President Bush to Host North American Leaders’ Summit White House News

As he noted in his State of the Union address, the President will be hosting the North American Leaders’ Summit on April 21-22 in New Orleans. This fourth meeting of North American leaders since 2005 will continue our work on Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) initiatives. It will also serve as an opportunity for the three leaders to discuss hemispheric and global issues of importance to North America.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008 | 5:21 AM ET. The Canadian Press

The board of directors of Suncor Energy Inc. has given final approval for a $20.6-billion expansion project in its oilsands operation, the company announced Wednesday. In a statement released Wednesday morning, the company said the project would increase crude oil production at its oilsands north of Fort McMurray, Alta., by 200,000 barrels a day.Suncor said the expansion is in line with a long-term growth plan first announced in 2001 that would double the company’s oil output to 550,000 barrels a day by 2012.

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

Come learn about the Alberta Tar Sands (“Oil Sands”) and its devastating impact on indigenous nations, the land and 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 agreements such as the Security and Prosperity Partnership Agreement and TILMA.

TUESDAY DECEMBER 18TH AT 6:30 PM. ROOM 2270, SFU HARBOUR CENTRE. 515 WEST HASTINGS

– Vancouver Launch of Dominion Magazine Tar Sands Special, Film Screening “Tar Sands and Water”, and presentations by Alberta-based tar sands researchers.

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Foreign labourers are brought to the tar sands, but are easily sent home by Tim Murphy The Dominion – http://www.dominionpaper.ca

“So you believe in the free market?” “Well, it’s not so much that I believe in the free market, it’s that I demand logical consistency out of those who demand the free market,” answers Jason Foster, director of Policy Analysis for the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL). According to Foster, wages in the Albertan oil industry have not been allowed to follow the basic laws of supply and demand. Companies have used various tactics to prevent the rise of wages. One such tactic, the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, is of special concern to the AFL.

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Mud, sweat and tears. Aida Edemariam. The Guardian Tuesday October 30 2007

You’ve only got to stroll down Hardin Street to the main drag, then hang a left and walk a couple more short blocks, to see what Fort McMurray is about. It wouldn’t be the whole story, but you would catch the drift. You’d pass the Boomtown Casino, strip malls, and a club called Cowboys proudly advertising “naughty schoolgirl nights”. Then the Royal Canadian Mounted Police station, the municipal offices, the Oil Sands Hotel, and Diggers bar, with its advertisement for exotic dancers. You would be passed by Humvees and countless pick-up trucks, each more souped up than the next, many covered in dried mud, many carrying further 4x4s – in winter, snowmobiles; in summer, all-terrain vehicles on which to go chasing through the bush, which is visible from the main street. And if the wind is from the north-west, you can smell oil on the air: heavy, slightly sour, unmistakable. Round here, they call it the smell of money.

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