The 2010 Olympics in Vancouver are threatening human well-being and self-determination as well as ecological devastation in many of the same ways as the tar sands gigaproject. The corporate sponsors include many of the same, from Royal Bank of Canada through to TransCanada Pipelines. The unprecedented expansion of the tar sands gigaproject as well as the 2010 Games are both building infrastructure with temporary foreign worker labour and under the auspices of un-democratic trade agreements from the Security and Prosperity Partnership [SPP] and the Trade, Investment & Labour Mobility Agreement [TILMA]. Both projects have directly and indirectly been tied historically and in the present to the ability of larger nation-states to wage war.
Mon, November 24, 2008
'It's killing us off'
Oilsands development a danger to aboriginal community: Band member
By KEVIN CRUSH, SUN MEDIA
Mike Mercredi, a community member of Fort Chipewyan, was on hand yesterday at Edmonton’s Native Friendship Centre to talk about the impact an oilsands development is having on his First Nations community.
Fort Chipewyan is facing a "genocide" from oilsands development, says a member of the First Nation.
Could jittery sponsors drop the torch?
Globe and Mail, November 18, 2008
ROD MICKLEBURGH // VANCOUVER
— Are economic vultures beginning to hover over the 2010 Winter
Olympics? Or is it business as usual despite concerns that many parts
of the world, including North America, are slipping into recession?
The questions are pertinent because more than half of the Games'
$1.63-billion operating budget is to be covered by corporate
sponsorships, and at least two key 2010 sponsors, Nortel and GM Canada,
are having an exceedingly tough time making any kind of ends meet.
Petro Canada is the "official energy supplier" to the Olympics. Perhaps that could shelve that disastrous project as well?
--M
Petrocan syndicate puts Fort Hills on ice
Consortium shelves oil sands project, citing global financial turmoil, lower oil prices and high financing costs
NORVAL SCOTT
November 18, 2008
CALGARY -- The Fort Hills oil sands project was going to turn Petro-Canada into a contender.
Its 140,000 barrels a day of new crude output would end years of underperformance. No longer would Petrocan's share price lag those of its peers.
TransCanada Pipelines is an official supplier to the 2010 Games.
This pipeline will provide enough gas to *almost triple* current already
insane tar sands production levels.
Lubicon lands will be destroyed so that the speed with which the
destruction of the tar sands advances through towards Fort Chip and
elsewhere can go up massively and much faster.
Little Buffalo still has no running water.
The lake has not been potable for a few decades now.
--M
TransCanada invades Lubicon Territory
... in order to "meet the public interest"?
Now this deserves a response.
Vancouver approves $100M bailout for Olympic Village developer
Last Updated: Thursday, November 6, 2008
CBC News
The Southeast False Creek development site comprises 32 hectares of land, seven of which will be temporarily transformed into the Olympic Village during the Games. The Southeast False Creek development site comprises 32 hectares of land, seven of which will be temporarily transformed into the Olympic Village during the Games. (CBC)
Wow, such hyperbole...
--M
Terror, mentally ill threaten Games
By KATHLEEN HARRIS, NATIONAL BUREAU CHIEF
Edmonton Sun Nov 5/2008
Canada is facing the threat of terrorist attacks, disruption from mentally disturbed people and corruption from organized criminals as it plays host to the 2010 Olympic Games.
Documents obtained by Sun Media through Access to Information show officials are also bracing for potential cost overruns, public health disasters and protests during the international sporting event in Vancouver-Whistler.
Ft. Chip residents, activists protest oilsands intrusion
Clara Ho, The Edmonton Journal
Published: 12:00 am
Mike Mercredi is ready to fight what he calls the "slow industrial genocide" that oil companies are waging on the people in his hometown of Fort Chipewyan.
Last year there were over 20 deaths in the community of 1,200 people. Many were cancer-related deaths, which Mercredi said are linked to the oilsands activities in nearby Fort McMurray.
"Let's put a lid on it and slow things down," he said. "The graveyard is getting full."
by Carola Hoyos and Javier Blas in London
Financial Times FT.com (October 28 2008)
Output from the world's oilfields is declining faster than previously
thought, the first authoritative public study of the biggest fields shows.
Without extra investment to raise production, the natural annual rate of
output decline is 9.1 per cent, the International Energy Agency says in
its annual report, the World Energy Outlook, a draft of which has been
obtained by the Financial Times.
The findings suggest the world will struggle to produce enough oil to
VANCOUVER, B.C. — Activists met in Vancouver Sunday to talk strategy around
resisting the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
While opposition to the Games has been steady since before Vancouver won
them in 2003, protests are usually connected to a single of the many issues
around them.
But dozens gathered at the one-day conference to focus on converging
Canada's diverse activist community under one banner for the Games.
"It's important to use to connect with each other," said conference
participant Phillipa Ryan.
"Our humanity needs to be respected."
Hopefully this can begin a discussion about what activists resisting the largest project in human history and the second largest oil deposit on the planet will do when the state sees us as dangerously effective.
