Law Suit a Tar Sands Stopper?
by Tom Sandborn, The Tyee, July 28, 2008.

Jack Woodward and the Beaver Lake Cree aim to change Canadian law -- and their success likely would throw a huge wrench into Alberta's tar-sands oil production.

The suit pits the Beaver Lake Cree band against the governments of Canada and Alberta, asking the court to rule invalid the government authorization for thousands of petroleum projects on the band's core territory.

Canada Throws Ecuador into Reverse
When a little nation reined in big miners, our ambassador got very political.
http://thetyee.ca/News/2008/07/11/CanMining/.
By Jennifer Moore
Published: July 11, 2008
Canada is "re-engaging with the Americas." That's what Minister of
International Trade David Emerson told the Canada Council for the
Americas in Vancouver this past February, elaborating that Canada
wants to play "a positive role" to "help citizens throughout the
region thrive in the world."

"You can count on Canada and Canadians," Emerson assured.

But in Ecuador, a small Andean nation a quarter the size of British
Columbia, Canada's government has aligned itself with powerful
Canadian mining interests to undo a recently passed decree crafted to
strengthen protection for human rights and the environment.

The government decree, hailed as a momentous victory by a grassroots
movement fighting big mining projects in Ecuador, would halt what
critics call a pell-mell method of granting mining concessions
heedless of communities' wishes or damage to nature.

Canada is a top investor in Ecuador and Canada's ambassador to Ecuador
is Christian Lapointe. Lately, he has been very busy helping to put
Canadian mining companies in good stead with the Ecuadorian
government. Two companies have projects suspended and have been

Harper's Free Trade Mantra: Hush, Rush, and Sign
Written by Dawn Paley
Tuesday, 01 July 2008
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1356/1/
This January, after little more than 6 months of negotiations, the
Canadian Government announced the completion of negotiations of the
Canada-Peru Free Trade Agreement at the World Economic Forum in Davos,
Switzerland.

Six months later, on June 7, 2008, Canada announced that negotiations
for a controversial Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Colombia were
finalized.

The negotiations with Colombia were controversial from the get go: the
country has the worst human rights record in the hemisphere, and the
government of Alvaro Uribe is riddled by ongoing scandals that have
revealed proven links between Uribe's allies in Congress and
paramilitary death squads.

In a corruption scandal that would most certainly bring down a
Canadian Prime Minister, Uribe himself is the subject of a recent
Sentence by the Colombian Supreme Court. The justices condemned him
for buying the key vote of Congresswoman Yidis Medina in exchange for
political favours, a crime necessary for the constitutional changes
that opened the door to Uribe's re-election in 2006.

On June 26th, Medina was sentenced to 3 ½ years of house arrest for
accepting bribes from the president. The president promptly responded

Racism in the Tar Sands: exploiting foreign workers and poisoning indigenous people

By Macdonald Stainsby, June 12, 2008, reposted from Oil Sands Truth

The giant corporations that are determined to exploit the Alberta tar sands face a major problem — a serious shortage of local labour to do the actual work. So the Canadian and Albertan governments have a plan, ideal in their eyes, to solve the crunch.

Currently, employers desperate to find needed hands, backs and minds for the vast production targets of the “Gigaproject” are flying workers from the Maritimes from their homes for shift stretches and then back again, but that effort faces limits in terms of workers available. Nary a day goes without a business page article somewhere in Alberta bemoaning the lack of workers. Many of the Newfoundlanders who would have come out this way in the past will now work in Newfoundland premier Dany Williams’ new off shore oil and gas ventures, using skills learned in Fort McMurray, Alberta.

Canada-Colombia FTA: When Democracy Gets in the Way, Just Sign It, eh?
By: Michèal Ó Tuathail
http://canadacolombiaproject.blogspot.com/2008/06/canada-colombia-fta-when-democracy-gets.html

On June 7 2008, less than one year after Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the beginning of bilateral free trade talks with Colombia, the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade announced the conclusion of negotiations.

While the US-Colombia free trade agreement has been stalled in the US, due mainly to the grave human rights situation in Colombia and, some say, a US election campaign, Canada has offered transnational capital an opening through the back door.

Canada-style, eh?

"The Government of Canada is delivering on its commitment to open up opportunities for Canadian business in the Americas and around the world," stated the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade David Emerson, revealing the true beneficiaries of this agreement. Emerson went on to note that "the free trade agreement will expand Canada-Colombia trade and investment, and will help solidify ongoing efforts by the Government of Colombia to create a more prosperous, equitable and secure democracy."

GATHERING OF MOTHER EARTH PROTECTORS

Sovereignty Sleepover: Toronto, Queen’s Park May 26th – May 29.

Rally: Queen’s Park May 26th, 5 p.m. – dusk.

Respect the right of First Nations to say no to economic exploitation and environmental destruction.
No jail for saying no.
Free Bob Lovelace and the KI Six.

On May 26th Indigenous communities and our supporters will gather at Queen’s Park to uphold our duty to protect the land, forest, water, and air and to promote respect for our Indigenous rights to say no to economic exploitation and environmental destruction. It is time to end the jailing and harassment of our people for protecting mother earth and traditional ways. Please come to our large rally on May 26th at the legislature. We are also inviting supporters to join us in four days of ceremony, speakers, workshops, music, and a three night sovereignty sleep-over directly on the front lawn of the legislature.

Right now Indigenous communities across Ontario are taking a stand to assert our right to protect our traditional territories and the future of our peoples. Our communities are peacefully protesting destructive industrial projects that the government is permitting on our traditional lands without community consent.

Into a Black Hole

Tar Sands and Oil Production in Western Canada

Macdonald Stainsby

When I moved from British Columbia to Alberta recently, I discovered that the political realities of one province are largely unknown to those living in the other. In BC, oil is seen as a scheme hatched by mad cowboys that has little effect on the mountainous peace of the West coast. Similarly, when people speak of the Olympics in Alberta, it’s still in reference to the Calgary Games of 1988 – a stark contrast to BC, where the coming 2010 Winter Games are associated with rapidly increasing property values and social dislocation. Despite these differences, the economies of both provinces are said to be “booming.” The Albertan economy is growing faster than that of any other North American state or province, while BC is in the middle of a significant economic upswing. While sharp differences in political consciousness remain, especially at the local level, both BC Premier Gordon Campbell and Alberta Premier Edward Stelmach are supporting policy initiatives aimed at reconciling the political and economic differences between their provinces.

Canada’s secret war in Iraq
by Richard Sanders
http://commonground.ca/iss/199/cg199_iraq.shtml
How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again! – Mark Twain
On March 25, 2003, during the “shock and awe” bombardment of Iraq, then US Ambassador Paul Cellucci admitted that “… ironically, Canadian naval vessels, aircraft and personnel... will supply more support to this war in Iraq indirectly... than most of those 46 countries that are fully supporting our efforts there.”
Cellucci merely scratched the surface of Canada’s initial “support” for the Iraq War, but he had let the cat out of the bag. As then Secretary of State Colin Powell had explained a week earlier, “We now have a coalition of the willing… who have publicly said they could be included in such a listing.... And there are 15 other nations, who, for one reason or another, do not wish to be publicly named but will be supporting the coalition.”

to be held at: University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
November 23-25th, 2007
http://oilsandstruth.org/conf

Everyone's Downstream will be a conference designed to explore the links
between oppression and self-determination on many levels: indigenous land
rights, gender, ecological rights, workers democracy, anti-racism and
anti-border perspectives as they relate directly to the tar sands of
Northern Alberta. Speakers from a multitude of indigenous nations, social
justice groups, and environmental organizations will discuss the social
impacts of the tar sands on workers, women, indigenous nations, ecology,
migrant populations, homelessness, and the anti-war movement.

The size of the tar sands issue can seem daunting, but in reality few issues
have presented an opportunity for a social justice movement to truly
articulate a different vision of organizing the world that has as many entry
points, and can provide as large of an impact. The scale and scope of the
tar sands is huge and has tremendously deep implications for the way we
approach questions that span the social justice spectrum. With a coordinated
response involving all sectors of North American social justice movements
currently impacted by the largest industrial project in human history we
have the possibility to change the course of human and ecological fate like
nowhere else.

By Chris Arsenault, courtesy of Upside Down World

These are prosperous times for Canadian mining and oil companies extracting resources from Colombia.

"We have at least four exploration wells to be drilled throughout Colombia with large value additions for our company," said Scott Price, a spokesperson for Solana resources, an oil and gas company headquartered in Calgary, Alberta.