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  • Interview with Grand Chief Stuart Phillip, Union of BC Indian Chiefs at the FIPA Rally, Vancouver
    Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Act (FIPPA), First Nations, Society

    Brenda Sayers - FIPA Rally in VancouverAt the FIPA rally, June 5 2013
    Outside the Federal Court, 701 Georgia Street, Vancouver, BC
    Photo: Brenda Sayers, pictured here with white blanket, of Hupacasath First Nations, Vancouver Island, has led the First Nations court action, on behalf of Canadians, against the Canada/China Investment Protection Agreement (FIPA).

    Interviewer: We're talking all about solidarity. It's all about We Stand Together. How do you think the outcome of this case will affect the other cases that are up right now with the  Frog Lake and the Misigaw around overturning the legislation that destroyed our Navigable Waters Act? 

    SP: I think that all of these court cases will serve as a

  • Pull the Plug on Site C Dam
    Feature, Hydro, Site C, Summer-2013-Vol23-No3, Rivers

    by Andrea Morison

    The Peace River Valley in northeastern BC is under serious threat due to the proposed mega-Site C dam.  Promoters of this project neglect to consider the long-term consequences that would result from it. With global warming eradicating traditional food-producing land and with ecosystem fragmentation, particularly in northeastern BC, it is evident that a project of this magnitude must not be allowed to proceed.

  • The Price of Oil - Tar Sands' Impact on Global Agricultural Production
    Feature, Oil, Summer-2013-Vol23-No3, Tar sands, Oil & Gas

    by Karen Wristen

    The impacts unchecked climate change could have on global food security might accurately be described as apocalyptic. As detailed in the most recent assessment by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, these include dramatic increases in drought, famine, flooding and disease, as well as equally dramatic losses in biodiversity.

  • Eulachon - BC's Giant Panda?
    First Nations, Fish, Summer-2013-Vol23-No3, Fish

    by John Kelson

    Eulachon. The name brings a wide range of responses from people. Even in coastal BC, many people will ask, “what are they?” Some who know a little about eulachon will say, “oh my, they’re slimy little fish,” or, “they taste gross.” Those who know more sometimes say, “when I was a kid we used to eat them from the Fraser,” and can identify them as members of the smelt family. Coastal First Nations who’ve eaten them all their lives, and others lucky enough to have had a chance, know they are the best fish one can eat, and as a

  • Protecting Marine Species
    Feature, Fish, marine, Oceans, science, Summer-2013-Vol23-No3

    mako sharkby Jeff Hutchings
    PHOTO CREDIT: Bill Fisher

    What do Atlantic cod and BC’s canary rockfish have in common with the burrowing owl and Vancouver Island marmot? They have all declined by more than 80 or 90%. And they are all considered to be at increased risk of extinction by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC). COSEWIC is the national science body, arms-length from government, responsible for advising the federal Minister of the Environment on species at risk.

    Despite similar declines, these species part company when it...

  • Environmental Science Axed by Harper 2012-2013
    Feature, Fish, Harper, Oil, Summer-2013-Vol23-No3, Water, Society

    Compiled by Joyce Nelson

    Fisheries & Oceans
    Discontinued: Species-at-Risk Program, Ocean Contaminants & Marine Toxicology Program, Habitat Management, Experimental Lakes Area (Northern Ontario), DFO Marine Science Libraries, Centre for Offshore Oil & Gas Energy Research
     

  • Harper's War on Science
    Feature, Climate change, Fish, Harper, Natural gas, Oil, Summer-2013-Vol23-No3, Tar sands, Water, Society

    by Joyce Nelson

    Canada’s Information Commissioner, Suzanne Legault, agreed at the end of March to launch an investigation into the extensive muzzling of federally-funded scientists at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), Environment Canada, Natural Resources Canada and other federal agencies. Her decision comes after a February 20th complaint formally filed by Democracy Watch in partnership with the Environmental Law Clinic of the University of Victoria, which called for a full investigation and was accompanied by a 128-page report, Muzzling Civil Servants: A Threat to Democracy.

    That report documents systematic silencing since 2007 of

  • The Canada Foundation for Innovation - War on Science
    Feature, Fish, Harper, Oil, Summer-2013-Vol23-No3, Water, Society

    Excerpt from Joyce Nelson's WS article, "Harper's War on Science"

    Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology, has consistently defended the Harper government from accusations of a War on Science by emphasizing the $5.5 billion that the Feds have provided to the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), including another $225 million to the CFI in Economic Action Plan 2013 released on March 21.   

    The CFI – the key decision-maker for all science funding in

  • Save Ocean Science - Fighting the War on Science
    Feature, Fish, Harper, Oceans, Oil, Summer-2013-Vol23-No3, Water

    save ocean science, harper's war on scienceby Susan MacVittie

    Photo credit: John Gardner, Timothy Foulkes

    When residents in St. Andrews, New Brunswick heard that the federal government was going to close the St. Andrews Biological Station (SABS) Library, discontinue the Contaminants and Toxicology (CT) program, and reduce the Habitat program as part of its cost cutting measures, they formed Save Ocean Science (SOS) to raise awareness about the impact of lost jobs and lost science.

    Since 1908, the SABS Library has provided resources to

  • Syria: Chemical Weapons or Media of Mass Destruction

    Here we go again -- the media howls for war, trotting out the same old variations on a theme to justify war against Syria, and, by all accounts, it will turn out just as well as Iraq and Libya, arming and empowering religious fundamentalists completely opposed to western interests. One really wonders if these "strategies" in the west -- USA and Britain in particular -- are being writen by the ghost of Osama Bin Laden?

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"This is it. It's done!" was the message in Alaska in 2008, 19 years after the Exxon Valdes oil spill.  Dave Janka, who runs Auklet Charters in Prince William Sound, ran his boat over to Smith Island to snap this photo.  Dave says, "It's far from done!"

W.L.M. (Bill) Wilson writes: 'Attached is my rewrite of Anne Feeney’s “Have You Been To Jail for Justice”. Anne granted permission to do non-profit performances of this Enbridge version.' Video by Ester Strijbos.