O'TOOLE'S KENNEY MOMENT
Conservative senators defy O'Toole on expulsion of senator who challenged leadership


OTTAWA — Sen. Denise Batters may no longer be welcome in the Conservatives' national caucus but she's still a member of the party's Senate caucus.

Conservative senators have chosen to keep Batters in their fold, notwithstanding party leader Erin O'Toole's decision Tuesday to kick her out of the national caucus after she challenged his leadership.

Karine Leroux, spokeswoman for Conservative Senate leader Don Plett, confirmed Thursday that "Sen. Batters is still a current member of the Senate Conservative Caucus."

She declined to elaborate, saying that "would encroach on caucus confidentiality."

The decision to keep Batters in their caucus suggests Conservative senators are defying O'Toole, who warned Wednesday that anyone supporting her attempt to force an early confidence vote on his leadership would be kicked out of national caucus for not being a team player.

When former leader Andrew Scheer kicked Sen. Lynn Beyak out of the national caucus in 2018, the Conservative Senate caucus immediately followed suit.

Beyak was turfed over her defence of residential schools and her refusal to take down posts on her senatorial website that were deemed racist towards Indigenous Peoples. She resigned from the Senate last January before senators could vote on a motion to remove her from the chamber entirely.

Plett himself tweeted his support Tuesday for O'Toole's decision to give Batters the boot.

“As always, I continue to support Erin O’Toole’s strong and principled leadership to unite the Conservative Party of Canada,” he wrote.

But the other 17 Conservative senators evidently had other thoughts on the matter. After meeting separately to discuss it, they've decided to keep Batters in the fold.

Batters could not immediately be reached for comment.

But she has said she had a lot of support from senators and MPs alike for her decision to launch a petition Monday aimed at forcing a referendum on O'Toole's leadership within six months, rather than wait for a scheduled leadership review at the party's national convention in 2023.

And she has questioned why O'Toole dumped her when he did nothing about fellow Conservative Sen. Michael MacDonald, who has also challenged O'Toole's fitness to lead.

Before the first national caucus meeting after the Sept. 20 election, MacDonald wrote Conservative MPs urging them to give themselves the power to oust the leader.

"The status quo under the present circumstances is a mistake and a gift to the Liberals that this party and this country cannot afford,” he wrote.

Like Batters, MacDonald said O'Toole's bid to present a more moderate, centrist party was a failure, resulting in a loss of seats in the election and none of the promised breakthroughs in Central Canada.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 18, 2021.

Joan Bryden, The Canadian Press

Another Conservative has gotten fired for publicly opposing the leadership of Erin O’Toole . This happened in October to a member of the Conservatives’ national council who called for a leadership review into O’Toole. And now it’s happened to Conservative Senator Denise Batters after she spearheaded a similar drive to force O’Toole’s leadership to a vote. As a member of the Red Chamber who is only 51 years old, it’s basically impossible to fire Batters before she reaches mandatory retirement in 2045. However, on O’Toole’s orders she was kicked out of the Conservative caucus and will now sit as an independent. Batters was not taking the dismissal well. In a tweet she vowed to “not be silenced by a leader so weak that he fired me VIA VOICEMAIL.”

Wetaskiwin mayor ‘grateful’ for Alberta funding for homeless, waiting for details

While it was late, the government of Alberta's funding announcement Wednesday detailing more support for emergency homeless shelters and isolation sites was "definitely not too late," according to Mayor Tyler Gandam.

 Jason Franson, The Canadian Press A homeless encampment set up in Wetaskiwin, Alta., is shown on Saturday, Oct. 9, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson

"We'll take all the support we can get," he said Thursday.

"I'm really grateful the province is coming out with the funding for the homeless. I'm looking forward to seeing how that's going to impact our homeless population and what we can do moving forward for a long-term solution."

Read more: Alberta provides $21.5M to extend COVID-19 supports to emergency homeless shelters

On Wednesday, the province announced it was providing $21.5 million for additional beds and isolation sites at emergency homeless shelters and emergency women’s shelters. The provincial funding will extend COVID-19 supports to shelters until March 2022.

Of the $21.5 million, $13 million will go towards emergency homeless shelters "in Edmonton, Calgary, Red Deer, Grande Prairie, Medicine Hat, Lethbridge, Lloydminster, Drayton Valley, Leduc, Slave Lake and Wetaskiwin;" $6.5 million for 10 isolation facilities "in Calgary, Edmonton, Fort McMurray, Grande Prairie, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Red Deer, Wetaskiwin, Peace River and Lac La Biche;" and $2 million for emergency women's shelters.

Read more: Number of homeless Edmontonians has doubled; city facing lack of shelter space this winter

Gandam is still waiting for details on how much Wetaskiwin will be receiving and how exactly the money will be spent.

The top priority is an emergency shelter.

"The city doesn't have the means financially to provide a shelter, especially a city our size. We're just under 13,000 people and per capita we're dealing with a homeless population that would rival any other big city in North America," Gandam said.

Read more: Wetaskiwin encampment to get temporary warming shelters amid demands for permanent housing

Several dozen people have been staying at a homeless encampment outside a big box store in Wetaskiwin.

The city was scrambling to find temporary accommodations for the winter months.

Gandam said a $150,000 federal grant plus $35,000 from the city and possible support from the province will fund warming trailers at the site, but that's a very temporary solution and not intended for daytime use.

"Right now, we're waiting for trailers for a warming shelter," the mayor said Thursday.

"Our vulnerable population is currently spending the day in tents in behind Walmart and the Samson outreach team is transporting them back and forth between Wetaskiwin and Maskwacis. They've got an overnight shelter there that they've been utilizing the last two nights."

Video: Homeless outreach group at odds with Wetaskiwin council over homeless camp

In addition to addressing the immediate shelter need over the winter months, Gandam is hoping Wetaskiwin will be part of Alberta's long-term plans for a housing solution.

"We still need ongoing collaboration and conversations with the government of Alberta and the federal government to make sure we find a long-term solution for the vulnerable population.

"If we're not addressing the root of the problem, if we're not looking after the mental health and addictions, then no amount of money and no amount of supports that we're going to have for our homeless population or for our shelter is going to change anything. It's going to be a homeless shelter forever, with no end in sight."

Read more: ‘Step up or shut up’: Wetaskiwin mayor frustrated over lack of help with homeless

The city simply doesn't have the capacity -- or the resources -- to address this issue on its own, Gandam stressed.

"That's why it's so important that the province is coming with the money for the homeless population. We need to be in those conversations and we need to be getting the supports from them as well."

Last winter, he said a social agency ran a hub and shelter in the civic building downtown. They saw between 60 to 70 people a night at that shelter space, Gandam said.

"If we see those kinds of numbers again this winter, without the supports in place from the government of Alberta or the federal government, we're going to be at a loss and there's going to be people that are going to be desperate trying to find shelter."

Land defenders arrested on Wet’suwet’en territory as RCMP enforces Coastal GasLink injunction


RCMP officers are enforcing a Coastal GasLink injunction, arresting Wet’suwet’en land defenders and supporters Thursday, days after they took control of a forest service road and ordered pipeline workers to leave Gidimt’en territory in northwest B.C.

In a video update published to Twitter, Sleydo’ Molly Wickham, Gidimt’en Camp spokesperson, said RCMP moved into the territory and started arresting land defenders at the Gidimt’en Checkpoint.

“Our warriors are down there, our matriarch is there,” she said, noting the RCMP is using canine units to assist with arrests. “There’s a lot of people that are there that are at risk of this police violence.”

According to a Gidimt’en update posted at 12:48 p.m. on Nov. 18, approximately 15 arrests have been made, including Elders, legal observers and media.

“We were hoping that a solution would be reached without the need for police enforcement, however, it has become very clear to us that our discretionary period has come to an end and the RCMP must now enforce the orders given by the B.C. Supreme Court on December 31, 2019,” John Brewer, Chief Superintendent of the RCMP’s Community-Industry Response Group, said in a statement.

Hereditary Dinï ze’ (Chief) Woos, Frank Alec, expressed regret that workers are stuck in the camps behind the blockades.

“I want to mention to our local non-Wet’suwet’en members that we’re sorry you ended up in the middle of this,” he said in a video statement. “But I must say that we gave ample notice to [Coastal GasLink] that we were going to act on this.”

Workers were given eight hours on Sunday to evacuate and Chief Woos granted a two hour extension, but of the estimated 500 individuals housed at Coastal GasLink’s two remote work camps, only a handful left.

The 670-kilometre Coastal GasLink pipeline, owned by TC Energy, would connect natural gas producers in the province’s northeast with the LNG Canada facility currently under construction in Kitimat.

Coastal GasLink did not answer The Narwhal’s questions about whether the company had informed its workers of the evacuation order, instead noting in an email, “We will not jeopardize the safety of our workers, under any circumstance.”

According to a Tyee report, many workers were not told about the evacuation order.

“I don’t know about everybody, but a lot said they would have left,” one worker, who asked not to be named for fear of losing their job, told The Tyee.

On Nov. 16, RCMP units set up an exclusion zone 10 kilometres from where Wet’suwet’en land defenders and supporters closed the road. The following day, Jennifer Wickham, a Wet’suwet’en community member and media liaison for Gidimt’en Camp, was transporting heart medicine to an Elder who is behind the blockades. RCMP officers denied Wickham access to the territory.

“When the roads were closed by enforcing our eviction notice to [Coastal GasLink] that we delivered back on Jan. 4, 2020, we were contacted by some of the B.C. representatives and all they did was lecture us and reiterated the safety issue of the people at the camp regarding their food supplies,” Woos explained in the statement. “Now in talking about safety issues, the RCMP is currently blocking kilometre 29 and not allowing any food supplies or medical supplies back up to our camps, our territory, our unceded land, to our people.”

“It’s our land, we know how to hunt, we know how to set snares, we eat rabbits and all that good stuff out on our yintah (territory),” Woos added. “But that’s beside the point. They’re saying safety and yet, they don’t allow anybody up there to check on our people.”

“Medical and food supplies can be dropped off at the … 27.5 kilometre mark on the Morice [road] and those dropping things off will need to make arrangements for the supplies to be picked up,” Madonna Saunderson, northern B.C. spokesperson for the RCMP, told The Narwhal in an email. “The local residents, media and the motoring public may be inconvenienced during the injunction enforcement period as pedestrians and vehicles will have limited and controlled access.”

Daniel Mesec, a freelance journalist travelling with Jennifer Wickham to document the conflict, was also prevented from passing the exclusion zone.

Earlier this year, a coalition of media organizations, including The Narwhal, launched and won a B.C. Supreme Court case against the RCMP after police similarly restricted journalists’ access to the Fairy Creek blockades.

Human rights organizations, including the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, have called on provincial and federal governments to immediately halt the Coastal GasLink pipeline project until the free, prior and informed consent of the Indigenous people directly impacted is given.

“Canada’s courts have acknowledged … that the Wet’suwet’en people, represented by our hereditary chiefs, have never ceded nor surrendered title to the 22,000 square kilometres of Wet’suwet’en territory,” the hereditary chiefs wrote when they first issued the eviction order in 2020, referring to a landmark Supreme Court of Canada case which confirmed Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan Rights and Title. “The granting of the interlocutory injunction by B.C.’s Supreme Court has proven to us that Canadian courts will ignore their own rulings and deny our jurisdiction when convenient, and will not protect our territories or our rights as Indigenous peoples.”

When the eviction order was first issued, RCMP officers arrested dozens of land defenders, including matriarchs, which led to solidarity actions across the country, including rail and port blockades.

Skyler Williams, a Mohawk Nation land defender who was involved in 2020 rail blockades on Haudenosaunee territory, said Indigenous people across the country are united in support for the Wet’suwet’en.

“It’s absolutely imperative that people start to understand if you’re not going to be respecting Indigenous Rights to our lands, whether it’s here, the streets of downtown Toronto or in the bush at Land Back Lane, our people are gonna stand together,” he told The Narwhal in an interview.

“Our perspective: we’re protecting the Morice River. We call it Wedzin Kwa, it’s a sacred headwater,” Woos said, his newborn child crying in the background. “Fresh mountain water flows, all these little creeks coming from the mountain flow into the Morice River. The Morice River goes into the Bulkley, and the Bulkley goes into the [Skeena] and it goes into the ocean. This is why we are so devastated and beside ourselves as to why this pipeline is going through such an incredible ecosystem.”

“Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs and our clans have full jurisdiction here,” Wickham said. “They have no right to be on our territory. They are trespassing, they are violating human rights. They’re violating Indigenous Rights and most importantly, they’re violating Wet’suwet’en law.”

Woos explained that the details of why the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs are taking this action have been obscured from the public.

“Since they started the project, and I’m referring to this pipeline, they never proceeded to contact the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs,” he said. “They started instead to divide the Wet’suwet’en people through the benefit agreements and excluded the hereditary chiefs.”

The benefit agreements were provided to elected band councils in return for their approval of the project, which the province recently noted in a statement by B.C. Minister of Public Safety and solicitor general Mike Farnworth.

“Coastal GasLink has project agreements with all 20 elected chiefs and councils of the First Nations along the pipeline route,” Farnworth wrote. “The Province has also secured agreements with the vast majority of First Nations along the route.”

In a statement published to Coastal GasLink’s website on Nov. 18, the company said it has tried to engage in dialogue with the land defenders.

“Our top priority remains the safety of those in the area, including our workforce, contractors, and the Indigenous and non-Indigenous community members. Coastal GasLink’s preference is to always seek constructive dialogue and share information. Unfortunately, as protest group public statements made clear, the protest group at the Morice River had no interest in dialogue.”

Woos refuted the claim, noting the hereditary chiefs met with the president and vice-president of the company in the summer of 2020.

“They were attempting to start a dialogue with us,” he said in the video statement. “But there was something that was not right with the situation so we turned to the president and we said to him, before we start that dialogue, we need an apology in writing from you. And this apology should state the wrongs that they’ve done toward the Wet’suwet’en people, in particular the hereditary chiefs, by not consulting with them and not including them in the planning and the development of this pipeline from day one, and slandering the hereditary chiefs and misinforming the local people of Smithers, Telkwa, Houston, Hazleton, Terrace, Burns Lake, Prince George and making us look like we’re the bad people in this whole situation.”

“The hereditary chiefs agreed at that time that if this letter was given and was completed, it would start the process of dialogue,” Woos continued. “One year later, no letter, one year later, no reply from [Coastal GasLink]. This is what the local people need to know.”

“We’re asking again, in a diplomatic way, for [Prime Minister Justin] Trudeau to sit down with us, the hereditary chiefs, so that we can start a dialogue. So we can start discussions.”

Wickham said, in light of the arrests, there is an urgent need that supporters demand the government listen to the hereditary chiefs.

“We need everybody who’s an ally of Wet’suwet’en, of Haudenosaunee, a supporter of Indigenous Rights, a warrior of climate justice, to take action now,” she said in the video statement. “We need you to shut shit down everywhere that you can, to show this industry, this government and the world that they cannot do this to Indigenous people anymore.”

— With files from Amber Bracken

Matt Simmons, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Narwhal

 Speaking of people stranded in B.C., as many as 500 workers with Coastal GasLink are now trapped within their work camps after activists allegedly used stolen equipment to destroy access roads leading to the site . While the pipeline carries the approval of elected band councils along its route, it is opposed by a faction of hereditary chiefs within the Wet’suwet’en First Nation, who endorsed the blockade. In a statement issued amidst the worst of Monday’s flooding, the government of B.C. Premier John Horgan condemned the blockades. “The right to protest does not extend to criminal actions,” it read .

© Coastal GasLink An aerial photo provided by Coastal GasLink purporting to show activists using hijacked heavy equipment to destroy an access road.

TMX pipeline and B.C.’s climate tragedy

Extreme weather fuelled by climate breakdown is exposing the vulnerability of key infrastructure in British Columbia and is reviving questions among environmentalists and residents about building the Trans Mountain expansion pipeline.

That’s in part because the atmospheric river that hammered B.C.’s Interior, combined with a brutal wildfire season and landslides, left the terrain primed for flooding. It remains unclear precisely how much of the TMX pipeline route is impacted, but concerns are mounting because if the expansion project is built, it could be hit by a similar disaster.

Moreover, Abbotsford is where Trans Mountain has its Sumas Terminal. That terminal is a key part of the pipeline system that stores hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil and includes a pump station that sends crude either to Burnaby or into Washington state.

Near the Sumas Terminal is the Barrowtown Pump Station, where late Tuesday the station came within an inch of being overwhelmed. Abbotsford issued an evacuation order, saying if the pumps failed, water from the Fraser River would flow into the already flooded community.

“This event is anticipated to be catastrophic,” the evacuation order read.

The pumps held, thanks to staff and volunteers defending the station with a sandbag dam through the night, CBC reports.

Longtime Abbotsford resident and community activist John Vissers says this disaster should be a wake-up call for the Trans Mountain project given the Sumas Terminal’s proximity.

“I'm not a gloom and doomer at all, but we can't argue anymore that these kinds of extreme weather events [are rare],” he said.

“We know these events are going to become more and more common, and we simply don't have the infrastructure to protect our communities from these kinds of catastrophic failures.”

In anticipation of the extreme weather, the Trans Mountain pipeline shut down Sunday. On Wednesday, the Crown corporation confirmed it remains idle and said it is working on plans to restart operations following geotechnical studies to ensure the stability of the ground. The company declined to answer specific questions.

“What I've always tried to do here in the community is show people that we can act right here and have a global impact, and we could have done that simply by doing something like rejecting [TMX],” said Vissers.

“Once we allow something to happen, then we're responsible for the consequences too. And the consequences are what we're seeing around us right now,” he said.

Climate advocacy group 350 Canada’s Cam Fenton said the series of Trans Mountain setbacks this year due to climate breakdown should force a reassessment of the project.

“There was a point in time over the summer where workers had to stop working because it was too hot, there was a point in the summer where multiple sites couldn't be worked on because they were on fire ... entire sections of the pipeline under construction have been buried in landslides,” he said.

He called it “emblematic” of Canada’s approach to the climate crisis.

The federal government is saying “we're doing everything to tackle [the crisis],” but the pipeline “is literally being buried by climate impacts,” he said.

“I think that really raises the question of if we're not going to reconsider this in this moment, why not?”

In a statement, NDP environment critic Laurel Collins said the party’s priority at the moment is pushing the federal government to do everything it can to support those impacted by flooding, but “it’s clear” natural disasters will become more common and severe as the climate crisis worsens.

“The Liberal government has to take immediate action to assist the people of B.C., but they also need bolder action to address the long-term realities of the climate crisis,” she said.

“Instead of spending billions of dollars on a pipeline and giving fossil fuel subsidies to big oil companies, the Trudeau government should be investing in emergency preparedness measures and climate-resistant infrastructure.”

Natural Resources Canada did not return a request for comment.

John Woodside, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Canada's National Observer

KENNEY CREATES DIVISION BETWEEN FIRST NATIONS
Tanker moratorium ‘cutting the knees out’ from Indigenous communities, says leader

KENNEY WAS PART OF THE CONSERVATIVE FEDERAL GOVT THAT ELIMINATED PUBLIC FUNDING FOR SUPREME COURT CHALLENGES

As First Nations leadership in British Columbia was calling for the provincial government to declare a state of emergency due to climate crisis, with floods displacing thousands of people, including many First Nations people in the southwestern part of that province, neighbour Alberta was announcing it would fund a court battle with the federal government on its shipping ban of crude oil through sensitive BC waters.

In announcing a grant of $372,000 through Alberta’s Indigenous Litigation Fund on Monday, Nov. 15, Premier Jason Kenney said the federal government’s Oil Tankers Moratorium Act was a “prejudicial attack” that targeted Alberta, and particularly the Fort McKay and Willow Lake Métis Nations where bitumen is produced. Those Métis Nations are advancing the litigation.

“It is the first time in Canadian history that the federal government has banned the export of one particular product,” said Kenney. “Right now this bill imposes a huge obstacle for Indigenous communities who already face a host of challenges to their long-term economic security.”

The Act, which became law in June 2019, bans oil tankers carrying more than 12,500 metric tons of crude oil (including bitumen) from stopping, loading or unloading at ports or marine installations in the moratorium area.

That area stretches from the Canada/United States border in the north, down to the point on British Columbia’s mainland across from the northern tip of Vancouver Island. It includes Haida Gwaii, the waters of Dixon Entrance, Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound, reads the government of Canada website. It also says the measure “complements the existing voluntary Tanker Exclusion Zone, which has been in place since 1985.”

The $10-million Indigenous Litigation Fund backs Indigenous-led legal action challenging federal legislation that hinders major energy projects in Alberta.

“Any legal action that helps Alberta develop its natural resources responsibly and gets them to tidewater is eligible for support through this litigation fund …. It is unfortunate that we must resort to judicial references and lawsuits,” said Kenney.

The province’s funding announcement comes at the conclusion of the Conference of Parties (COP26) meeting in Glasgow, Scotland, where Canada made the commitment to reduce methane emissions from oil and gas to 75 per cent below 2012 levels by 2030.

“Climate change is a reality, (but) at the same time we cannot progress away from climate change at the snap of a finger,” Ron Quintal, president of the Fort McKay Métis Nation, told Windspeaker.com. “The Prime Minister’s plan is very aggressive but I just don’t think it’s realistic.

“The tanker moratorium cuts the knees out from Indigenous communities’ abilities to even be a part of the conversation and I think that in itself is a travesty especially when the Liberal government is supposed to be the government of reconciliation,” he said.

Fort McKay Métis Nation is joined by Willow Lake Métis Nation in a constitutional challenge of the tankers ban. They contend the federal government only consulted with “two or three very vocal” Indigenous groups opposed to energy development and not the “hundreds of Indigenous communities who want to play a role in the economy, who want to be able to bring prosperity to their communities,” said Quintal.

Supporting Quintal’s claim is the legal action already begun against the tankers moratorium by the Lax Kw’alaams, which has territory within the proposed tanker moratorium boundaries. Lax Kw’alaams had planned to develop a marine terminal for oil export. They filed a legal challenge against Canada and BC in 2018.

“The vast majority of Indigenous groups, of nations are pro-responsible development, but too often those voices have been forgotten, ignored and sidelined in the debate about resource development in Canada,” said Kenney.

It’s about Indigenous communities being able to use what’s in their backyard right now in order to bankroll green energy development, says Quintal.

“Global warming is a real thing and we absolutely are very much aware of that. While the Prime Minister is trying to deal with something that is very, very important, not just to our society but the way the Indigenous people see Mother Earth, at the end of the day we're looking at these projects as ways that we can help fund other opportunities and diversifying from that,” he said.

He points to Astisiy Limited Partnership, which brought together three First Nations and five Métis Nations in September to become owners of a 95 per cent share of a pipeline in northeastern Alberta.

Fort McKay Métis Nation has used revenue from this investment for a solar farm, he says.

Revenue from oil development is also being used to provide much needed social, health and educational programs and infrastructure for their people, says Quintal.

He adds that Fort McKay and Willow Lake Métis Nations are committed to developing their resources in a sustainable manner and with a “fine tooth comb.”

Quintal admits it may appear that the Métis Nations are coming “late to the game” with the global push now to move away from fossil fuels in the fight against climate change.

“I think it's the fact that up until this point Indigenous people haven't been given the amount of attention and ability to contribute to the conversation. Up ‘til this point we've had to fight to even be at the table. Now that we’re at the table, the tables are changing or the tables are shifting,” he said.

This legal action, says Quintal, will open a conversation that the legislation never allowed to happen.

He insists he’s not talking about building “a hundred different pipelines,” but about sustainable development.

“If we’re to look at the long game around climate change, we have to look at the long game around all of our resources and we need to look at a strategy and a plan,” he said.

Quintal expects legal documents to be filed with the Court of Queens Bench in Edmonton next week. He says they will also be reaching out to Ottawa to see if they can open a discussion.

Quintal says they applied in May for $400,000 from the litigation fund. Should legal action need to proceed through the different levels of court and all the way to the Suprema Court, the province will look at “kicking in” more money, he says.

Quintal says their litigation is not tied to any litigation the Alberta government may be taking against Ottawa on the tanker moratorium ban.

Adrienne South, spokesperson for Alberta Indigenous Relations, did not confirm if Alberta was undertaking a constitutional challenge of this piece of legislation.

However, she said Alberta had launched a constitutional challenge in February against the Impact Assessment Act, also federal legislation.

In 2020, Alberta provided Woodland Cree First Nation with the first grant from the Indigenous Litigation Fund. The Woodland Cree received $187,688 to intervene in support of the Alberta government’s constitutional challenge of the Impact Assessment Act, dubbed the anti-pipeline bill.

Because that case is currently in front of the court, South said she would not be commenting on it.

On Nov. 17, the province announced $50 million in funding to 23 Alberta projects to advance innovation and technology to help reduce emissions over the near and long term to address climate change.

Windspeaker.com

By Shari Narine, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Windspeaker.com, Windspeaker.com

MINING IS UNSUSTAINABLE
Making mining smarter, cleaner 'has never been more important'


Sudbury’s Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation, or CEMI, celebrated the official launch of the Mining Innovation Commercialization Accelerator (MICA) Network on Wednesday.

First proposed by CEMI in 2015, the MICA Network aims to connect regional mining clusters with cross-sector innovation centres across the country to create a national network that will help commercialize innovations in the mining industry.

“The objective of the MICA Network is to create a space where small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), who do most of the innovation in the mining sector and other industrial sectors across the country, could network with one another,” said CEMI president Douglas Morrison

. “The one thing I would say about MICA is that it’s focused on innovation. It’s not focused on research, which is very different from innovation. Innovation is the technical refinement of research into a permanently successful, commercially viable business.”

Event participants joined Morrison and his team as they introduced MICA’s six main partners and provided an overview of the network and its benefits to the Canadian innovation ecosystem.

The three-hour hybrid event, which featured introductory remarks by Assistant Deputy Minister of Natural Resources Canada Jeff Labonté and special guest speaker George Hemingway of Stratalis Consulting, attracted dozens of viewers from around the world.

Through its national network, MICA hopes to create a mining technology “ecosystem” in Canada and lead the mining industry’s transition to a low-carbon future.

The network will accomplish this task by accelerating the number and scale of Canadian businesses in the mining sector and commercializing late-stage mining technologies.

Some MICA members will be eligible to submit project proposals that increase mine productivity, reduce energy consumption and GHG emissions, implement smart mining systems or eliminate environmental risk and reduce long-term liabilities.

To apply for leveraged funding, applicants must secure funding to match MICA’s contribution and be “incorporated pursuant to the laws of Canada.”

Successful applicants will enter into a funding agreement with the network to commercialize their innovation within one to five years.

Around 350 mine or plant operating companies, Canadian SMEs, large tech companies, industry associations, innovators, and academic and research associations are expected to become members of the network.

Those who join the MICA Network will gain access to a number of networking opportunities at the grassroots level.

“We’re excited at Natural Resources Canada (NRCAN) to be a part of the launch of MICA and to participate and contribute,” said Labonté, the deputy minister.

“Our work continues within the mining sector and the innovation sector to build bridges and contribute to these efforts, but of course, those efforts are really about the work that you do, the work the network will build, and all of the opportunity that will come from it.”

CEMI received $40 million in federal funding through the Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada’s Strategic Innovation Fund in July to support the development of the MICA network.

The $112.4-million initiative is expected to leverage around $70 million in private sector investments to support the creation of 900 jobs and 12 new businesses.

The network, which is headquartered in Sudbury, is also expected to commercialize around 30 new products and services within the mining industry.

“MICA is a national network with six main partners across Canada, from B.C. to Newfoundland, from the north to the south, from universities and colleges to business developers all supporting the extraction of every metal and mineral commodity Canada has to offer,” said CEMI board chair Marianne Matichuk.

“Innovation for mining has never been more important than it is today. MICA will focus on helping SME companies to grow and expand by delivering new technologies to electrify the economy and reverse climate change.”

MICA’s main partners include the MaRS Discovery District, Group MISA, College of the North Atlantic, Saskatchewan Polytechnic, The Bradshaw Research Initiative for Minerals and Mining (BRIMM), and InnoTech Alberta.

During the virtual announcement, CEMI’s president said these partners were not selected randomly.

“They’re here because they can help us address every single commodity that is mined in Canada today,” said Morrison.

CEMI’s vice-president of Business Development and Commercialization, Charles Nyabeze, said MICA’s main partners were selected because “they have access to innovations happening in their own backyards” in the mining sector and beyond.

“The network that MICA is going to work with is truly representative of the entire Canadian innovation ecosystem,” said Nyabeze.

MICA’s partners were present during the launch event to give brief presentations on what each organization has to offer.

“We believe that quicker, smarter, and more efficient adaptations can come from networking, collaborating and learning from the outside world,” said Paul Labbe, mining research chair at Saskatchewan Polytechnic.


“We have great ideas to bring to the rest of Canada, and we have big hearts and work hard to be open-minded.”

The launch event culminated with George Hemingway’s keynote address, which explored the concepts of meaning and purpose.

“We and the companies we work for need to go out and not just focus on the obvious GHG reduction or electric scoops or tailings dams or storytelling to investors, but in getting our people and ourselves to be advocates in our industry going forward,” said the partner and innovation practice lead at Stratalis Consulting.

“More than ever, I believe it’s not just the what we do, but the why we do it that makes a difference. Many small messages of purpose are the difference that can build trust the industry needs to transform and persevere in most uncertain lifetimes.”

How to apply

Those interested in determining their eligibility to become a member of the network can visit MICA’s website at www.micanetwork.ca.

Membership is available in four categories, including individual, associate, SME, and mining companies and costs range from $125 to $35,000 per year.

MICA’s first call for proposals for technical projects will be launched on Dec. 1.

The phase one form will be available on MICA’s website and a webinar will be held following the launch for general information and to answer any questions. The phase one application will be due on Jan. 7.

More information on technical projects and access to funding is also available on MICA’s website.

The Local Journalism Initiative is made possible through funding from the federal government.

sud.editorial@sunmedia.ca

Twitter: @SudburyStar

Colleen Romaniuk, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Sudbury Star

Sudbury’s connection to the moon | CTV News

https://northernontario.ctvnews.ca/sudbury-s-connection-to-the-moon-1.4513326

2019-07-18 · Sudbury’s contribution to the space exploration is a major topic of interest at Science North, where it continues to be studied in great detail. Olathe MacIntyre is a staff scientist there. "I feel like I’m in a cosmologically significant place here in Sudbury. It’s fun for me. I wanted to go to the moon. I actually wanted to go on Mars ...

• Estimated Reading Time: 3 mins

Sudbury was a stand-in for the moon and other little-known ...

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/sudbury-stand-moon-other-little-080000215.html

2019-07-12 · "It looks like a Sudbury breccia."Bonus: Apollo 13On April 11, 1970, the giant Saturn V rocket blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center with three astronauts — Jim Lovell, John Swigert and Fred Haise — heading toward the moon. The Apollo 13 mission seemed to be going well, with some at mission control saying it was the smoothest ride so far.But about 56 hours into the flight, an oxygen ...

• Estimated Reading Time: 8 mins

50 years ago, astronauts trained in Sudbury, Ont., for the ...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/apollo-asronauts-trained...

2021-07-09 · 2021-07-09 · A planetary scientist who helped guide astronauts around Sudbury, Ont., during their training in 1971 for the Apollo 16 moon mission and …

When Sudbury, Ont., was a suitable substitute for the …

https://www.cbc.ca/archives/when-sudbury-ont-was-a-suitable-substitute...

2020-07-08 · Sudbury landscape substitutes for the moon. 50 years ago. 1:45. Two American astronauts travel to the Ontario city in 1971 to practice their geology skills. 1:45. It was easier for a test pilot to ...

• Estimated Reading Time: 2 mins

Australian green group looks to derail Woodside's $12-billion gas project

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Lawyers for the Conservation Council of Western Australia have sent letters to Woodside Petroleum and the country's energy minister seeking to delay, if not stop, the company's Scarborough natural gas project

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© Reuters/David Gray FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: The logo for Woodside Petroleum, Australia's top independent oil and gas company

The letters were sent just weeks ahead of a final investment decision by Woodside on the Scarborough project off the coast of Western Australia and an expansion of its Pluto liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant, together expected to cost $12 billion.

Writing on behalf of the Conservation Council of WA (CCWA), the Environmental Defenders Office (EDO) said in letters to Woodside Chief Executive Meg O'Neill and Environment Minister Sussan Ley that the Scarborough development needs to be reviewed under provisions of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act that bar any harm to the Great Barrier Reef.

The green group says emissions from the gas produced at Scarborough will worsen global warming which is damaging the reef off Australia's east coast.

"In particular, CCWA is concerned that the Project, by way of its forecast Scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions, is likely to have a significant impact on the World Heritage and National Heritage values of the Great Barrier Reef," EDO lawyer Brendan Dobbie said in the letter dated Nov. 17 to O'Neill.

Woodside did not comment on the issues raised in the letter, but said it already has primary environmental approvals from the federal government and the Western Australian state government to support a go-ahead decision for Scarborough.

"Woodside rejects the assertion by activists that there is significant environmental approvals risk of proceeding to an FID (final investment decision) for Scarborough at this time," Woodside said in an emailed statement.

The National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) said on Friday that Woodside has an "'in principle' approval for the project as a whole" but still needs further approvals for any activity to begin, including an environment plan, well operations management plan and a safety case.

Credit Suisse analyst Saul Kavonic said the CCWA's request posed "negligible risk" to the project, adding that Woodside "has a strong track record in gaining government and regulatory support".

(Reporting by Sonali Paul; editing by Christian Schmollinger)

Gabon is last bastion of endangered African forest elephants


PONGARA NATIONAL PARK, Gabon (AP) — Loss of habitat and poaching have made African forest elephants a critically endangered species. Yet the dense forests of sparsely populated Gabon in the Congo River Basin remain a “last stronghold” of the magnificent creatures, according to new research that concluded the population is much higher than previous estimates

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© Provided by The Canadian Press

Counting forest elephants is a far bigger challenge than surveying plains-dwelling savanna elephants from the air. It takes difficult and dirty scientific work that doesn’t involve laying eyes on the elusive animals that flee at the slightest whiff of human scent.

Instead, researchers have been trekking for years through dense undergrowth collecting dung from Gabon’s forest elephants and analyzing the DNA from thousands of samples to determine the number of individual elephants in each plot of land examined.

Now the survey by the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society and the National Parks of Gabon, released Thursday, has concluded that the central African country of about 2.3 million people harbors about 95,000 forest elephants.

Previous estimates put the population at 50,000 to 60,000 — or about 60% of the world’s remaining African forest elephants.

Herds have nearly been decimated elsewhere in the region Gabon shares with conflict-ridden countries such as Cameroon, Congo and Central African Republic, according to researchers.

Central Africa has the largest number of forest elephants in the world, although figures have fallen by more than 86% over a 31-year period, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which cites increasing threats of poaching and habitat loss.

The latest new survey in Gabon is the “first nationwide DNA-based assessment of a free-ranging large mammal in Africa,” according to the researchers. The technology is also being used to count elephants and tigers in India.

“Gabon is quite unique, certainly for forest elephants. But actually across Africa where elephants occur, it’s very unique in that ... what we call potential elephant habitat pretty much covers the entire country,” said Emma Stokes, the WCS Africa regional director.

“We found elephants were distributed across almost 90% of the total surface area of the country,” she said. “And you know, Gabon has forest cover of up to 88% of the country. That’s very unusual.”

In Gabon, tourists may still see some elephants on the beaches and coastal forests of the Atlantic coast. But, unlike their bigger savanna cousins that roam the plains of southern Africa in abundance, most forest elephants live in dense forests so counting them is painstaking work.

The solution: Trail their dung for genetic material. For three years, research teams would spend a month in the bush, walking 12 kilometers (about 7 miles) a day seeking elephant fecal samples, breaking only for a week at a time.

The team trudged through patches of savanna, thickets, densely wooded wetlands and rivers following elephant tracks marked by broken tree branches, old dung piles and footprints, looking for fresh dung.

“We got some dung here,” Fabrice Menzeme, a ranger, shouted after walking for about three kilometers (1.8 miles) in Pongara National Park on the Atlantic coast during fieldwork in 2020. Animated team members rushed in. Upon closer inspection, disappointment followed. The dung was more than a day old.



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Researchers want the dung “steaming fresh,” Stokes said. “So, it’s warm, it’s fresh, it has a sheen to it. And the idea is to take the outer surface of that dung pile; a very small amount is needed in purpose-built tubes that are taken out by the field teams.”

The fecal swabs were put into small test tubes and taken to a government wildlife genetic analysis laboratory in the capital, Libreville, where scientists extracted DNA from about 2,500 samples collected countrywide.

Extracting DNA from dung samples is “a bit like a cooking recipe, following several steps” to remove vegetation and seeds arising from elephants’ diet or bacteria or organisms that develop on the dung, said Stéphanie Bourgeois, a research scientist with the parks agency and co-author of the research paper. “That’s why you have to clean them and try to purify your DNA before you do your analysis.”

“DNA is unique for every individual, the same for humans as it is for elephants. So DNA is just a tool to help us identify individuals and the number of times we sample each of these individuals,” Bourgeois said at the laboratory. “We use a complex statistical model and from this we estimate the number of elephants that are in the area we sampled.”

This is Gabon’s first nationwide elephant census in 30 years. Only 14% of the elephant habitat in the country had been surveyed in the last decade, according to researchers. Previous surveys relied on dung counts, which can be more expensive, more difficult and less reliable than DNA sampling on large-scale surveys, they said.

“This is an exciting paper because it substantially raises the population estimates of forest elephants in Gabon and establishes a new, rigorous country-level monitoring methodology," said John Poulsen, associate professor of tropical ecology at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment, who was not involved in the research.

“At the same time,” Poulsen said, “the government of Gabon now has an enormous responsibility for conserving forest elephants in the face of poaching, and especially human-elephant conflict and crop-raiding."

About 65% to 70% percent of all African forest elephants surviving today live in Gabon, according to Lee White, Gabon’s minister of water and forests.

“That’s an indication of the fact that Gabon has resisted the slaughter and the tragedy that has played out in the countries around Gabon,” said White.

Conservation efforts include massive public awareness campaigns and efforts to deter cross-border poachers.

“You see it around Africa. Countries that have lost their elephants, have lost control of their natural resources, have often actually lost control of their countries,” White said. “The countries that have almost no elephants have been through civil wars and are much less stable than the countries that have preserved their elephants.”

Still, the minister said, Gabon is facing elephant problems of its own in addition to cross-border poaching for ivory, which he says has declined since China banned ivory imports.

One big problem, he said in an interview at the recent climate conference in Glasgow, is human-elephant conflicts that kill about 10 people a year. “When I go into rural Gabon, I get a lot of angry people who are screaming at me because the elephants have eaten their crops and, tragically, even occasionally have killed their relatives.”

One reason elephants are raiding village crops, White said, may be that global warming has dramatically reduced the abundance of forest fruit over the past 40 years. “So, it looks like climate change is starting to impact the forest,” he said. “And that means the elephants are hungry.”

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Associated Press reporter Allen G. Breed contributed from Raleigh, North Carolina and AP reporter David Keyton contributed from Glasgow, Scotland.

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The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Farai Mutsaka , The Associated Press