Indigenous

Aboriginal title at risk in British Columbia
Ann Rogers

Freedom Socialist Newspaper, Vol. 28, No. 6 December 2007 — January, 2008

Almost all of British Columbia in Canada is unceded indigenous territory. Its land and resources have not been given up by treaty, but occupied and stolen. In recent decades, a growing sovereignty movement, especially among young people, has offered fierce resistance to the continued theft and corporate development that threatens Native peoples’ means of survival and existence as nations.

This idea (and I use that term loosely) has been pushed for a long time, and is a disaster on so many levels. This was explicitly spelled out by Tom Berger himself 'back in the day' as a truly horrible idea. It is also illegal in Alaskan state law. The idea has not improved with age.

--M

'Over the top' pipeline could work for Alaska and Canada
COMPASS: Points of view from the community
By MICHAEL KENNY
Published: December 20th, 2007 06:44 AM

This region is one of the most spectacular, beautiful and nearly pristine regions I have ever seen in my life. Near the one gas pump and lodge on the 10 hour drive of the Dempster Highway called Eagle Plains, this place is one where the planet itself made me feel so tiny and insignificant, like an insect, a surreal experience that I have no parallel for. Now they want to plunder it for gas, gas they want to put into the Mackenzie Gas Project and send to Fort McMurray to make mock oil from tar and the devastation of more land than can be comprehended.

Shall we let them?

--M

Mackenzie partners see Ottawa aid
But No Financial Pledge

Jon Harding, Financial Post Published: Wednesday, December 19, 2007

CALGARY - Partners in the Mackenzie Gas Project have asked Ottawa to treat their stalled megaproject like Newfoundland's Hibernia project or the Syncrude Canada Ltd. oilsands mine in Alberta, both of which got federal support.

Prentice pledges speedy review of new gas project plan
Last Updated: Monday, December 17, 2007 | 2:18 PM CT
CBC News

Federal Industry Minister Jim Prentice has promised proponents of the beleaguered Mackenzie gas project he will review their latest financial plan as quickly as possible.

Prentice met with representatives of Imperial Oil, its parent ExxonMobil, Shell Canada, ConocoPhillips and the Aboriginal Pipeline Group, composed of the Inuvialuit, the Gwich'in and the Sahtu First Nations in Calgary on Friday.

Prentice reviewing Mackenzie Valley pipeline financial plan

Jon Harding, Financial Post Published: Sunday, December 16, 2007

The proposed pipeline would run through the Mackenzie Valley.HO/AFP/Getty ImagesThe proposed pipeline would run through the Mackenzie Valley.

CALGARY -- Canada's Industry Minister Jim Prentice is reviewing a financial plan submitted to him Friday by the backers of the $16.2-billion Mackenzie Gas Project.

What do you know about the largest industrial project in human history?

EDUCATIONAL ON THE TAR SANDS

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18TH
6:30 PM ROOM 2270
SFU HARBOUR CENTRE

515 WEST HASTINGS

Come learn about the Alberta Tar Sands and its impact on indigenous rights, the environment, labour rights including migrant workers, as well as its global consequences in an era of oil-dependency, the War on Terror, and an expanding corporate regime through the Security and Prosperity Partnership Agreement.

Canada's oil sands are fueling U.S. cars - but at what cost?
McClatchy Newspapers
Published Sunday, December 16, 2007

FORT CHIPEWYAN, Alberta — Like a great silver snake, the Athabasca
River glides though a spongy-wet wilderness of spindly forests, lakes
and marshes 650 miles north of the U.S.-Canada border.

Breathe deeply, though, and you catch a whiff of fresh, hot tar. In
the river, fish are speckled with shiny, wart-like blisters. And in
the tiny Indian village of Fort Chipewyan, people are coming down
with leukemia, bile duct cancer and other diseases.

The Pew has apparently launched an all-out international media blitz about the tar sands, yet their actual position on the tar sands becomes murkier day by day. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that the Pew family built the first tar sands project in 1967 and that the Pew family continues to refine large amounts of mock oil through its company Sunoco. And that Suncor is also a partner in the Canadian Boreal Initiative.

- Tarpit Pete

Green leaves, black gold

By Sheila McNulty

Financial Times London

It's war on city crime dens
Houses of drugs and prostitution to be targeted in new enforcement program
By FRANK LANDRY, CITY HALL BUREAU
Thu, December 6, 2007

Edmonton's top drug-house-busting cop welcomes the province's plan to crack down on crime dens.

Sgt. Maurice Brodeur sees the initiative working hand in hand with the program he runs, the Edmonton Police Service's Report A Drug House program.

"Too long, these little disorder houses ... have caused a lot of grief in neighbourhoods," Brodeur told Sun Media.