Indigenous nations have protected the earth on their territories for thousands of years. With the government of Canada ignoring their sovereignty, nations not only see massive theft of resources that could help alleviate social problems, but their exacerbation through their further alienation from their own lands, often accompanying being overrun by development and southern workers, while having no self-determination during this process. In the south of Canada industrial farming displaced many nations with often genocidal results. In the north, a modern equivalent of that fate is only just beginning, wrought on by industrial oil and gas drilling schemes (among many industrial plans) that are condemning entire societies, languages and cultures to a precarious future, becoming minorities in their lands for the first time.
BC's Big Pipeline Plans Draw Fire from Indigenous Nations
Massive Gateway project faces serious legal obstacles. A special report.
By Christopher Pollon
August 23, 2006
http://thetyee.ca/News/2006/08/23/Enbridge/
Whenever Jim Culp thinks about the proposed Enbridge pipeline, his thoughts return to the night the mountain fell from out of the sky.
Dehcho, Chipewyan nations call for oilsands moratorium
Last Updated: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 | 12:38 PM CT
CBC News North
Northern First Nations are calling for a halt to further development in Alberta's oilsands, saying the massive industrial growth is hurting their land, their water and their people.
Dehcho First Nations Grand Chief Herb Norwegian told a news conference in Fort McMurray Tuesday the effect of the massive development can be felt downstream along the Mackenzie River system.
This is a setback, and what form of setback is a matter of interpretation. It is a signal that the nations of the North are expected to take a payoff or get steamrolled. It is also an attempt to use the usual doublespeak manner of the Canadian State: not allowing the supreme court ruling to actually effect the economic situation for the Mackenzie Gas Project by delaying the process, but forcing the cosmetic change in the JRP final report. However, it should be noted that decisions on whether or not the MGP goes ahead will come from something other than a federally orchestrated panel.
Oil Sands: The Costs of Alberta's "Black Gold"
Alana Herro – July 7, 2006 – 4:27am
December 22, 2006
Okalik: Devolution must include internal waters
“It is, frankly, an area where, for the moment, we agree to disagree.”
http://www.nunatsiaq.com/news/nunavut/61222_05.html
JIM BELL
Ottawa-Nunavut devolution talks hit a snag last week when Nunavut
Premier Paul Okalik and Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice came out
with opposing views on jurisdiction over the vast oil and gas reserves
lying within Nunavut’s internal waters.
Prentice said last week in an interview broadcast on CPAC, the Canadian
The Violence of the Letter: Land Claims and Continuing Colonial Conquest in Canada (Peter Kulchyski)
Canadian Dimension Magazine, January/February 2007 Issue
May 22, 2006
Globe and Mail
Why is Cancer Sweeping Tiny Fort Chipewyan?
by Patrick Brethour
A generation ago, Lake Athabasca was clear and clean enough that Fort Chipewyan residents drew their drinking water straight from it, and thought nothing about dipping a cup over the side of a canoe during hunting trips. Those days are long gone, as industrial development -- particularly the explosive growth of the oil sands -- accelerates along the Athabasca River, the main tributary of Lake Athabasca.
April 28, 2005
No Lifeblood for Oil
Lubicon nation fights oil companies, governments for survival
http://www.dominionpaper.ca/original_peoples/2005/04/28/no_lifeblo.html
by Kim Petersen
