Indigenous Environmental Network

IEN-Canadian Indigenous
Tar Sands Campaign

The Canadian Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign (CITSC), based in Ottawa, Canada is an emerging Native-based campaign implemented through the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) as part of its Native Energy and Climate Program.

The campaign goal is to seek a moratorium on further tar sands expansion. The campaign is focused on building the knowledge and capacity of First Nation and Métis leadership within the tar sands impact area to actively engage in both a corporate finance campaign and in decision making processes on environment, forests, energy, climate and economic policies, related to halting the tar sand expansion. The First Nations and Métis leadership includes grassroots, elders and youth, in addition to elected First Nation Band Chiefs and Councilors.

"If we don't have land and we don't have anywhere to carry out our traditional lifestyles, we lose who we are as a people. So, if there's no land, then its equivalent in our estimation to genocide of a people." George Poitras, Mikisew Cree First Nation

It is the position of this campaign that since this tar sand expansion in northern Alberta is within First Nations traditional territories, any effective strategy must acknowledge aboriginal title and treaty rights. This is a core focus of this CITSC project that in our opinion must be supported and addressed in any tar sands intervention. The application of aboriginal and treaty rights as a legal strategy implemented by the First Nations themselves is a key focus of this campaign. First Nations and Metis communities must speak for themselves

As noted by the 1996 Canadian federal Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Aboriginal peoples in Canada are being, "pushed....to economic, cultural and political extinction."

Canada: America's resource colony?
Indigenous treaty rights ignored in the quest for oil

The tar sands, like climate change, are an irrefutable man-made mess driven by market forces and economic structures whose very success is based upon social inequity and at the expense of indigenous peoples' rights. With 80 per cent of the world's petroleum resources now under the control of nationalized petroleum firms and their governments, the search for oil and other fossil fuels has expanded into more remote and biologically fragile places. All the while new discoveries are becoming scarcer and scarcer.

Canada's tar patch has become the wild west of the global oil frontier and home to a new breed of private oil firm cowboys and climate change outlaws.

There are over 40 oil and gas companies operating in the tar sands of northern Alberta, with many more waiting to get in on the action. Alberta represents the largest private oil patch on the planet (roughly 3,000 km2) with 177 billion barrels of recoverable oil in its provincial deposits alone. It nonetheless charges the lowest land leasing rates and royalty regime on the planet. On top of this, private oil companies send the majority of tar sands synthetic crude to the United States for refinement and then turn around and sell it back to Canadians as market ready fuels.

More insidious is the environmental, economic, social, political and spiritual costs of the "most destructive project on earth" being forced upon local Indigenous peoples and their land. With multi-stakeholder processes set up in all of the provincial government regulatory bodies, many First Nation communities find their concerns and their sovereignty drowned out by the overwhelming push back of pro-development companies, government and others that all have a seat at the table in determining what new approvals get rubber stamped.

In 2007, over 60,000 applications for "new projects" were put forward with over 97 per cent of them approved by Alberta government.

Industry regulates itself in Alberta, often in direct conflict with the concerns of First Nations.

While this regulatory sham is being allowed to continue thanks to indusrty bedding the province of Alberta, there is the emergence of a powerful movement led by impacted First Nation communities.

Of the five First Nations that make up the Athabasca Tribal Council, three now have explicit calls for a moratorium on new approvals in the tar sands.

Even more impressive is the standing resolution made by the All Chiefs Summit of Alberta in spring of 2007, calling for a moratorium on new approvals in tar sands. This move was in support of the Athabasca Dene First Nation and Mikisew Cree First Nations on their concerns with the human and ecological health crisis emerging in their communities located downstream from the tar sands.

Where is the federal government in all of this? One would assume that the Canadian government would be protective of the rights of the First Nations affected by tar sands development given that most of the First Nations in this region have treaties that protect and guarantee their way of life and traditional land base.

This is not the case. These First Nations fall under the internationally recognized Indian treaties that protect the unique political and legal relationship that First Nations share with the Crown on a government-to-government level. These supersede any provincial agency or their legal jurisdiction over First Nations land, air and water resources. Up to this point the government of Canada has been a direct supporter of the rapid expansion of the tar sands.

Recently the Keepers of the Water III conference was hosted by the Athabasca Dene First Nation, Mikisew Cree First Nation, The Métis Local 125 and the broader municipality of Fort Chipewyan (Alberta's oldest settlement). First Nations from Alberta, British Colombia, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories objected to the tar sands and the violation to aboriginal and treaty rights that the development represents.

Many leaders from both Dene and Cree First Nations in attendance committed to mounting new legal challenges (many are in litigation already) against the development that would assert aboriginal and treaty rights as the strongest legal mechanism to stop new approvals in the tar sands.

It is ironic that on the world stage the colonial government of Canada presents itself as an emerging energy superpower when in reality it is all but a resource colony of the United States. Canada has become a willing victim of USA's insatiable need for a secure energy supply to support its auto-centered transit economy and global military domination.

From an indigenous perspective it is easy to understand the history of colonization and foresee what lies ahead of Canada in this precarious position.

Support Aboriginal Treaties and Inherent Rights

Environmental and climate justice demands the urgent need for a coordinated, collective response led by First Nations and Metis to the tar sands development. Support Aboriginal treaty-rights and their human rights! This campaign calls for a moratorium on the tar sands development. The campaign for a moratorium would be in effect until the concerns of First Nations and Metis are addressed.

These concerns are:

Take Action!

Respect our Original Instructions, traditions and responsibility to protect the sacredness of our Mother Earth.

Demand the Alberta government halt tar sands expansion, address environmental damages and remediation and address human health issues impacting the First Nations, as a result of tar sands operations.

Demand the Canadian federal government recognize Aboriginal Treaty 8 and 6 obligations of the concerns of the First Nations pertaining to the treaty and human rights abuses, the human and ecological health crisis, the climate change impacts, the damages to water and air quality and the recognition of First Nations sovereign rights to implement their own environmental and health infrastructure to regulate and enforce their own laws within their lands and territories.

Demand Canada meets its Kyoto Protocol commitments and halt all subsidies and end all support of the tar sands.

DEMAND the national and international financial and banking institutions immediately DIVEST in the tar sands expansion and operations.

Tar Sands Presentation by Clayton Thomas-Muller	Tar Sands & Water (Part 1 of 5)
Tar Sands & Water (Part 2 of 5)	Tar Sands & Water (Part 3 of 5)
Tar Sands & Water (Part 4 of 5)	Tar Sands & Water (Part 5 of 5)

For more information:
INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL NETWORK
CANADIAN INDIGENOUS TAR SANDS CAMPAIGN
Clayton Thomas-Muller
2-94 Charlotte ST.
Ottawa Ontario K1N 8K2
Canada
Ph: (613) 789-5653
or contact the IEN Main Office at Ph: (218) 751-4967
E-mail: ienoil@igc.org

Tar Sands Images - Northern Alberta, Canada

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