Jan. 13, 2010 - Issue #743: Broken Embraces

EVERYONE’S DOWNSTREAM III: We’re all in this together

Third annual conference takes an international view of the impact of Alberta's tar sands

For a third year, the Everyone's Downstream conference will be taking place in Edmonton. Focused on connecting directly affected communities and formulating plans for action, the conference brings together communities involved in resistance movements in the Great Bear Rainforest, ecologists from Quebec and communities directly affected by the tar sands from Lubicon territory down into Minesota. This year, though, the conference takes a more focused approach by looking at the corporate connections between the mega-billion-dollar Olympic production and the corporations funding environmental destruction in the tar sands.

"It's a flashpoint where people can see the agenda," says organizer Macdonald Stainsby. Stainsby has been with the conference since the beginning and will be speaking on the relevance of organizing in the face of the oncoming Olympics in Vancouver this February. Though the Olympics and tar sands development would appear to have little in common, Stainsby points out that there are many common issues. "The process of dealing of land, exploitation of labour, degredation of the environemnt, as well as the social effects of increased homelessness and the increased vulnerability of women living in the downtown east side as a result of unregulated and over-exapansive development makes it so that these developments have mirror results, even if they don't have mirror images as put out by their corporate paymasters."

This year's conference will also coincide with the release of the Dominion Media Co-op's special Olympic edition. Writers will present their articles on the growing "No2010" movement and how the Olympics have directly affected aboriginal territory. Sessions focus on the direct connections between corporate sponsors and the environmental destruction caused by energy-extraction activities. Corporations such as Suncor, Enbridge and TransCanada will have prominence in debates at the conference, with directly-affected community members presenting on the destruction of the projects.

Communities such as the Ojibwe/Anishinabe Nation will be speaking on the destruction and undemocratic nature of the Enbridge pipeline into the United States. Enbridge's Alberta Clipper pipeline is being built to carry 450 000 barrels of heavy crude a day from the Alberta tar sands to the United States. The pipeline crosses Treaty One First Nations and extends into Native American territory in the United States—territory that in many cases has not been negotiated with the communities who live there.

And that's what has led this year's Everyone's Downstream conference to a more international perspective than previous incarnations: campaigns are becoming international. With the Copenhagen Climate Talks providing a flashpoint for activists to organize around, there were numerous high-profile  actions in Britain to call attention to British Petroleum's billion-dollar investment in the tar sands.

"New communities have taken up the banner of the tar sands for their own reasons so there will always be new participants," says Stainsby. "We've seen some of the corporate-boycott campaigns go to places such as England, France and Norway. People will be Skyping to talk about their work in London to stop British Pretroleum, as well as people near Chicago dealing with BP. It goes beyond North America for the first time." 
But the conference remains focused on engaging local communities and empowering them to take action. "We're using that slogan environmentalists came up with years ago: 'Think globally, act locally.' It's starting to show a lot of big effects as people did that in the planning before Copenhagen," says Stainsby.

That's why after each day there will be specific sessions focused on connecting and empowering groups to take action. "I'd really like communities to be speaking for themselves," Stainsby says. "They should be making their own demands as the affected and impacted communities." V

Thu, Jan 14 – Sun, Jan 17
Everyone's Downstream III: From the Front Lines to the Finish Lines—Races to the Bottom
Strathcona Community Centre League
Visit oilsandstruth.org for schedule

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