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First, I want to apologize in advance for the length of this blog. So much has happened over the past week I can’t be pithy!
I want to start by thanking everyone who sent kind and encouraging words this week via email, phone, Facebook and Twitter. I also want to congratulate the 1300+ of you who proudly declared themselves “radicals” in their letters to Joe Oliver. The response has really overwhelmed me.
The Insightful Comment of the Week Award came from Day #1 of the Northern Gateway Pipeline hearings and goes to Ellis Ross, Haisla Nation Chief, who said of Enbridge’s proposed pipeline: “No matter how idiot proof you make it, they just keep making better idiots”. I found this to be the ultimate precautionary statement, and a great way to kick-off the hearings!
As you are aware Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver kicked-off the week with a bizarre and...
Did you know asbestos is allowed in Canadian Children’s toys?
See pg. 9 of this FAQ from the Canadian Environmental Law Association.
Please take a moment and Send an email to the Prime Minster and Minister of Health and tell them you want this situation change!
For more on asbestos dangers and the Government of Canada's immoral stand, see here.
Foreign corporations, some controlled by national governments, have been using their economic clout to buy into Alberta's oil sands and take control of our natural resources.
U.S., French, British, Chinese, Thai, Korean and Norwegian interests have all bought stakes in oil-sands projects. According to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), international companies have invested nearly $20 billion in the last three years through mergers, partnerships and outright purchases of projects.
This increased foreign investment raises questions. Who has the right to develop our natural resources? Who sets the rules for how these resources are developed? Who controls where the resources are processed and sold?
One of the most recent major international investments came in November 2010, when Thailand's state-owned PTTEP bought a 40-per-cent stake in Statoil's Kai Kos Dehseh project for $2.3 billion. Statoil is a Norwegian company whose largest...
The Obama administration made a lot of us environmentalists happy with yesterday's decision to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. But given that the Canadian government and corporations appear to be steaming mad about this, it's worth all of us reflecting on what their next move could be. A NAFTA case, for one, does not seem out of the question.....
TransCanada could point to a long string of overtures by the U.S. government that led it to develop "legitimate expectations" (as that is defined under trade law) that it would be able to build the pipeline, going from the private assurances in favor of the pipeline (recently revealed by FOIA documents to Friends of the Earth) and ending in the
December 2011 payroll tax cut (which included Keystone- related provisions). Those "expectations" could be then measured against what could be characterized under the FET standard as an arbitrary decision-making process, as when the Obama administration...
