Every now and then, I get an e-mail from Ripple Effects Ltd in Fort McMurray. Here is a copy of the latest which is a collection of seemingly unrelated new items. I am not so sure about the unrelated part. As I read it, there is sadness and an insight into why there is poverty and why poor people disproportionately find themselves in jail. I leave you to decide. But seems to me these issues arise too often in aboriginal communities around the world to be mere coincidence. And they are problems that occur regardless of the presence or absence of mines. Must be something in the system?
The Uashaunnuat (Innu Uashat Mak Mani-Utenam) filed a motion for an interlocutory injunction against the hydroelectric project, La Romaine. The proposed electric transmission lines run through the heart of traditional lands of the Uashaunnuat and Innu traditional families.
“We affirm our complete sovereignty over our traditional lands and oppose any development without our consent,” said Chief Georges-Ernest Grégoire.
The Innu of Uashat Mak Mani-Utenam have never ceded, surrendered nor exchanged their rights to their ancestral territory, “We will prevent this project since it is without our consent and it violates our Aboriginal rights,” Chief Grégoire said.
Federal women inmates are primarily poor or homeless, undereducated and suffering from addictions or mental health problems. The number of aboriginal women serving federal time has jumped 90% since 2001. Aboriginal women now account for 33% of women behind bars, although they make up only 3% of the female population. Aboriginal men are also overrepresented, up 17% in the same period.
The University of Calgary will receive just over $88,000 through the Government of Canada’s Homelessness Partnering Strategy to help fund research to determine the main causes of the cycle of homelessness and incarceration among Aboriginal women, and to identify best practices in helping them to integrate into the community. To assist in the research, Aboriginal women who have experienced this cycle will be recruited to share their personal struggles.
“Suncor, in Ft.McMurray, expects to spend $450 million in 2010 on tailings reduction operations. Unfortunately, the oil and gas industry doesn’t waste money on cleanups unless it is regulated to do so.” Pembina Institute, Simon Dyer
$1,877.00 – average weekly earnings including overtime for Canadian workers employed in oil and gas extraction – more than double the national average wage of $810.00 for all industries.
$3 billion dollars paid to Aboriginal enterprises in 1998-2008 for work in oil sands developments, which also have 1500 permanent Aboriginal employees.
TransCanada Corp. predicts its 23,720-kilometer Nova pipeline grid in Alberta will assure that the old mainstay supply province remains the biggest gas trading and shipping hub in North America.
Replacing power station coal with 25 billion cubic feet of gas per day is forecast to cut North American carbon emissions by 932 MILLION TONNES A YEAR. The U.S. Environment Protection agency already has power to order coal plants to clean up or close.
The natural gas industry employs nearly 600,000 Canadians, including 325,000 in Alberta, 112,000 in B.C., and 99,000 in Ontario. There are 189,240 Canadian workers employed directly in natural gas exploration, production, long distance transmission and local distribution, led by 125,000 in Alberta.
The Devonian Grosmont Formation southwest of Ft.McMurray is estimated to hold a deposit topping 300 billion barrels of oil.
Since 2006 17 billion liters of ethanol-the majority produced from starch-rich crops like corn-is used in gasoline in North American each year.
Today the U.S. is on track to produce 36 billion gallons of ethanol per year by 2022. Meeting this target would require the cultivation, harvesting, fermentation and distillation of enough corn and grain to produce the equivalent of 450 billion bottles of whiskey a year.
Sorted municipal waste, in Edmonton, roughly 100.000 tonnes per year-turned into 36 million liters of ethanol per year.
There are 252 Indian bands in Canada which hold elections according to the rules laid out in the Indian Act. There are 334 bands which already have custom elections based on codes developed by each First Nation. About 14 bands nationwide have hereditary chiefs, and 29 select leaders under the rules of self-government agreements.
