Monthly Archives: April 2015

Activism, Cultural Ecocide, Politics, racism

Paul Martin says 2015 budget fails aboriginal Canadians

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Paul Martin blasts Conservatives’ Aboriginal funding

Conservative budget commits ‘gross negligence’ of aboriginals, former Liberal prime minister says

By Katherine Starr, reposted from CBC News, Apr 30, 2015

Paul Martin blasts Conservatives’ Aboriginal funding 10:13

The federal government is failing the country’s aboriginal people with a budget that has “virtually nothing” in it for native Canadians, says former Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin.

Describing the Conservatives’ federal budget as “gross negligence” in terms of aboriginal funding, Martin blasted the government’s financial commitment to aboriginal education and health care.

“You have to ask yourself, why are they ignoring decent health care in the North? Why is the government ignoring decent education?” Martin told host Evan Solomon in an interview on CBC News Network’s Power & Politics.

“This huge under-funding of health care and education has come home to roost.”

Martin: AG report not surprising

Martin’s remarks came one day after the federal auditor general released a report detailing serious problems in accessing health care in remote First Nations communities in Manitoba and Ontario.

Some of the issues included a nursing station residence that was unusable for more than two years because of a broken septic system, leading medical specialists to cancel visits, as well as the discovery that only one of 45 nurses in the group sampled by auditors finished all five mandatory Health Canada training courses chosen for the audit.

“The fact is, there are nurses who will go up north, there are nurses who can be trained,” Martin said.

“There’s a cost to that, there’s a cost to paying the kind of salaries required and to make sure they have that kind of training. But for heaven’s sake, there are Canadians living up north. They’re entitled to the same kind of health care you and I are entitled to.”

How much for education, health care?

In a statement to CBC News, Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt’s office called Martin’s comments “completely false” and outlined the department’s commitments to Canada’s Aboriginal Peoples in the 2015 federal budget.

The budget, tabled April 21, earmarks $2 million annually — starting next year — for mental health services in First Nations communities.

On education, $200 million over five years is set aside “to help support First Nations to achieve better education outcomes, including building partnerships with provincial school systems” while an additional $12 million will provide post-secondary scholarships to First Nations and Inuit students.

The budget says $30.3 million over five years will go to expanding the First Nations Land Management Regime to create opportunities for economic development on reserve.

But Martin doesn’t believe the measures are enough to solve what he calls a “moral issue” facing the country.

“Canadians would not tolerate it if they really knew there was a whole generation of aboriginal Canadians who have a chance at a better education and are being denied it,” he said.

The former prime minister, who created the non-profit Martin Aboriginal Education Initiative after retiring from politics, isn’t the only critic of the government’s budget allotment to aboriginal Canadians.

National Chief Perry Bellegarde of the Assembly of First Nations described the budget as “a status-quo budget,” and added “the status quo is not acceptable.”

“We don’t see any investments in housing to deal with the 130,000 units we need. We don’t see investments in education on reserves. There’s still a huge fiscal imbalance there,” be said.

“We don’t see any investments even in access to potable water. There are still 93 communities with boil-water advisories.” SOURCE

 

 

Cultural Ecocide, Politics, racism

Lack of trained nurses in First Nations communities underlines Ottawa’s neglect: Editorial

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The auditor general’s findings speak to a pattern of neglect that leaves communities “severely marginalized,” says Deputy Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation in Northern Ontario.

Auditor General Michael Ferguson speaks to media in Ottawa Tuesday following the release of his report.
Auditor General Michael Ferguson speaks to media in Ottawa Tuesday following the release of his report. ADRIAN WYLD / THE CANADIAN PRESS

Editorial reposted from the Toronto Star, Apr 28, 2015

Of all the woes that beset some First Nations communities — joblessness, violence, decrepit housing, poor schools, undrinkable water, short life expectancy — a shortage of nurses with special skills might not seem a pressing concern. But it is.

As a report from Auditor General Michael Ferguson’s office makes clear, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government has failed to ensure that First Nations people living in remote areas get the medical treatment they need. The nursing shortage is symptomatic of a wider pattern of federal neglect that reaches across native life.

Nurses in isolated communities often face emergencies that call for medical skills that go well beyond basic training. Those skills include advanced cardiac life support and trauma life support for both adults and children. So nurses must complete mandatory courses in these areas.

Yet as the Star’s Bruce Campion-Smith reports, the audit of services provided through Health Canada in Ontario and Manitoba found that just one of 45 nurses had completed all the required training in five courses selected for the audit. Just one! Health Canada flagged this problem itself, back in 2010. But it still persists, five years later. Additionally, Health Canada hasn’t put in place the required directives to permit nurses to prescribe and dispense drugs and take x-rays, work that’s outside their normal scope.

Although Health Canada provides care for 95,000 people through 85 facilities in remote areas where 400 nurses lead teams, it flubbed the most basic tests. It “did not take into account the health needs … when allocating its support.” And it failed to give First Nations “comparable access to clinical and client care services as other provincial residents living in similar geographic locations.”

Those are damning findings. They speak to a federal disregard that leaves communities “severely marginalized,” says Deputy Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation in Northern Ontario. People are suffering under “a broken health care system that this government does not appear willing to fix.” To underscore his point he cited the case of two preschoolers who died last year from issues relating to strep throat, an ailment that is easily treatable.

Remote First Nations have no 911 service, he pointed out. There’s a shortage of procedures and equipment for early diagnoses. Medevac is spotty. Detoxification programs are in short supply.

As former auditor Sheila Fraser put it, far too many First Nations people “still lack what most other Canadians take for granted.” As the Idle No More movement has demanded, that must change.

In the coming election, voters should demand to know how their politicians would do things differently. From treaty rights to schooling and health care, the Crown is betraying a people’s trust. SOURCE

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Paul Martin says 2015 budget fails aboriginal Canadians

Ecocide, Ecocide ALert, Fascism/Corporatism, Politics, Preventing Ecocide

Stephen Harper draws up election 2015 strategy on climate change

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Jettisoned promises add up: no cap and trade, no common emission targets with U.S.

Keep rowing: Environmental activists perform as world leaders at the UN-sponsored climate change conference in Lima, Peru, in December. The next UN conference, in Paris this fall, will set new targets for national emissions reductions.
Keep rowing: Environmental activists perform as world leaders at the UN-sponsored climate change conference in Lima, Peru, in December. The next UN conference, in Paris this fall, will set new targets for national emissions reductions. (Martin Mejia/Associated Press)

By Chris Hall, reposted from CBC News, Apr 30, 2015

Stephen Harper surprised a lot of people when he said Canada’s soon-to-be-announced target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions beyond 2020 will not be the same as the U.S.

It was an abrupt end to the Conservatives’ long-held position that the energy sector is a continental industry, so reducing climate changing emissions likewise requires a continental approach.

But to those who follow the political environment in Ottawa, falling out of lockstep with the Americans is a simple case of reality finally overtaking rhetoric.

That reality is the U.S. will meet its existing target of reducing emissions by 17 per cent below 2005 levels. Canada will not.

Cue the critics.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau accused Harper of hiding behind the Americans on climate change. And then the Americans moved and exposed him.

The prime minister said “we can’t go and do something when the United States doesn’t act, and when the U.S. acts, then it’s ‘Oh no we can’t act like the United States,'” Trudeau told reporters this week.

“This government has no desire to actually be responsible on the environment, no understanding that acting responsibly on the environment is actually the only way to build a strong economy in the 21st century.”

Tit-for-tat

The Conservatives have always argued that Canada is too small and its resource sector too important to set targets that are out-of-whack with the Americans.

Canada Keystone XL Pipeline
Joining with the Americans on emissions control was part of a tacit deal to gain presidential approval of the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to the Gulf Coast. (The Associated Press)

And that was true, to a point, even if that’s a bit like the owner of a gas-guzzling Humvee arguing he shouldn’t have to reduce his gas consumption because far more people drive Hondas.

Aligning Canada with the U.S. on environmental rules helped prevent companies in this country from being put at a competitive disadvantage.

It also became a bargaining chip with the Americans, as CBC News first reported, when Harper wrote U.S. President Barack Obama in late 2013 proposing “joint action in the oil and gas sector” if that’s what it would take to get a presidential permit for the Keystone XL pipeline.

Nothing came out of the letter. And now that Obama has announced the U.S.will reduce emissions by as much as 28 per cent by 2025, Harper conceded last week that Canada’s targets will not be exactly the same but will be “of similar levels of ambition to other major industrialized countries.”

Just who those countries are isn’t clear either, as governments around the world roll out new GHG targets in advance of December’s UN summit in Paris, where international negotiators will try to conclude another treaty on climate change.

Or, as skeptics would say, to go where where Kyoto and Copenhagen fell short.

At the bottom of the pile

The Europeans are well on their way to substantially cutting emissions in advance of that summit. Now the Americans say they are, too.

“When we aligned on targets it seemed like smart politics at the time,” says David McLaughlin, a former chief of staff in the Harper government and one-time head of the now defunct National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy.

“But it was pretty dumb economics because of the differences in the energy systems.”

McLaughlin and others argue that it’s both easier, and cheaper, for the U.S. to cut emissions beyond 2020 by simply replacing its abundant coal-powered electrical generation with natural gas or renewable energy sources.

Canada, on the other hand, produces far more clean energy primarily from hydro. But our national GHG emissions remain stubbornly high, primarily because of the energy-intensive development of Alberta’s oilsands.

Regardless, “whatever the new commitment is, we are not on track to meet the old one,” says Jeffrey Phillips, managing director of the consulting firm Dawson Strategic, who served as a senior policy adviser on energy issues in the federal department of natural resources until 2013.

Phillips says the only way to have any real reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is to drastically scale back oilsands production, and that’s not going to happen.

“So whatever the prime minister announces about emission targets, it will put us at the bottom of the pile with Japan and, probably, Australia.”

Election year calculus

Tsunami-hobbled Japan recently announced it will reduce emissions by 25 per cent, but moved its starting point from 2005 levels to 2013 levels. Australia, like Canada, hasn’t announced its new targets.

QUEBEC CLIMATE SUMMIT 20150414
Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne agreed, left, and Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard agreed on a plan for Ontario on to join Quebec and California in North America’s largest cap-and-trade system. Federal Conservatives oppose what they call “a tax on everything.” (The Canadian Press)

Conservative insiders say the U.S. targets sound great, but mean little, because Obama has no hope of getting them through the Republican-dominated Congress.

They see the Paris UN conference as a kind of reset to climate negotiations, and Harper will continue to argue Canada will do its part if the world’s biggest emitters — China, Russia and the U.S. — step up with real targets.

China, for example, has agreed to cap its emissions by 2030, but not reduce them, and to increase the use of renewable energy to 20 per cent by 2030.

Harper, one suspects, is far less worried about how world leaders will respond when he announces Canada’s climate change targets than he is about how it will play with Canadians.

He’s portrayed any attempt to put a price on carbon — including his party’s once-stated policy of curtailing emissions through what’s called cap and trade — as a tax on everything.

So, in the run-up to Paris the calculation for the prime minister is, to put it bluntly, what political price will his Conservatives pay for not taking action on climate change in an election year, when his opponents argue they intend to do much more. SOURCE

RELATED:

U.S. action on climate change exposes Tory hypocrisy

Activism, democracy, Ecocide ALert, Fascism/Corporatism, Politics, Preventing Ecocide, Video

Take Action! Frack off!

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Fracking cartoon

By Michael Riordan, reposted from MichaelRiordan.com on Apr 30, 2015

Bold ScientistsWith remarkable foresight, in March an NDP member of the Ontario legislature, Peter Tabuns, introduced a bill (proposed law) to ban fracking in Ontario. (Fracking = hydraulic fracturing of the earth’s crust for gas and oil.)

With remarkable stupidity, the ruling Liberal government immediately rejected the bill. There is no fracking yet in Ontario, said Natural Resources Minister Bill Mauro, so there is no need for a ban. More detail here.

Fracking consumes and poisons millions of litres of fresh water –for every well. The drillers inject a toxic brew of chemicals under high pressure to smash underground shale and force oil and gas to the surface. Fracking operations leak vast quantities of methane, a devastating greenhouse gas. They also set off earthquake epidemics where such incidents have been rare.

Result: Immense profit for a few, incalculable harm for the rest of us and the earth.

Worldwide, as soon as people become informed about fracking, resistance grows rapidly, and people have won government bans and moratoria in many municipalities, provinces, states and countries. Check here for an up-to-date list.

Meanwhile in Ontario, the door – our door, by the way – remains wide open.

In a 2014 poll, 75% of Ontarians supported a moratorium on fracking. As Peter Tabuns understands, the time to close the door is now, before it’s too late.

The bill is scheduled to come to a vote on May 7, a week from now.

Send a message to Premier Wynne, via a new email campaign from the Council of Canadians: Ban fracking in Ontario. Close the door now. sign_now

The underground story on fracking and the growing resistance is here, inside Bold Scientists. Scroll down to chapter 10, The unsolved problem.

 

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democracy, Ecocide ALert, Fascism/Corporatism, Politics, Preventing Ecocide

CETA could be a “casualty” in the European fight over TTIP

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The Council of Canadians will continue to lobby MEPs to reject CETA.
The Council of Canadians will continue to lobby MEPs to reject CETA.

By Brent Patterson, reposted from the Council of Canadians, Apr 29, 2015

It appears increasingly likely that the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) could be a “casualty” in the European debate over the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provision in the United States-European Union Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

The European public affairs newspaper Politico reports, “A surprising casualty is emerging in the trade debate between the United States and European Union: Canada. Almost overnight, the pact struck between Ottawa and Brussels in September has been delayed to early 2016. There is little chance the deal … will take effect until 2017. What went wrong?”

ISDS.

The newspaper highlights, “The European Parliament is currently debating a draft resolution demanding major changes to the US agreement, formally known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Many members want to completely exclude ISDS from the American treaty, whereas some plead for major changes such as a court mechanism for dispute settlements, with the EU and US appointing independent judges, limited lawsuit possibilities and an appeal procedure. …[And] there are many members of parliament now posing one critical question: ‘Why should we ratify the Canadian trade pact, which includes an ‘outdated’ version of ISDS that no one wants to accept in the American deal?'”

Bernd Lange, chair of the Parliament’s committee on international trade, says, “It is clear to the Commission that if they put an agreement on the table that does not fulfill our demands on ISDS, then we will let it fail.”

The article highlights, “Negotiators at the Commission know the current Canadian pact will be a tough sell that probably won’t make it through the legislative process. That’s why [European commissioner for trade Cecilia] Malmström is now trying to use the ‘legal scrubbing’ to modify the agreement’s articles about ISDS at the last minute. Her spokesman, Daniel Rosario, expressed hope that some ‘fine tuning’ around investment dispute settlements ‘may be feasible’. … [But] the only way to bring such modifications into the agreement would be if Canada explicitly signs off on it.”

And so far the Harper government has refused to do so.

It is believed that European Union member states could begin voting on CETA in January 2016 and that the European Parliament could vote on it in April 2016. SOURCE

 

Further reading
Merkel’s political imperatives spell trouble for CETA (February 2015 blog by Maude Barlow)
Majority of MEPs may oppose Canada-EU ‘trade’ deal (August 2014 blog)
191 MEPs threaten to vote down CETA in European Parliament (March 2015 blog)
Council of Canadians participates in International Day Against Free Trade Agreements (April 2015 blog)
Trading Away Democracy: How CETA’s investor protection rules threaten the public good in Canada and the EU (November 2014 report)

 

Fascism/Corporatism, Politics, Preventing Ecocide, Uncategorized

Top 10 ways the Harper government has boosted inequality (11 actually)

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Photo: jakerust. Used under a Creative Commons BY-2.0 license.

reposted from The Broadbent Institute, Apr 20, 2015

1. Family Income Splitting

The federal government plans to spend about $2-billion per year on family income splitting that will mainly benefit high-income, traditional families with a stay at home spouse, to a maximum amount of $2,000 per year. There is no benefit at all from income splitting for single parents, or for two parent families in which both earners are in the same tax bracket, including the middle and bottom income tax brackets; these families with children under 18 represent over half of all families that are the apparent target of the scheme, according to the Broadbent Institute study, The Big Split. Meanwhile, the large savings will go to families with one partner in the top tax bracket and a stay at home spouse with a tax rate of zero. This big pre-election tax cut will directly increase income inequality.

2. Doubling contribution limits to Tax-Free Savings Accounts – Taxing Wages Not Investment Income

The Harper Conservatives appear set to double the annual contribution limit to $11,000, despite warnings about how this will disproportionally benefit wealthy families, reduce the progressivity of federal and provincial tax system, and cost the government additional billions annually. Investment income earned in these accounts is not taxable. While it is reasonable to exempt modest amounts of savings from tax, the expansion of TFSAs as planned will eventually result in the near elimination of taxation of investment income. Wages will still be taxed, but not the income from capital gains and dividends, which is mainly received by the wealthy. Persons with incomes of more than $250,000currently receive more than one half (53%) of all taxable capital gains income and 38% of taxable income from dividends.

Economist Rhys Kesselman, who was the co-author of the 2001 study that laid the foundation for the TFSA (and who objects to the doubling of the limits), shows that after 42 years of maximum contributions, accumulated TFSA balances for an individual would reach $780,000 based on a 5% rate of return, and federal income tax revenues could fall by over $15 billion per year. And that is before the planned doubling of contribution limits. Kesselman found that the current combined contribution limits for RRSPs and TFSAs allow ample room for the lifetime saving requirements of all workers earning up to at least $200,000 annually. Further, of individuals aged under 60 years and holding a TFSA in 2012, fewer than 16 percent had used their full contribution limits – clear evidence that the current TFSA limit is more than adequate for the overwhelming majority of Canadians. Usage of the current TFSA provision already displays a skew favouring individuals at higher incomes, and this bias would be accentuated and accelerated by a doubling of the contribution limits, according to the Broadbent Institute report, Double Trouble, authored by Kesselman.

3. No Increase in the National Child Benefit Supplement (NCBS) to Reduce Child Poverty

The NCBS is Canada’s major program to combat child poverty. The current maximum NCBS supplement per child for a one-child family is $2,241 a year ($186.75 a month); for a two-child family it is $1,982 a year ($165.16 a month) per child, phased out if family net income is more than $25,584. These benefits still leave one Canadian child in five living in poverty. The NCBS is indexed to inflation, but has not been increased under the Harper government despite the repeated urgings of child poverty experts and activists.

4. Deep Corporate Tax Cut

The Harper government has proudly put corporate tax cuts at the very heart of its so-called growth and jobs agenda. Since taking power in 2006, it has cut the general federal corporate tax rate from 22.1% to 15%. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, each one point reduction costs $1.85 billion in lost annual revenues, so the total annual cost is some $12 billion. Corporations are owned by shareholders, so an increase in after-tax profits resulting from a corporate tax cut will boost the value of shares (capital gains) and raise dividends paid out to shareholders. Half of all taxable gains and 38% of dividends go to taxpayers with incomes over $250,000.

Corporate tax cuts certainly boost after-tax corporate profits, but they have had no impact on actual business investment in machinery and equipment, human capital formation, and in intellectual property, which are the key building blocks of our future prosperity. In fact, Corporate Canada is currently sitting with over $600 billion of “dead money” on their balance sheets. An analysis of business investment and cash flow since 1961, and, using econometric techniques, “finds no evidence in the historical data that lower taxes have directly stimulated more investment.” Further, the latest data show that business spending in these vital areas has been flat for the past three years, and remains below the pre-recession level.

5. More Employment Insurance Cuts

Under the Harper government, the proportion of unemployed workers eligible to collect EI benefits has fallen well below 40%. This is mainly because part-time and temporary workers as well as new entrants to the work force do not get enough hours of work to qualify when they are laid off. While this is mainly due to tough eligibility requirements dating back to the 1990s, the Conservatives introduced new rules in 2013 that force so-called frequent claimants to accept jobs at just 70% of their previous wage after a six week job search, and to travel long distances to work. These changes have also driven down wages in low-wage jobs.

6. Temporary Foreign Workers and Low Wages

The Harper government presided over a huge increase in the number of so-called low skill temporary foreign workers, who have only a temporary right to stay in Canada and must remain with a single employer. Many economic experts argue that this program helped push down wages for Canadian and recent immigrant workers who could have done the work at a decent wage.

While the government has since tightened up the rules, the temporary foreign workers program continues, and such a one-sided employer-driven program helps maintain low-wage jobs, costing all workers (to say nothing of the inequitable treatment of TFWs themselves).

7. Delayed Eligibility for Old Age Security (OAS)/Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS)

The OAS and GIS in combination provide a guaranteed annual income that is close to the poverty line. The program provides a significant boost in income to many older Canadians, especially persons with disabilities, when they are age 65 and over. The Harper government has hiked the eligibility age for OAS and GIS from age 65 to age 67, phased in from the year 2023. Lack of access to the GIS at 65 will impact approximately the poorest one third of seniors who qualify for the additional benefit.

8. No Support for Indigenous Canadians

The Harper government has failed to address abhorrent inequities between Indigenous and non-indigenous Canadians. Indigenous Canadians remain the country’s most marginalized people, living with high rates of poverty including, often appalling housing conditions, polluted water, serious chronic health issues and high unemployment. The Harper government turned its back on the Kelowna Accord reached between First Nations and the previous government, which set out an action plan for education among other issues.

A tentative agreement on increased funding of $1.9 billion for First Nations education was reached in 2014 but was rejected by many First Nations due to concerns that it gave them insufficient control. Access to education can be a great equalizer, and yet funding per student on reserves is well below the level of provincial school systems.

9. Health Care: Privatization in the Pipeline

Canadians are equal in one very fundamental sense. The Canada Health Act guarantees everyone free of charge access to provincially provided medically necessary care. But this is under threat if the federal government does not pay a reasonable share of rising health care costs.

The Harper government has said that health care transfers to the provinces will rise only in line with therate of growth of the economy after 2017, even though health care costs are expected to rise faster than GDP due to an ageing population. The provinces will have to pay for the difference, posing an especially severe challenge for the have-not provinces. Reduced federal funding will increase pressures to introduce user fees, undermining the universality of the program and disproportionally hurting low-income Canadians.

10. The Attack on Labour Rights

Unions help create a more equal society and a shared prosperity by raising wages and improving benefits, especially for lower paid workers. But the Harper government has been a consistent foe of basic labour rights, notwithstanding continued rulings by the Supreme Court that such rights are protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Harper government has denied workers the right to strike by imposing collective agreements and by making it harder for workers to join unions in federally regulated industries, and is baking legislation to seriously limit political advocacy by the labour movement; no such restrictions would apply to business and professional associations.

The bottom line is unions helped build the middle class, and weakening them destabilizes the middle class and exacerbates income inequality.

11. The Attack on Information for Democratic Debate

If we are to fight inequality, we need the facts. Yet the information base for social analysis and advocacy has been seriously undermined by the Harper government. The end of the long-form census means that we have little or no reliable Statistics Canada data on recent trends in income inequality and poverty. And the government has eliminated important sources of expertise such as the National Council of Welfare, which produced valuable reports and studies on poverty in Canada. SOURCE

 

Cultural Ecocide, Fascism/Corporatism, Politics

Revealed: Alberta’s ploy to break First Nations’ pipeline opposition

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Revealed: Alberta’s ploy to break First Nations’ pipeline opposition

Alberta Premier Jim Prentice on the election campaign trail at an oil well site near Three Hills, Alberta, April 13, 2015. Photograph: TODD KOROL/REUTERS

By , reposted from The Guardian, Apr 29, 2015

The Alberta government escalated its campaign to build tar sands pipelines under Premier Jim Prentice by seeking to have First Nations become full-blown proponents of the projects in return for oil revenues.

Documents obtained by the Guardian show that under a proposed agreement the province would have funded a task force of Alberta First Nations and government officials to “work jointly on removing bottlenecks and enabling the construction of pipelines to tide-water in the east and west coasts.”

The push was part of a broader diplomatic offensive launched by Progressive Conservative Premier Jim Prentice after he came to power in late 2014, making approval of pipelines his highest priority. Prentice is currently struggling to win re-election.

First Nations have been at the forefront of a growing movement that has delayed the construction of pipelines that would carry Alberta’s controversial tar sands to international markets, raising fears among politicians and investors that the crude will remain landlocked.

The agreement, drafts of which were seen by the Guardian, would have committed Alberta First Nations to conduct regular briefings with TransCanada, Enbridge and Kinder Morgan and to reach out to other First Nations in British Columbia and elsewhere to identify ways of getting their support for pipelines.

In exchange, they would be granted a share of oil royalties and opportunities to become investors or owners of oil enterprises or projects.

Discussions were handled by Joe Dion, an aboriginal oil businessman close to the Progressive Conservative party, who shuttled between Premier Prentice and Alberta’s First Nations.

“I’ve been talking to Jim Prentice about getting an agreement to work with all First Nations to get access to tidewater. I discussed it with him after he got elected. We did drafts, which have been sent to the Premier,” he said. “[Prentice] would like to get it going. He needs First Nations support to get access to the west coast, for the Keystone XL pipeline, for the Energy East pipeline.”

The agreement would also have committed Alberta First Nations to “urge others engaged in litigation against Alberta to withdraw their legal challenges.”

Several First Nations are legally challenging the Alberta government’s management and rapid development of the tar sands, one of the world’s most polluting fuel sources.

These include the Athabasca Fort Chipewyan and the Beaver Lake Cree First Nation, who have a case before the courts alleging wide-scale violations of their aboriginal and treaty rights.

At a conference of right-wing politicians and activists in Ottawa last month, Prentice told reporters “there are a lot of things going on behind the scenes and I think we are further along than we ever have been” in winning First Nations support.

A draft agreement was first presented to First Nations leaders in the fall of 2014, and in March Alberta’s Associate Minister of Aboriginal Relations met with them to finalize the task force that would work on the pact.

Sources say that resistance from one or two Chiefs derailed the agreement at the meeting, but Dion says he’s hopeful it can still get signed this summer.

As the price of oil has plummeted, Alberta’s reliance on the tar sands has resulted in tens of thousands of job losses and a massive hit to government revenue.

A recent poll showed that 86 percent of Albertans believe the economy is too dependent on oil and gas, while 71 per cent think that oil companies should pay higher royalties.

Alberta has Canada’s greatest potential for renewable solar power, and solar panels could alone cover Alberta’s annual electrical energy needs.

Last week the world’s leading scientists and economists released a statementrepeating that 75% of known fossil fuel reserves must be left in the ground if humanity is to avoid catastrophic levels of global warming.

Initially slated to easily win office in elections on May 5, Premier Prentice has fallen behind in polls to the opposition New Democratic Party (NDP) and Wildrose Party.

He provoked public anger when his pre-election budget raised fees for government services and froze public sector salaries while rejecting any increase to corporate taxes.

Before becoming Premier, Prentice worked as an envoy for Enbridge trying to win First Nations over to the Northern Gateway pipeline that would cross British Columbia to the Pacific Coast. As Premier, he was serving simultaneously as Minister of Aboriginal Relations.

NDP leader Rachel Notley has said she would reject the Northern Gateway because of “environmental sensitivity,” and end any further lobbying trips to Washington, D.C., for the Keystone XL pipeline. She wants to see more refining and upgrading of crude oil in Alberta instead of its export internationally, and would also support alternative energy.

Notley called Prentice’s decision to delay a climate change strategy until after the elections, after he initially promised it for last December, “profoundly irresponsible.”

The Premier’s office did not return requests for comment. SOURCE

 

On twitter: @Martin_Lukacs