requires vast amounts of energy. Because the tar sand and bitumen must be heated, about 1/6 of the energy provided by a barrel of oil is expended to extract one barrel of oil from tar sand.

Opponents of the tar sands say that burning a relatively clean fuel like natural gas to produce oil undermines any efforts to reduce climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions and transition to sustainable fuel sources. According to estimates from the Pembina Institute, the tar sands will account for 25 per cent of Canada's emissions by 2020, if Kyoto targets are reached.

The vast amounts of natural gas needed to extract millions of barrels of oil per day are leading to an anticipated shortage of supply. As a result, several energy megaprojects have been proposed.

Perhaps the most contentious of the proposals is the $7 billion Mackenzie Gas Project, a 1220 kilometre pipeline that runs along the Mackenzie River Valley, from the Arctic Ocean to Alberta's northern border. The project would connect the estimated 82 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the Mackenzie River delta with the tar sands extraction plants to the south.

A second project, the Alaska Gas Pipeline would connect Alaska's north slope, home to an estimated 35 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, with the Mackenzie valley route.

In part to make up for the natural gas supply taken up by the tar sands, Liquid Natural Gas terminals have been proposed in multiple locations on the west coast, east coast and along the Saint Lawrence Seaway. The terminals would receive natural gas from tankers incoming from the Middle East, Russia and other overseas sources.

Natural gas supply is still not enough to keep up with anticipated growth, leading industry to explore options such as nuclear power. Alberta's first nuclear power plant has been proposed in the town of Peace River, though it has faced some local opposition.

Much to the dismay of environmentalists, there is also discussion of building new coal-burning power plants into future tar sands upgrading facilities.

Labour

The Conference Board of Canada predicted in 2006 that Alberta would face a shortage of 332,000 workers by 2025. The figure has been dismissed as exaggerated (it is based on the current rate of growth continuing unimpeded), but it seems to be an accurate reflection of the concern Alberta's industrial sector has shown recently.

That tar sands require a massive influx of labour is not disputed. Another estimate says that 20,000 new positions will be created in the tar sands over the next three years.

The signs of a labour shortage are already apparent in Alberta. Workers from Newfoundland and the Maritimes are offered flights to and from Fort McMurray for the duration of their work term. Grocery stores and fast food joints offer hourly wages in the double digits, and sometimes offer signing bonuses.

Increasingly, workers are brought in from countries like China and the Philippines. In 2006, Immigration Canada issued 15,172 new "temporary work permits" in Alberta, bringing the number of temporary workers to 22,392.

Temporary workers differ from immigrants in that they have no access to immigration services, and can effectively be sent home. According to some reports, the workers' temporary status leaves the door open to abuse. In one case, 12 men brought in by a trucking company were charged $500 per month to live in a three-bedroom bungalow.

The temporary foreign workers program has sparked a debate over the development of the tar sands.

"Most skilled workers would prefer to have 20 years of stable employment rather than seven or eight years of frantic development," writes Gil McGowan of the Alberta Federation of Labour. If the pace of development was slowed, he writes, the need for temporary foreign workers would diminish.

Currently, development is heading in the opposite direction, with plans to increase production fivefold in the next twenty years. Regulations are being "streamlined," and plans are in place to further increase the number of foreign workers.

Land

Open pit mining of tar sands, according to the Government of Alberta, involves "clearing trees and brush from a site and removing the overburden - the topsoil, muskeg, sand, clay and gravel - that sits atop the oil sands deposit." The "overburden" that is removed is up to 75 metres (about 25 stories) deep, and the underlying tar sands are typically between 40 and 60 metres deep.

After trees and brush are clearcut and either burned or sent to sawmills, the area is drained, and any local rivers are rerouted. Giant trucks then remove soil, clay and sand to uncover the prized tar sands. The sands are then removed and taken to plants to be processed. In the end, an average of four tonnes of earth must be removed to render one barrel of oil.

In addition to tailing ponds (see "Water"), vast amounts of waste sand are generated. These sands, still containing traces of bitumen and other chemicals, are inhospitable to life. Near Syncrude's extraction plant, for example, a vast desert stretches over the horizon. The expanse shows no signs of life, and carries the overpowering smell of asphalt.

The tar sands cover an estimated 141,000-square kilometres, of which approximately 3,400-square kilometres will be strip mined if currently-approved projects go forward.

Government regulations require the strip-mined land to be "reclaimed," and returned to a "stable, biologically self-sustaining state." According to Syncrude's web site, this means "productive capability at least equal to its condition before operations began." Syncrude envisions "a mosaic landscape dominated by productive forests, wetland areas alive with waterfowl and grasslands supporting grazing animals."

So far, Suncor says it has reclaimed 858 hectares, accounting for less than 9 per cent of the land it has mined since 1967. Syncrude has mined 18,653 hectares, a little under a fifth of which it says it has reclaimed.

None of the land, however, has been officially certified as reclaimed by the government. Both corporations have billboard advertisements in Fort McMurray proclaiming the success of their reclamation programs. In the end, it is not clear that land will be fully reclaimed, and government agencies have been criticized as lax in enforcing regulations.

Water

Can Pew's Charity be Trusted?

dru — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 18:36:30 +0000

US foundations give millions to Canadian environmental groups

Since major foundations in the US began funding environmental groups in the late 1980s, many grassroots environmental activists have sounded the alarm about the rise of the "Big Greens." Featuring six-figure salaries and foundation funding, critics say the large environmental NGOs coopt grassroots movements and excercise control over what issues are brought up.

Recently, some activists are warning of a similar shift in Canada. In 2006, land-use planner Petr Cizek wrote an article for Canadian Dimension, calling attention to millions of dollars from US foundations being given to Canadian environmental groups.

The money comes from the Pew Charitable Trusts, which is endowed by the fortune of Joseph Pew and his heirs, as well as more recent donors. Joseph Pew founded Sun Oil, now Sunoco, a US oil company with revenues of $36 billion in 2006. Under Pew, Sun Oil also founded Suncor, a Canadian counterpart to Sun Oil and currently one of the two largest operations in Alberta's tar sands. Suncor has been independent since 1995.

Sunoco's US refineries process synthetic crude oil from the tar sands. According to a 2004 Philadelphia Inquirer report, a Sunoco-run Ohio refinery processes 100,000 barrels of synthetic crude per day.

The Pew foundation's original mission reflects on "the evils of bureaucracy, the paralyzing effects of government controls on the lives and activities of people, and the values of the free market." Pew money has funded many right-wing Christian groups and conservative think tanks, including the Heritage Foundation, the John Birch Society, and the American Enterprise Institute.

In the early 1990s, the Pew Trusts began funding environmental groups.

Since 2003, Pew has spent about $41 million on programs on the Canadian boreal forest. Much of this money went environmental and aboriginal groups, and came into Canada via through the Canadian Boreal Initiative (CBI). CBI is technically a project of Ducks Unlimited, a conservation group operating in the US and Canada, though this relationship is not stated in materials on CBI's web site. CBI has no board of directors, and no official status as an organization other than its affiliation with Ducks Unlimited. Critics point out that there that this leaves no mechanism for holding CBI accountable for how it uses its money.

According to Executive Director Larry Innes, CBI gives out approximately $2 million per year, though the figure varies. The money is disbursed in roughly equal measure to conservation NGOs and aboriginal groups. Suncor, among others, is listed as one of CBI's "industry partners."

Does the money have an effect on the groups' agenda? "Our role is convener and talent scout," says Innes. CBI's aim is to be "in a position to advance conservation objectives." In many cases, CBI sets up meetings between industry, aboriginal groups and conservationists in order to establish common priorities.

Lindsay Telfer, director of the Sierra Club's Prairie Region, which has received CBI funding in the past, says that groups need to be careful with funding sources.

"Is there a risk that some environmental groups are going to go down a more conservative path because they get funding? I don't doubt that," Telfer told the Dominion. "We have to keep our eyes on our mandates and our goals."

"I believe I've lost funding because of our positions on the tar sands, but where I've lost it, I've picked it up in other places," says Telfer. "It's a difficult debate, because in some ways all money is dirty money."

"The question to ask is, 'Are there ties to how that money is being spent?'"

Cizek says his critique of Pew funding "doesn't have to do with whether money is tainted, but whether a funder directly interferes with the agenda of an environmental organization."

"The Pew Charitable Trusts have consistently set up front groups" that act as a drag on the overall demands of environmental groups, Cizek says.

He sees a "pattern of funding from CBI" corresponding to "a pattern of incredible timidity among the mainstream environmental organizations, who don't seem to be able to take a principled stand on anything." Cizek notes that Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) and the World Wildlife Federation (WWF), two major recipients of CBI funding listed as "partners" in CBI's TV ads, have taken a "low-hanging fruit" strategy of lobbying for protection of areas that are of little interest to industry.

Innes says CBI was founded to address a "tremendous opportunity to do development differently in Canada." The opportunity, Innes say, is the culmination of a series of trends in conservation work: the recognition of treaty rights, the willingness of some corporations to embrace "sustainable practices," and the trend among conservationists to protect entire areas instead of chasing biodiversity "hotspots".

"It's one thing to walk in as an environmental group" and speak to policymakers, says Innes, "and another thing to walk in as an environmental group, shoulder to shoulder with First Nations and industry representatives and saying, 'we've got a solution.'"

The CBI is "pretty up-front about wanting to protect at least half of Canada's boreal, and do responsible management where development is going to occur," says Innes.

It's this industry-friendly approach to conservation that many activists object to. The problem with the consensus-building approach, critics say, is that avoiding conflict with corporations means that the fundamental problems with mining or logging that provoked popular resistance in the first place are not addressed.

"In the 1970s and 1980s a vibrant, truly grassroots public land protection movement emerged--first in the West and then nation-wide," writes Felice Pace of Oregon's Ancient Forest Campaign in a 2004 article. "During the 1990s Pew, with support from other foundations, moved decisively to control this movement."

"Pew favors concentrating on 'low hanging fruit,'" writes Pace. "That is, wilderness areas which local congressmen and senators are eager to support because they are not controversial."

In his 1996 book Washington Babylon, US-based author Alex Cockburn noted that "the Pew Trusts' endowment is wisely invested in the very corporations that a vigorous environmental movement would adamantly be opposing."

"In its initial National Forest Campaign, Pew demanded that recipients of grant money agree to focus their attention on government actions; corporate wrongdoers were not to be named. This extreme plan was modified after some recipients balked."

Cockburn writes that just one of the Pew Trusts made $205 million in "investment income" in 1993 from investments in companies like Weyerhaeuser, International Paper, and Atlantic Richfield. Cockburn notes that at the time this was "six times as large as all of Pew's environmental dispensations." Today, however, Pew is reportedly not as heavily invested in resources extraction.

A more recent attempt at cooperation between industry, First Nations and environmentalists in British Columbia has recently drawn the ire of grassroots activists. In 2006, Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Rainforest Action Network and ForestEthics celebrated a major agreement for the preservation of the Great Bear Rainforest. A year later, however, logging companies have ramped up clearcut logging to levels that are "unprecedented in 15 years," in order to gather as much timber as possible before the agreement takes effect in 2009. To make matters worse, "ecosystem-based management" techniques named in the agreement have yet to be defined. Meanwhile, environmental groups agreed to stop the direct action campaign that had previously halted logging, enabling the sped-up clearcutting to continue unimpeded.

“They made the Central Coast an environmental-protest-free zone,” Nuxalk hereditary chief Qwatsinas told the Dominion earlier this year. (See A Clearcut Answer?) “They’ve given away too much. It takes time to get the market campaign, the boycott campaign going again. Think about those strengths that were given up -- the power that they had in making demands, but it’s gone now. What else can they use?”

"We've found organized, institutional environmentalism has failed over the last four years to accomplish anything," forest campaigner Ingmar Lee told the Dominion. "The successes have come from individual grassroots efforts that have basically bypassed the entrenched, bureaucratic, environmental institutions that have been sucking up the enviro-buck and just not getting the kind of accomplishments we need."

Cizek agrees. "In the US," he says, "it has been pointed out that the organizations that are taking a principled stand are the community organizations, the ones whose neighbourhoods are being destroyed." The "Big Greens," says Cizek, often serve to tell local groups that they're asking the impossible, but when proven wrong, take credit for their achievements.

"And they often win the biggest victories."

"Victories," says Cizek, "will not be achieved in Washington, DC, or in Ottawa. They will be achieved on the front lines. The people on the front lines are the ones who are under attack directly. They're not policy wonks trying to figure out what public opinion will tolerate. For them, it's a matter of survival, in many cases it's a matter of life or death."

When discussing the tar sands, Cizek says that the groups receiving CBI funding have been extremely timid. CPAWS, WWF, Pembina, the Sierra Club and others signed a statement calling for a "carbon neutral" tar sands by 2020 through the purchase of "carbon offsets," but said nothing about slowing down or stopping tar sands development itself. A short time later, the Sierra Club called for a moratorium on tar sands development. But it was only after arch-conservative former Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed called for a moratorium that CPAWS and Pembina followed suit. WWF Canada has remained silent, though its UK counterpart has recently called for a moratorium.

"To their utter embarassment, the big greens found themselves trailing far behind the curve of public opinion," says Cizek, "and had to scramble to catch up." But the moratorium on new developments, according to Cizek, still does not address the damage that will be done to the water and land by operations that have already been approved.

Groups in Canada that have received money from the Pew Charitable Trusts via the Canadian Boreal Initiative (CBI), according to CBI director Larry Innes:

Boreal Forest Network
Center for Science in Public Participation
CPAWS
Ducks Unlimited
David Suzuki Foundation
Ecotrust Canada
Fondation de la faune
Forest Ethics
Forest Stewardship Council of Canada
Global Forest Watch
Manitoba Wildlands
Miningwatch
Nature Canada
Nature Conservancy of Canada
Nature Quebec
Northwatch
Ontario Nature
Pembina Institute
Protected Areas Association of Newfoundland & Labrador
Reseau Quebecois Groups des Ecologistes
Saskatchewan Environmental Society
Sierra Legal Defense Fund
Silva Forest Foundation
SNAP
The Sustainability Network
The Wild Foundation
Western Canada Wilderness Committee
Western Newfoundland Model Forest
Wildlands League
Wildlife Conservation Society
World Wildlife Fund
Yukon Conservation Society

Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation
Bloodvein First Nation
Carrier Sekani Tribal Council
Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources
Dehcho First Nations
Grassy Narrows First Nation
Innu Nation
Kaska Dena Council
Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation
Little Grand Rapids First Nation
Little Red River Cree First Nation
Lutsel’ke Dene First Nation
Moose Cree First Nation
Mistissini Cree First Nation
National Aboriginal Forestry Association
Nishnawbe Aski Nation
Pauingassi First Nation
Poplar River First Nation
Prince Albert Grand Council
Treaty 8 First Nations of Alberta
Treaty 8 Tribal Association (BC)
West Moberly First Nation

CPAWS did not respond to an interview request, and a WWF representative declined to be interviewed.

"This is a very high-level political process that's going on," he adds. "This is about cutting closed back-room deals at the very political top, and allowing the environmentalists to achieve some concessions through dealings at the political top to manage their dissent into appropriate channels, so that the industries maintain their right to operate."

Sierra Club's Lindsay Telfer says that too much time is spent denouncing others within environmental and social justice circles. "That's something I've always found frustrating--divisiveness," says Telfer. "I'm more than supportive of other groups that call for more than what the Sierra Club calls for."

Telfer also comes to the defense of those who call for less. "I don't buy into the arguments that CBI is all bad, that Pew is all bad," says Telfer. "I try not to get involved in the infighting." She says she would take money from the CBI in the future if it fits the needs of a particular campaign. "If we're fundraising for a project that has specific goals, I'll take money from people who support those goals," though she adds that the Sierra Club has strict standards concerning who it accepts money from.

Cizek sees a need for a "profound dialogue about the democratic and non-democratic aspects of environmental organizations." Many environmental organizations are private non-profits with few accountability mechanisms. The WWF, for example, has only subscribers, no members. The Pembina Institute, he says, takes money directly from oil companies, to which it sells carbon credits. The Sierra Club is "one of the more democratic of these environmental organizations," he says, and that is "perhaps why they were able to initially take a more principled stand" on projects like the tar sands and the Mackenzie Gas Pipeline.

But he emphasizes that "it's not about quibbling about calling for a moratorium or a shut down," but "what were the processes by which you came to this point, and how might your funders have influenced this decision? What do they actually expect to settle for?"

"Do they actually believe in this insane program of the tar sands becoming carbon neutral by purchasing carbon offsets?," he asks, referring to a statement signed by several groups before Lougheed called for a moratorium.

The CBI's Larry Innes says that the issue of accountability is "an interesting question." His response to it is candid.

"We're accountable to those people who write us a cheque every year," says Innes. "If we don't achieve the kind of goals that they're interested in spending their money on, the funding stops."

For Innes, "a more interesting question is why we need US funding at all. Why is the environmental movement in Canada so small and poorly funded? Where is all the Canadian money? Why aren't Canadian philanthropists (with a few notable exceptions) investing in Canada's environmental and social justice movements?"

Depending on which explanation of foundation funding one finds more convincing, what CBI is accountable for accomplishing and why Canadians aren't providing the same levels of funding to conservationists will have very different answers.

Open Pits

Scars

Oil Flows South, Impacts Flow North

dru — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 18:27:07 +0000

regionmap.jpg

based on cartography and files by Petr Cizek, for OilSandsTruth.org

Mackenzie Valley Pipeline

Multi-billion dollar pipelines are proposed which will transport natural gas from the Arctic Ocean to Alberta.

That the gas from the pipelines is destined for the tar sands was once denied, but plans for a “North-Central Corridor” pipeline make the link clear. First proposed in the 1970s, the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline has been criticized for being a giant step in the industrialization and colonization of the primarily-Indigenous north. The development needed to keep gas flowing through the pipeline would affect a massive area of pristine wilderness. Maps projecting the impact of the rapid expansion of northern natural gas exploitation show a dense web of access roads, drilling locations and pipelines covering a vast area (shown in yellow on the map) around Deh Cho, or the Mackenzie River.

Alaska Highway Pipeline

The proposed 2,700 kilometre-long Alaska Highway Pipeline would link Alaska’s North Slope natural gas deposits with the tar sands. The project, estimated to cost as much as $30 billion, would cross several protected areas and First Nations lands covered by Treaty 8.

LNG Terminals