By Charlie Smith. Georgia Straight. Publish Date: August 28, 2008

When two of the world’s most famous billionaires, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, took a tour of the oil sands in northern Alberta in mid-August, it caught the attention of journalists. The visit by the two tycoons is a sign of the growing U.S. interest in the region, which contains an estimated 1.7 trillion barrels of crude bitumen—the heaviest and thickest form of petroleum, resembling molasses. Among some Alberta residents, there is a growing sense that oil-sands development is bringing some very high environmental costs . Simon Dyer, director of the oil sands program at an environmental think tank called the Pembina Institute, told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview that his organization did some polling last year and found that seven in 10 respondents supported a “pause” in development. He noted that extracting petroleum from the oil sands requires a massive amount of energy and water to separate the petroleum from the sand, rock, and other substances.

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The Edmonton Journal. Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Canadian officials surveying the Beijing Olympics must be paying special attention to the myriad protests and criticisms — some overdrawn and overwrought — that have dogged China before and during the Games. If they are wise, our observers should fight the temptation to feel smugly superior. Learning from the mistakes of the Chinese leadership would be far more appropriate. For better or worse, the global focus attending the Olympics provides an irresistible platform for anyone with a grievance against the host country. And while Canada has considerable bragging rights compared with China in the areas of free speech, democracy, religious freedom and other fundamental liberties, we are not without our shiny spots.

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– No Olympics on stolen land!
– Disrupt and abolish the G8 and SPP
– Active support and solidarity for local struggles of self-determination, justice and dignity*

[August 2008 – OTTAWA] In the year 2010, three major international events will be taking place in the Canadian state: the Winter Olympics in Vancouver/Whistler (between February 12-28); the G8 Leader’s Summit in Huntsville, Ontario (most likely in June or July); and the meeting of the NAFTA leaders as part of the so-called “Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP)” (date and location not yet known).

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CBC  Friday, August 8, 2008

The United States will unveil new border surveillance measures Friday in a move that has one New Democratic MP decrying what he sees as the “weaponization” of the Canada-U.S. frontier. U.S. Customs and Border Protection is slated to open an air and marine border-monitoring outpost just north of the Detroit-Windsor border at Selfridge Air National Guard Base on Lake St. Clair in Michigan.

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Clayton Thomas-Müller. Canadian Dimension magazine

The application of treaty rights as a legal strategy implemented by the First Nations themselves must be the key focus in efforts to challenge Big Oil in Alberta. Resources and effort must be placed into building the knowledge and capacity amongst First Nations and Métis leadership, including grassroots, elders and youth, to engage in both an indigenous-led corporate-finance campaign and in decision-making processes on environment, energy, climate and economic policies related to halting the tar-sands expansion. Canadian policy makers need to understand that there is an inextricable link between indigenous rights and energy and climate impacts.

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