Last year there was a report written, “Alberta Anti-Racism Advisory Council Recommendations” and I thought it was well done. I’m not sure how well some of their recommendations are being pursued. For example. One of them is to establish an Ombudsperson office with staff to investigate all complaints about policing in Alberta in an independent, transparent and timely manner. This body will have punitive powers and ensure compliance with recommended actions.
I did a Google search for the office. If I found the right information, it says the Ombudsman cannot investigate:
Decisions made by the Federal government
Members of the Legislative Assembly
Federal or municipal police forces
Decisions made by universities or schools
Decisions made by the courts
Private businesses or private matters
Does this mean the advisory council recommendations are an exercise in futility? Is this a good question? Or does it mean something has been accomplished, but we don’t know about it? I’d like to find out.
The Mayor of Edmonton, Amarjeet Sohi, called for a strategy to address racism in Edmonton moments after being sworn in as the city’s first South Asian mayor. I’d like to know what has been accomplished. It is hard to find a recent hate crime story in the news. Just what are they doing to address this issue?
If the Ombudsman can’t investigate the police, who is?
One story that really bothers me is the one about an “Indigenous teenager in Edmonton, Alberta, who has spent nearly a year without a chunk of his skull after a local police officer allegedly kicked him in the head “football-style.” The lad was handcuffed, lying on the ground, and wasn’t offering any resistance when Const. Ben Todd attacked him. Apparently, Todd wasn’t even suspended for the incident.
What’s happening with this?
Minorities all over North America are scared of the police. In the United States, it’s even worse.
A group I belong to is challenging members to set up their “Citizening” and take an active role in making Alberta into the province it needs to be… for everyone.
I would like to take an active role in helping to reduce racism, discrimination, and work towards assisting with other social issues. But, I can’t do it myself.
If you would like to join me, I’ve set up a Google Group, where discussions on how to move forward on this issue, can be addressed, and develop action plans for various levels of engagement. If we can put together a good-sized group, perhaps we can help draw more attention to racism in Alberta, and encourage local officials to stay on track.
There’s a homepage for the group, that gives a basic overview of how it can work, with a preview of the group, so you can see how it’s setup. You can join it here.
It’s easy to ignore one voice. One-hundred or more voices isn’t so easy to dismiss. Maybe, just maybe, we can get something done.
Each day, our window for saving the climate — and the billions of lives that depend on it — gets a little bit narrower. While people all around the world are taking action, oil companies are trying to light the fuse of one of the world’s biggest carbon bombs.
Deep in western Canada, on lands where Indigenous communities have lived since time immemorial, sit the Alberta tar sands. The tar sands are vast oil fields and mines in the Canadian province of Alberta.
Seen from the sky, the tar sands reach beyond the horizon and seem to go on forever, resembling a painful scar on the Earth of epic proportions. Nearby riverbeds are visible as water levels strain under industrial use. Chemical runoff pools collect in massive toxic lakes that stain the landscape. Lingering in the air above (and in the surrounding communities), there can be a sharp smell like burned tires, causing a searing feeling in the lungs.
Experiencing all this for the first time can be overwhelming and traumatic — even difficult to believe. It’s not what comes to mind when people from around the world imagine Canada’s crystal clear rivers and lakes, the evergreen forests teeming with life, or the breathtaking beauty of popular national parks little more than a stone’s throw from this environmental nightmare.
So what are the oil sands and how big are they?
The tar sands, sometimes called oil sands, are a massive site of oil extraction in Alberta. They cover an area larger than England and are one of the biggest industrial projects on the planet.
What is tar sands oil and why is it so bad for the environment?
The type of oil in the tar sands is called “bitumen”. It is extremely heavy (like tar) and difficult to extract. Getting it from deep in the ground to the surface can use up massive amounts of water — enough to rival what a small city may use on a daily basis. Even more water and energy is needed to refine it into anything resembling what goes into your gas tank. The amount of climate-polluting greenhouse gases emitted per barrel of tar sands oil can be 30% higher (throughout its life cycle) than conventional oil.
What is the impact of the tar sands on climate change and the boreal forest?
Canada’s oil and gas sector is the largest and fastest rising source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada, accounting for 26% of the total. The tar sands are a key culprit. Between 1990 and 2018, tar sands production increased by 456%. The industry’s carbon footprint is greater than New Zealand and Kenya combined.
Nature advocates estimate that the industrial development and wildfires in the tar sands region have cleared or degraded nearly two million acres of boreal forest since the turn of the millennium. This puts vital habitat for birds, caribou and other animals at risk. It’s also a climate issue since the boreal forest is a vital carbon sink.
The world can’t afford to expand the Alberta tar sands, not if we want to preserve this planet for future generations. Current generations are already being impacted by the biodiversity crisis and climate change and its effects on sea level rise, drinking water, disease and extreme weather events.
How do the tar sands violate Indigenous rights, and how are communities fighting back?
Yes. Throughout the years, the tar sands have encroached on Indigenous Peoples’ traditional lands and contaminated the environment and wildlife these communities depend on for their culture and way of life. Tar sands chemicals have further been linked to higher rates of cancer in Indigenous communities and dangerous air pollution.
And the effects of the tar sands don’t stay in Canada. Globally, Indigenous communities and the Global South are on the frontline of climate impacts. In 2017, Indigenous leaders from the Pacific Islands came face-to-face with the tar sands, a culprit in the planetary warming driving rising sea levels, which in turn are having a devastating impact on their homes and families right now. Learn more about their emotional journey in the video below.
What are the key projects that would expand the tar sands?
The stakes are high in the tar sands — for the communities and for the world. But instead of slamming on the brakes on expanding operations, Canadian governments are helping industry by stepping on the gas.
Several major oil and gas pipelines, which would cross Indigenous lands without consent, have federal and provincial governments support. Among them are:
Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX): Originally proposed by Kinder Morgan then bought by the Canadian government in 2018, this pipeline would run from Alberta to the Vancouver region, threatening drinking water and bringing increased oil tanker traffic that threaten endangered orca whales. Read more.
Keystone XL: Supported by the Canadian government and cancelled by U.S. President Joe Biden, this TC Energy pipeline would run from Alberta to Nebraska, connecting with another pipeline to transport oil across sensitive aquifers vital for drinking and farming water before reaching the Gulf Coast of Texas. Read more about Indigenous opposition here in Canada and the impacts south of the colonial border.
Line 3: Gas giant Enbridge wants to construct a tar sands pipeline from Alberta to Wisconsin, even though the company is responsible for one of the worst and most expensive inland oil spills in history. The pipeline would go through vital river waters as well as the wetlands and treaty territory of the Anishinaabe peoples. Read more about the fight against Line 3.
Many of these pipeline projects or the companies behind them are funded by private investors, big banks (like Royal Bank of Canada, CIBC and TD Bank), and even Canadian taxpayers in the case of TMX. Read more on why funding pipelines is financially risky.
How can I help stop tar sands pipelines and other expansion projects?
You can take the first step by joining our organization as well as supporting Indigenous-led struggles. Greenpeace activists are taking action in the streets, exercising our right to peaceful protest, signing petitions, meeting with our Members of Parliament and holding corporations accountable. Every day, more and more of us are standing up for climate justice and opposing industry’s attempts to expand oil and gas production. Join us in calling on Canada’s government to defuse one of the biggest carbon bombs on Earth.
It’s impossible to keep track of the damage the UCP government is
doing to Alberta. The sheer volume of it is overwhelming. It will be
difficult to remember the worst of it when the next provincial election
occurs. About a week ago it was decided this website should keep a
running list of the damages so that it can be reviewed when one needs a
refresher.
The forum is an ideal place for this. A central topic can have many
sub-topics. It will make it easy to keep a list. You can create an
account on this website to login and post items you want to share. There
are a few already in place, if you would like to see some examples. If
you would like to contribute to the list without logging in, just email
me with a description and a link to a news source that contain more
information. I will post it.
I didn’t think the Alberta government was interested in hydrogen. But… they are….
There is a 100 megatonne annual limit on provincial carbon emissions. In the oil industry, emissions are produced mainly from extraction, transporation and production. Rather than turning Alberta into a world leader in the production and distribution of hydrogen, Alberta will use hydrogen to reduce emissions and increase oil production.
According to a news article, “Alberta will announce, no later than October, a strategy to develop “blue hydrogen” as a cleaner alternative to using natural gas to extract crude at steam-driven oil sands sites, Associate Minister of Natural Gas Dale Nally told Reuters in an interview.
It’s starting to look like Alberta’s theme song comes from ‘Asleep at the Wheel’ but unlike the American country music group, Kenney isn’t winning any Grammy Awards for his performance.
Last year there was a report written, “Alberta Anti-Racism Advisory Council Recommendations” and I thought it was well done. I’m not sure how well some of their recommendations are being pursued. For example. One of them is to establish an Ombudsperson office with staff to investigate all complaints about policing in Alberta in an independent, transparent and timely manner. This body will have punitive powers and ensure compliance with recommended actions.
