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Canadian Rocker Neil Young Blasts Stephen Harper, Alberta Tar Sands
Canadian rock legend Neil Young has blasted the Harper government for “trading integrity” in its single-minded appetite for Alberta tar sands dollars. via Canadian Rocker…
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Al Gore says Obama must veto ‘atrocity’ of Keystone XL tar sands pipeline
By: Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian (UK) | June 15, 2013 Former vice-president says oil pipeline is ‘really a losing proposition’ and demands climate plan promised at inauguration…
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Londoners arrested for protesting petrocrat Stephen Harper, tar sands
By: Obert Madondo Twitter: @Obiemad Environmental activists protesting “petrocrat” Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and our dirty tar sands were arrested at the British Parliament earlier today, The…
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Keystone XL Pipeline Lobbyists Have Deep Ties to White House
By: Pratap Chatterjee TransCanada and the provincial government of Alberta are paying former advisors to the Obama administration – as well as former staff of…
Stephen Harper’s fate is in the pipeline
Source: iPolitics
While the Senate seizes the spotlight in Ottawa, another threat to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s agenda is unfolding in capitals on opposite coasts. In both Victoria and Washington D.C., governments are weighing in on the future of oil pipelines which hold the key to Western Canada’s economic and political destiny — and that of the federal Conservative party.
The two fronts are related, as the inability to control one could jeopardize the achievement of the other by torpedoing the Conservatives’ ambitions to displace the center of political power in Canada.
Indigenous resistance grows strong in Keystone XL pipeline battle
By: Crysbel Tejada and Betsy Catlin | First published by Waging Nonviolence on May 8, 2013:
Dwane and Carter Camp are both long time AIM (American Indian Movement) veterans. (Photo: Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance/Girard Oz)
On cloudy days, heavy smoke fills the air of Ponca City, Okla., with grey smog that camouflages itself into the sky. The ConocoPhillips oil refinery that makes its home there uses overcast days as a disguise to release more toxins into the air. These toxins are brimming with benzene — a chemical that, according to the Centers for Disease Control, can cause leukemia, anemia and even decrease the size of women’s ovaries. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, in 2008 the ConocoPhillips refinery released over 2,000 pounds of this chemical into the air in Ponca City.
“Of the maybe 800 of us that live locally, we have averaged over the last five to seven years maybe one funeral a week,” explained Casey Camp-Horinek, a Ponca woman and longtime activist. “Where we used to have dances every week, now most people are in mourning.”
The tyranny of the tar sands
Source: Toronto Star
In exploiting every last drop of tar sands crude, the government is impoverishing our country, its democratic freedoms and its future prosperity.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Canada is fast becoming a place that I no longer recognize. In the last year, federal policy has aimed to remove any obstacles to tar sands expansion using repressive tactics that undermine our longstanding democratic traditions. There seems to be no higher federal priority than doing whatever multinational oil companies demand and we – you and I – are being systematically denied any role in Canada’s natural resource future.
10 KXL Amendment Co-Sponsors Took $8 Million from Fossil Fuel Industry
Average KXL Amendment Co-Sponsor has Taken 2.5 Times More Money from Industry Than Non-Sponsors, New Research Shows
By: Oil Change International | Press Release:
Keystone Pipeline Handout
WASHINGTON – New research from Oil Change International today (March 22) found that the 10 Senators co-sponsoring the pro- Keystone XL Pipeline Amendment (Hoeven Amendment 494) in the Senate today have on average taken $807,517 from the fossil fuel industry. That works out to 254% more money than the average Senator not sponsoring the amendment, and a total haul of over $8 million dollars, based on data from DirtyEnergyMoney.org.
Canada’s tar sands pipeline preacher will not slow down
Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver carries the government’s torch on oil exports. We’ll know this year whether he can overcome historic opposition
Tar Sands Trucks. Photo: http://beyondcollapse.wordpress.com/
Source: Toronto Star
OTTAWA—Stephen Harper’s pipeline preacher has not lost any of his zeal.
Joe Oliver takes to his pulpit daily, spraying statistics and “fact-based” arguments at his opponents, refusing to be slowed by recent heart surgery, perhaps the loudest and most determined environmental protest ever mounted on both sides of the border or native leaders who promise a long, hot summer followed by potentially years of court challenges.
‘Senate’s Big Oil Benefactors’ Slammed for Keystone XL Vote
10 KXL amendment co-sponsors took $8 million from fossil fuel industry
By: Jacob Chamberlain and Jon Queally | Common Dreams
Keystone pipeline handout
In a 62-37 vote late Friday, the US Senate passed a non-binding amendment calling for the approval of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.
Environmental groups and climate activists were quick to condemn the vote, but said the “symbolic vote” was valuable because it revealed which members of the Senate have received the message on the seriousness posed by climate change and which continue to bend to the demands of industry lobbyists.
Canada’s Environmental Activists A “Threat To National Security”: Harper Government
RCMP and CSIS treat peaceful protest actions and questioning the Harper Government as ‘forms of attack’, label activists involved “national security threats”, documents reveal.
RCMP Monitor Peaceful Occupy Protest on Parliament Hill, Ottawa. Sept 2012. Photo: Obert Madondo
By Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive:
The Harper Government is intensifying its attacks on environmental and other activist movements in Canada, according to documents released under freedom of information laws, the Guardian (UK) reports.
For the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), Canada’s national police force and chief spy agency, respectively, monitoring environmental activists and labeling them a “threat to national security”, has become the “new normal”.
Canada Petro State 