Council fights fracking across Canada
Communities across Canada are asking hard questions about a natural gas drilling process called “fracking” and calling for stronger federal and provincial government oversight of this growing industry.
Hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as “fracking,” is a controversial drilling process used to extract natural gas from shale, coal beds and “tight sands” with vertical and horizontal drilling. Sand, water and chemicals are blasted at high pressure to fracture rock where natural gas is trapped.
Communities all over Canada, the U.S. and other countries are fighting against fracking because it pollutes water and harms human health. Fracking is extremely water intensive and requires approximately 2 million to 9 million gallons of water per “fracking” job. This method of natural gas extraction also uses dangerous chemicals. A four billion gallon fracking project requires approximately 80 tonnes (200,000 gallons) of chemicals. Contaminated fracking water, laced with these chemicals, can leach into local water supplies.
While some municipalities are imposing bans or halting fracking projects, Quebec is the only province in Canada that has implemented a limited moratorium.
Council of Canadians chapters and members are active in fights against fracking in local communities. For example, in Nova Scotia the Council’s Inverness County chapter has been challenging PetroWorth Resources Inc.’s plans to drill more than 1,200 metres beneath the ground for oil and gas just 2,000 feet from the shore of Lake Ainslie, the province’s largest freshwater lake. In Alberta, we are supporting members of the Blood Tribe who have been fighting a fracking project on their lands south of Calgary. In British Columbia chapter members are rallying against provincial government approval of a water licence that will allow the annual removal of up to 7.3 billion litres of water from the Williston Reservoir near Hudson’s Hope for fracking.
Save the date! Protecting our Communities: A Conference on Shale Gas and Fracking
The Council of Canadians, Ecology Action Centre and NOFRAC (Nova Scotia Fracking Resources and Action Coalition) are hosting a conference to bring together concerned citizens, engaged activists and experts from across Nova Scotia and beyond to discuss shale gas and fracking in our communities. Don’t miss the opportunity to hear from two exciting keynote speakers!
Dr. Tony Ingraffea, an Engineering professor at Cornell University, has a PHD in Rock Fracture Mechanics and has published and spoken widely about the risks of shale-gas development.
Jessica Ernst, a landowner from Rosebud, Alberta, will share her story about how fracking for coal bed methane contaminated well water in her rural community.
When: Saturday, December 3 from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College (NSAC) in Truro, Nova Scotia.
Suggested donation of $10. To register, and for more information go here.
For more information about the Council’s campaign on fracking go here.
Here’s more about what’s new at the Council of Canadians:
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Win! Great Lakes protected from fracking wastewater plans
Last week we issued a call to action to let Niagara-on-the-Lake city councillors know about the dangers and water contamination concerns that come with fracking. City councillors were considering the issue in light of the Niagara Falls (New York) Water Board’s move to explore treating fracking wastewater in Niagara Falls’ wastewater treatment system.
Thanks in part to your messages, Niagara-on-the-Lake city councillors are calling for both a provincial and national moratorium on hydraulic fracturing and a ban on the treatment of fracking wastewater within the Great Lakes Basin.
Thank you to everyone who sent in a message calling on councillors to protect the Great Lakes from fracking! |
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Take action! Demand that CETA offers be made public
 Canada-EU free trade negotiations were held in Ottawa in late October as people taking part in a CETA Week of Action challenged them at every step. The Council joined more than 80 organizations in these actions, which included a parliamentary panel, an Ottawa stop of the Cross-Canada “CETA is a Bad Deal for Communities” tour, and the delivery of a Trojan horse to Parliament Hill.
On Thursday, October 20, International Trade Minister Ed Fast announced that Canada had exchanged services and investment offers with the EU. Similar to past rounds of CETA talks, the Minister said the Conservative government has no intention of making these offers public.
The secrecy is totally unacceptable since these negotiations have little to do with trade and everything to do with our future economic and political options as communities and as a country. They are about how services and investment are regulated, and how our local governments spend public money. While the federal government continues to disrespect democracy and negotiate CETA in secrecy, provincial and territorial governments need to do the right thing and make CETA offers public now.
Take action
With important offers on services, investment and government procurement now on the table, it's time to demand your province or territory make those offers public, and hold a public debate on what is at stake in Canada-EU free trade negotiations. Write a letter to your municipal councillor and provincial representative (or candidate if there is an election coming up), and let them know your concerns.
Go here to send a letter today.
Indignez-vous conference helps build a people’s movement
 The Council of Canadians joined with Québec and First Nations peoples and other Canadian organizations for a movement-building conference designed to strengthen links within civil society in the face of a federal government that is focused on corporate interests ahead of people and the planet.
Indignez-vous! Hope in Resistance took place in Montreal October 21 and 22. The event drew large crowds for both the free public forum and day-long interactive plenary panels. Topics included how to harness the growing momentum for social change, what we can all do in the face of the growing effects of climate change, how people can come together in a united call to action, and more.
Discussions focused on the growing gap between rich and poor and the social inequalities that result. In her opening remarks, Council of Canadians National Chairperson Maude Barlow noted: “The world has divided into rich and poor as at no time in living history. The richest 2 per cent own more than half the household wealth in the world. The richest 10 per cent hold 85 per cent of total global assets, and the bottom half of humanity owns less than 1 per cent of all the wealth in the world. The three richest men in the world have more money than the poorest 48 nations.”
To read more about the event, watch videos from the panels (available in English and French), and see all the latest updates go here.
A grassroots push to stop the Keystone XL pipeline
 The Council of Canadians recently launched an e-mail campaign targeting members of the Nebraska, U.S. legislature, urging them to force a relocation of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. The massive pipeline project, which is meant to carry tar sands bitumen to U.S.-based refineries, is currently planned to cross major rivers and key sources of drinking and agricultural water in Nebraska, including the Ogallala aquifer. The legislature was expected to vote on the issue November 1.
The Council of Canadians has joined with many Canadian and U.S.-based groups in opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline. The controversial 2,736 kilometre project threatens to pollute freshwater supplies in America’s agricultural heartland and increase air pollution in the Gulf Coast. The pipeline would cross treaty territories, aquifers, rivers, grasslands, cultural sites and ecologically sensitive areas in Canada and the U.S.
Council of Canadians National Chairperson Maude Barlow and Political Director Brent Patterson will be in Washington this weekend for the #Surround action, where people join hands in a large ring around the White House. The #Surround action is meant to be a symbolic circle of support around U.S. President Barack Obama reminding him that he has strong backing to block the Keystone XL pipeline.
To read more about this action go here.
Council supports occupy movement
 Council of Canadians members and chapter activists have added their voices and support to occupy movements across Canada.
The occupy movement, which started on Wall Street in the United States, has been uniting people in common beliefs against the growing gap between rich and poor. People are banding together to speak out against capitalism and corporate greed, and the increasing push of governments to implement austerity measures. People are saying: “We are the 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%.”
Occupations have been established in cities and towns across Canada. The Council of Canadians continues to support these efforts, and encourage non-violent participation in the occupy movement. We have had chapter activists take part in occupy camps across Canada, including in Vancouver, Edmonton, Victoria, Regina, Winnipeg, Kingston, Toronto, Ottawa, Moncton and many more.
During the recent Indignez-Vous! conference in Montreal, Council of Canadians chapter activists, Board members and staff visited Occupons/Occupy Montreal to demonstrate our solidarity. Click here to watch a video of the Council of Canadians marching to the Occupy Montreal site at Square Victoria in Montreal's financial district. The video includes a short interview with the Council’s Chairperson Maude Barlow, and drumming by Board member Chief Garry John of the Seton Lake First Nation in British Columbia/ Coast Salish Territories.
To read our media release in support of the Occupy movement go here.
PHOTO: London chapter tent at Occupy London, Ontario
Join the Council of Canadians
Founded in 1985 by a handful of citizens including Farley Mowat, Pierre Berton and Margaret Atwood, the Council of Canadians is Canada’s pre-eminent public watchdog organization. By becoming a member of the Council of Canadians your generous support helps give our organization a voice on social, economic and political issues and build a strong, independent and diverse Canada. Join the Council today, and help us prove that a better Canada is possible. Already a member? Share this newsletter with a friend and encourage them to join or donate and become a part of Canada’s largest citizens’ advocacy organization.
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Together, we can all act for social justice. |
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