Alternatives International

Break the Law, Save the Earth

Brittany McGillivray — 2013-03-02T00:29:46Z

Civil disobedience: is it a radical form of organization, or a meaningful way to resist unjust laws? Should laws be changed ‘democratically,' and is civil disobedience a part of our democratic system?

These questions have been circulating around the arrest of Sierra Club U.S's top leaders. Washington, D.C. police arrested Allison Chin and Michael Brune on February 13, along with nearly fifty other climate activists, for zip-tying themselves to the White House gates in protest of the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

Chin is president of the Sierra Club U.S, and Brune its executive director. The club is one of the oldest and most influential grassroots environmental organizations in the United States, and is affiliated with Sierra Club Canada. In the organization's 120-year history this is the first time that it has overtly supported civil disobedience.

Sierra Club's usual method is to compile scientific evidence and run scientific-based campaigns, ensuring that their claims are supported empirically and that their suggestions are sustainable. They present this information to the government, who, in an ideal world, would respond with appropriate legislation.

With a history of fairly docile (though still influential and important) tactics, why use civil disobedience now? In the age of flash-mobs and tabloids, is civil disobedience a fast way to garner attention? Is it the most effective way to mobilize a protest movement?

The problem is that both the U.S and Canadian governments are failing to respond to empirical data, and are powering forward with both the Keystone XL and Enbridge pipelines, regardless of public outcry or the predicted environmental costs. The data is no longer a factor – the governments know the risks and are ignoring them in favor of oil-industry interests.

Jackie Thomas, Chief of the Saik'uz First Nations, spoke out against this money-hungry ideology at a rally in Washington D.C. on February 17. Thomas says: "In Canada, the First Nations are always expected to be the sacrificial lambs for our government in terms of the economy, like the economy is a human being, like the economy is more important than our land and our water."

The rally, organized by the Sierra Club and 350.org, drew an estimated 40,000-50,000 people, many of whom donned signs begging Obama to address the imminent dangers of climate change. Protest groups included the Tar Sands Blockade, a group dedicated to the use of non-violent civil disobedience to prevent the further construction of pipelines.

While Sierra Club Canada has been hesitant to follow suite with acts of civil disobedience, John Bennett, its executive director, recently stated in The Province that Sierra Club Canada “is discussing [civil disobedience] for good reasons,” citing an estimated 4,000 environmental assessments that have been ignored by cabinet members in parliament.

Bennett states, “There are now rules preventing members of the public from participating in environmental assessments […] There no longer is an arm's length process to determine the acceptability environmentally or otherwise of industrial projects. Thirty years of developing environmental policies to protect our air, forests and wildlife have been swept away.”

The obstruction of public participation is itself a non-democratic act—one that the Government of Canada seems willing to ignore.

Sierra Club Canada is now faced with the question of whether they should utilize civil disobedience as a meaningful way to resist the government's undemocratic methods—or if, in doing so, they will lose conservative members of their support base. While civil disobedience has a history of success, it can also be considered a ‘radical' form of campaigning—technically speaking, it operates outside of the law. The organization must employ Gandhian non-violence in a way that will not negatively afflict its image and isolate supporters.

The issue of citizen organization is crucial and imminent. As the government ignores scientific campaigns and reviews, and profit is prioritized above the sustainability of our planet, new forms of resistance must come into play, and perhaps the most effective solution to take a stance against the pipelines is civil disobedience. At the very least, it should remain an option for citizens and organizations as they explore ways to voice their opinions against institutions that threaten the vitality of our environment, the quality of our futures, and living standards for generations to come.

To read more, click here and here.

Rising Opposition to The Northern Gateway Pipeline in British Columbia

Brittany McGillivray — 2013-02-01T22:40:33Z

Enbridge's proposed Northern Gateway pipeline is facing growing opposition as Canadians protest the project that seeks to pump roughly 525,000 barrels of petroleum from Alberta to British Columbia's coast per day. Tensions escalated this month as the National Energy Board's Joint Review Panel (JRP), an independent body mandated by the National Energy Board (NEB) and the Minister of the Environment, arrived in the Vancouver Lower Mainland for hearings opening on January 14.

The hearings were immediately ‘greeted' by concerned British Columbians who want to protect the sanctity of their province's landscape, indigenous communities and wildlife. On January 14, thousands marched in a noise rally to ‘welcome' the Enbridge hearing to Vancouver, bringing together Idle No More members with members of the greater public opposing the pipeline.

Ultimately, the debate is about two contrasting visions for Canada: one where the country becomes the playground for oil industry interests that garner fast profits at the price of our environment, and another that favours the democratic process of using natural resources without risking the sustainability of our climate, communities, and reputation.

Over seventy First Nations in Alberta and BC have spoken out against the pipeline and supertankers that would threaten and damage their territories.

The hearing was closed to the public and took place at the Sheraton Wall centre, with citizens relegated to satellite sites several blocks away to view the hearings via webcast. The BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) has written to the president of the NEB, expressing dismay that the hearings were not “open, transparent and accessible” to the public. Because the Board closed the hearings without proving a “real and substantial risk” to the administration of justice, Lindsay Lyster, the President of BCCLA, has criticized the hearings as “potentially unlawful.”

On January 15, the efforts to exclude the public led six activists to storm the hearings, blowing whistles and cordoning off the hearing area as a "climate crime scene." The protesters were arrested, but released from jail later that afternoon. Sean Devlin, one of the protesters, later stated:

Climate change is killing thousands of people every year, primarily in developing countries and Indigenous communities that are the least responsible for creating this problem. Despite this fact, the Joint Review Panel has instructed those participating in the hearings not to talk about climate change. This is a shockingly irresponsible move considering Canada's tar sands contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. New fossil fuel pipelines are an irresponsible step in the wrong direction.

Further resistance to the hearings occurred on January 18, when hundreds gathered outside the Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre to form a great blue ‘uberdrop,'-a community art project organized by local artist Zack Embree and activist A.J. Klein.

In a news release, Embree explained the project as “combining community and art in order to draw attention to the need to protect land and water from resource extraction projects such as the Proposed Northern Gateway pipeline…”

Coastal First Nations also protested through creative means, using a twenty-five-foot long representation of a whale to signify their opposition to the pipeline and reiterate their fight for their sustainable lifestyles and culture.

The hearings have since moved onto Kelowna where similar protests are being held.

For more information on how the pipeline will negatively affect Canadians, or to sign a petition voicing your concern with the project visit http://www.leadnow.ca/canadas-interests.

When Do We Mobilize? When the Canadian Government is No Longer Working for Canada

Brittany McGillivray — 2012-12-02T02:16:21Z

Stephen Harper's latest deals have caused a stirring across Canada from grassroots organizations and citizens opposed to the outsourcing of Canada's resources and the government's insistent catering to multinational corporations. In particular, the Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA) threatens to give multinational corporations unprecedented control over the Canadian government through investor-state arbitration. Harper's eagerness to appease oil-hungry China and allow foreign buy-outs of homegrown resources not only destabilizes Canada's own resource growth, but could also crucially damage the lives of First Nations indigenous communities and the prosperity of Canada's environment and coast. The discontent against these rulings is mounting as human rights groups, environmental groups, indigenous peoples, students, labour unions, and civil society organizations respond to Harper's neoliberal policies. Organizations are mobilizing and binding together under a proposed horizontal method of debate and discussion, currently conceptualized as a ‘grassroots approach to a Canada-Quebec-Indigenous Peoples' Social Forum'.

Expansion Commissions have formed in Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto to mobilize and propose a General Assembly that would bring together various groups and organizations across Canada. Meetings have also been planned in Vancouver and the Atlantic region. The People's Social Forum want to represent a pluralistic, non-party and decentralized body that would work to ensure that the Canadian government is representing, and held accountable to, the Canadian people.

Brent Patterson, the Political Director at the Council of Canadians, has been involved in the preliminary meetings with Alternatives and various organizations that have been exploring and negotiating the creation of this social forum. The Council of Canadians is Canada's largest citizens' organization, and works to promote progressive policies that best protect the social and economic wellbeing of Canadians.

Patterson defined the process of establishing the forum as “an opportunity to define a vision but also recognize the immediate threats ahead of us.” The social movement has the opportunity to bridge the divide between various voices of dissidence that have been mobilizing around the same root causes.

“The social movement across this country has been relatively fragmented, divided into different areas and consequently hasn't been as strong is it could be if it were more united. It seems that this forum is an opportunity for us as a social movement to talk with each other across geographic, linguist, cultural and other divides.”

Reasons to Mobilize:

The Canada-China FIPA Investment Deal:

The Canada-China FIPA investment deal is one of the most contentious and dangerous treaties tabled in parliament – and could pass without a single vote or debate. The treaty was tabled in late September 2012, and could be adopted by Cabinet at any point, following the 2008 process that allows the government to instate treaties twenty-one days after tabling a text. The treaty would give multinational corporations trade protection in Canada, but at the cost of our environment and natural resources. The treaty allows foreign governments to sue Canadian governments for anything that ‘limits' these companies' economic investments and interests– where the ‘limiting' of these powers could be something as necessary as improving Canada's environmental standards or slowing down the export of our unprocessed resources. Not only does this restrict the democratic process of making decisions in Canada that seek to better the lives of Canadians, but it also enables foreign governments to sue any level of Canadian government outside of Canadian courts through investor-state arbitrator. Under the deal, these tribunals could take place without the public's knowledge and allow Chinese investors to award damages to any state entity in Canada. Moreover, the power to sue isn't mutual - the Canadian government cannot similarly challenge or sue Chinese investors for breaking any laws. And while the Chinese companies could sue any level of Canadian government, only the Canadian federal government would be allowed to participate in the arbitrations. The special tribunals would undermine a principle of openness and public accountability that has (in theory) characterized Canadian politics in favour of strengthening export trade relations.

What is worse is Canada's unimpressive history of investor-state arbitrations since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) entered into force in 1994. Canada has lost about half of its cases against U.S. Companies, and has had to pay about one hundred sixty million dollars in compensation. In light of this, it is reasonable to question if FIPA would give Chinese investors the power to pressure governments in Canada and take even greater advantage of our resources.

On October 16, at a press conference for ‘Women, Oil and Climate Change', a delegation organized by Judy Williams to discuss environmental issues surrounding the Enbridge pipeline, touched on the gravity of the FIPA deal. Williams, a 1997 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the International Campaign to Ban Land mines, expressed her dismay at the inherent exploitation of these agreements:

“If people don't stand up and fight, there will be a secret agreement between the government of Canada and China allowing China rights to exploit the tar sands. They are not even allowing discussion in parliament about this.”

The Nexen Deal:

The Tories' ties with the Chinese government serve to threaten our economic prosperity while undermining the importance of preserving our natural resources. The Nexen Deal is an example of the government's new leniency towards the foreign buyouts of Canada's resources. Nexen Inc, a Calgary-based Canadian oil and gas company, is being sold to the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), one of China's state-owned corporations. The fifteen billion dollar Nexen takeover has been labeled a “dangerous precedent” that could shape further policy and allow foreign powers to obtain a large stake in Canada's critical resources.

On the Nexen Deal, and the significance of foreign policy, Patterson would “argue for the importance of […] public and democratic control over natural resources” and the government's ability to prioritize for “its indigenous rights or environment or climate or water over profit and exploitation.” He notes that these trade agreements give companies rights that can undermine and challenge legislation protecting public interest. He also notes the “significant threat” faced by “a new infusion of a large amount of cash [that can] spur further tar-sand development.”

Even Sinclair Stevens, the industry-minister in the mid-1980s who once participated in a major rewrite of foreign buy-outs of Canadian companies, recognizes the threat this poses to Canadian control and ownership of Canadian resources. Sinclair spoke wearily about the Nexen deal, expressing the fear that the deal will “open the floodgates” for further foreign buy-outs. “It would be a breakthrough for them. How would you say ‘No' to the next fellow?” he asked, as reported by the Globe and Mail. Even current advocates for Canadian trade expansion are wary of the implications of relinquishing power over Canadian soil. Murray Edwards, CEO of Canadian Natural Resources Ltd, spoke to the importance of protecting Canadian ownership of oil sand firms: “We want to make sure we have access to capital but, as a country, we want to ensure a strong Canadian presence in the oil sands” he notes.

Enbridge and the Threat to B.C.'s Coast:

Already, Chinese corporations have an unsettling amount of power over the environmental future of Canada. The Northern Gateway Pipeline, a proposed project that would transport crude oil from Alberta to Kitimat, B.C., is a prime example of the mounting conflict between the government's export trade interests and the health and safety of Canadian communities. The pipeline would run through First Nations territory, disregarding the Native communities and permanently disrupting their home, culture and land. Furthermore, an oil spill could inflict an irreparable amount of damage upon the coast. British Columbians have been particularly vocal in their dismay at the proposed pipeline, however, Cinopec, a Chinese-owned oil company, may be able to sue the country for damages if the province attempts to block or regulate the construction.

Gerald Taiaiake Alfred, a professor of Indigenous Governments at the University of Victoria, was one of around 3,500 demonstrators to gather in Victoria on October 22 to protest the pipelines. The protest united under the name Defend Our Coast and urged Stephen Harper and Premier Christy Clark to not allow the transport of crude oil at the cost of indigenous communities and the destruction of our coast.

Alfred succinctly voiced the governments' disregard for these damages: “This project assumes that First Nation lands are for sale and access to Native communities is a right. It disregards any notions that First Nations have any control over their own territory.”

Young Canadians have played a major role in protesting against the pipeline, through the use of social-media and networking to mobilize a collective voice. Resistance has taken place in the form of casseroles, as well as in attempts to unite under symbols of solidarity. Rachel Tetrault, a British Columbian who recently graduated from Concordia University, approached this desire to unify Canadians through a badge of a felt blue droplet, inspired by the red-square sported by many protestors during the student movement in Quebec.

Tetrault notes that in BC there's “a feeling of mounting opposition towards the building and expanding of pipelines.”

“As the momentum continues to build, I hope that the blue drop becomes a wave that reaches all the way to Ottawa, and we can begin to change the conversation from ‘How do we get crude oil to foreign markets?' to ‘How can we create sustainable energy projects in Canada, that create long-term jobs, protect workers, and respect the sovereignty of First Nations people?'”

The Benefits of a United and Democratic Public Forum:

While students, coalition groups and First Nations have presented a strong, united force in B.C. and across Canada to rally for the safety of Canadian land and citizens, the battle is still ongoing. Grassroots pressure has been particularly effective at stalling Harper from implementing any detrimental treaties, but FIPA could still pass at any moment. Hearings across Canada to discuss Enbridge and other environmental concerns are set to occur early in the new year. Open letters from the BC Union of Indian Chiefsand Chiefs of Ontario have condemned the Canada-China FIPA actions and call out the government for rejecting its fiduciary duty to consult First Nations on their constitutionally recognized Aboriginal Title, Rights and Treaty Rights. Other sites of resistance include LeadNow, an independent advocacy agency intent on mobilizing citizens and rallying a united voice of opposition against the neoliberal policies of the government. All these fragmented factions contribute to the growing concern and awareness across Canada for the policies that will affect the country and its citizens for years to come.

Students and youth have also played a major role in organizing and mobilizing against these legislations. In the spirit of the student strikes in Quebec last spring, Canadian youth seem to be been newly awakened to their political voice and collective power.

“Youth engagement and participation in the social forum [will be] critical and I think even more than that, it was youth leadership setting the example in Quebec,” reflects Patterson. He adds that the forum not only seeks to incorporate youth participation but that the broader movement has learned from the youth organizations and their “creative ways of critical organization.” Patterson stresses to young Canadians that their democratic participation is respected and something we can all learn from as a larger movement.

The Canada-Quebec-Indigenous-People's Social Forum would seek to unite these coalitions and provide a democratic and open-space through which to debate, discuss and propose alternatives to the government's questionable actions. Numerous unions across Canada have already expressed interest in joining the discussions. The forum would meet on an annual basis, and serve as a platform through which Canadians could mobilize collective action against the capitalist motions that threaten Canadian democracy, culture, and land. While the movement is currently fragmented and in the early stages, once brought to fruition it would serve as a space for voices of dissent to stimulate debate and discussion and join progressive institutions to cohesively transform and resist the Conservative government's damaging agenda.

For more information on the People's Social Forum, please contact Roger Bashi at roger@alternatives.ca or for Council of Canadians campaign blogs related to the organizing of this forum, please click here.

The Imminent Dangers of the Shrinking Arctic

Brittany McGillivray — 2012-11-02T03:02:53Z

On September 16, 2012 the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) published the startling news that the Arctic summer sea ice was at its lowest level since researchers began recording it in 1979. The summer sea ice was recorded at only 1.32 million square miles, demonstrating a near 20 percent decrease than the last record minimum of 1.61 million square miles on September 18 2007.

A scientist at NSIDC reflects on the data: "By itself it's just a number, and occasionally records are going to get set. But in the context of what's happened in the last several years and throughout the satellite record, it's an indication that the Arctic sea ice cover is fundamentally changing."

The implications of such changes are vast. The accelerated warming of the Arctic increases the chance of weather extremes such as floods, heat waves and cold spells in the Northern Hemisphere.

The melting ice could lead to a rapid increase in sea level in the years to come. As reported by CNN: “the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted that the global average sea level would rise between seven and twenty three inches by the end of this century.”

Environmentalist groups cite the shrinking ice caps as an indicator of global warming caused by human-made greenhouse gas emissions, a claim which has historically encountered backlash and cynicism.

With the erratic changes of weather pattern and the warming of the atmosphere, such rise in sea levels could have dangerous repercussions as unusual storms produce intense and life-threatening tidal surges. In the case of hybrid superstorms such as Hurricane Sandy, high sea levels can lead to fatal flooding.

The damage inflicted by the super storm—a rising death toll of at least fifty people—is evidence of the possibility for catastrophic outcomes of rising sea levels and temperatures. The scope of the destruction, taking into account its devastating losses, should work to convince public consciousness of the brutal reality of climate change.

Evidence suggests that vulnerable island states may need to evacuate their populations within a decade. Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, warns that the Pacific Islands are faced with the prospect of flooding and salt-water intrusion.

Mann also notes that the models predicting climate change may be too forgiving. “We know that there is methane trapped [in the permafrost] and as it escapes into the atmosphere, it accelerates the warming even further.”

Shayne Wolf, the climate science director at the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute claims that “the polar meltdown shows we're teetering on the brink of climate-change catastrophe.” He summarizes: “We can't wait any longer to cut carbon pollution.”

Solutions to climate change and alternative energy technologies need to come into play, especially because fossil fuel dependence is aiding causing the instability of the atmosphere. With Hurricane Sandy's damage to the East Coast and the resulting billions of dollars in damage.

Responding to the satellite-records of the ice caps and the NSIC release of figures, Kumi Naidoo, the Greenpeace International Executive Director said:

“Today's announcement represents a defining moment in human history. In just over 30 years we have altered the way our planet looks from space, and soon the North Pole may be completely ice free in summer.”

Naidoo states: “We must work together to protect the Arctic from the effects of climate change and unchecked corporate greed. This is now the defining environmental battle of our era.”