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Tarred and feathered
News Articles | Ottawa Express | Sara Falconer | November 18, 2010
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Clayton Thomas-Muller is about to leave for Berlin, where tar sands campaigners from around the world will talk shop for several days. As tar sands campaigner for the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), his work is increasingly happening on a global scale.
“It’s part of an ongoing effort by IEN’s tar sands campaign to internationalize the community efforts of people directly affected by tar sands development,” he explains. For years, IEN has been working with First Nations that have been vocal in their opposition to Alberta’s tar sands. Beyond the significant impact on ecological and human health, the project has contributed to the ongoing erosion of indigenous rights and land claims.
IEN and other groups have begun targeting European-based tar sands proponents, including a massive investment structure comprised of banks and pension funds. They are building the business case – “the bare brass economics of why Canadian tar sands are a bad investment,” Thomas-Muller explains. “The strongest legal mechanism to stop tar sands expansion is not Canadian environmental policy… but rather the assertion of aboriginal rights and title over those lands.” The potential liabilities of leases becoming illegal due to pending land claims cases should make European investors think twice.
International human rights protections also strengthen the case against European investment in tar sands. Canada is one of the only countries in the world that has not signed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples. “Canada is in violation of a number of these rights,” he says, particularly the right to prior and informed consent on projects with environmental effects on the land. “Canada walked away from the Kyoto Protocol… for the same reason it didn’t sign UN declaration.”
Similarly, the possible inclusion of the tar sands in the European Fuel Quality Directive has been heavily opposed by the Canadian and Alberta governments, along with the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
International scrutiny of the tar sands peaked in September when IEN brought Avatar director James Cameron for a first-hand look at the devastated landscape. Since then, U.S. senators and international delegates have flocked to the area. But when visiting members of the European Parliament (MEPs) toured Alberta at the beginning of November, they weren’t introduced to any First Nations representatives.
IEN, the Assembly of First Nations and the Council of Canadians quickly arranged a last-minute informal meeting with the MEPs in Ottawa. “For us it was critical for these European leaders to hear directly from our democratically elected representatives of First Nations,” Thomas-Muller says.
Canadian-European Trade Agreement (CETA) negotiations are an opportunity to further this approach. Recently, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) released a legal opinion on the potential effects of CETA on tar sands, warning that looser trade will allow tar sands developers even more power to challenge environmental protections as “barriers to trade.” On November 16, a coalition of labour and environmental groups called the Trade Justice Network will meet with the EESC.
“The reality is that our manufacturing sector has been decimated by the energy sector,” Thomas-Muller says. “Canada’s loonie has essentially become a petro dollar… It’s critical that labour and indigenous rights movements in this country get together and address the destruction that the tar sands have brought to our economy. Our futures are intimately tied together.”
Tagged with: tar sands, indigenous environmental network, protest, campaign
