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Exploring Theme: "Specific Industry Environmental Issues"
Updates on this page: 18
(Filtered by Indigenous Group "Métis")
September 3, 2024
Ottawa must crack down on bad actors in the oilsands
Imperial Oil president and CEO Brad Corson (in the foreground) before a federal committee meeting on Dec. 14, 2023, answering questions about the Kearl Mine spill. Photo by Natasha Bulowski / Canada’s National ObserverListen to article Canada’s National Observer: On September 4, 2020, an environmental watchdog created under the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)...
August 26, 2024
‘Ridiculously small’ fine sends wrong message to industry: Indigenous leaders
Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Allan Adam at a press conference in Ottawa on April 17, 2023. Photo by Natasha Bulowski / Canada’s National ObserverListen to article Canada’s National Observer: The Alberta Energy Regulator’s decision to issue a “ridiculously small” $50,000 fine to Imperial Oil in connection with major tailings leaks in 2023 sends a...
May 14, 2024
Oilsands carbon capture project must have a full assessment: Ecojustice
Canada’s National Observer: Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Allan Adam pictured speaking at a press conference in Ottawa last spring. File photo by Natasha Bulowski / Canada’s National Observer Listen to article A massive carbon capture project in Canada’s oilsands should require an environmental impact assessment, say a local First Nation and environmental groups who are calling on...
May 2, 2024
The true cost of critical minerals
By Emilie Cameron, Rosemary Collard & Jessica Dempsey | Opinion | Canada’s National Observer: OPINION – Canada is positioning itself as a global destination for critical mineral extraction. Are we willing to destroy caribou herds and trample on Indigenous rights to do it? Barnabas Davoti/Pexels Listen to article The 2024 federal budget bolsters Canada’s ambitions to be a global supplier of critical minerals....
April 30, 2024
Environment commissioner gives Canada failing grade on Northern contaminated sites
Federal Environment Commissioner Jerry V. DeMarco holds a press conference in Ottawa on Thursday, April 20, 2023. DeMarco is giving the federal government a failing grade on reducing their financial liability in remediating contaminated sites in the north — and says they’re leaving some Indigenous Peoples out of the process altogether. Photo: Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian...
April 19, 2024
The federal government must tackle water pollution from the oilsands
The government already has the necessary power. It just needs the courage to use it to stop contamination from tailings ponds. NationTalk: Policy Options – Perched on the shores of the Athabasca River in northern Alberta are a staggering 1.4 trillion litres of toxic industrial waste, stored in open pits known as tailings ponds created...
April 17, 2024
Alberta pipeline sparks wildfire west of Edmonton
More than two dozen firefighers are battling the blaze A wildfire burns near Edson, Alta., in this Tuesday, April 16, 2024 handout photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO, Alberta Wildfire APTN News: The Canadian Press – The Canadian Energy Regulator says it’s working with the province and federal departments after a natural gas pipeline owned by TC...
January 25, 2024
Canadian tar sands pollution is up to 6,300% higher than reported, study finds
Call for companies to ‘clean up their mess’ as Athabasca oil sands emissions vastly exceed industry-reported levels The Guardian: Toxic emissions from the Canadian tar sands – already one of the dirtiest fossil fuels – have been dramatically underestimated, according to a study. Research published in the journal Science found that air pollution from the vast Athabasca...
October 26, 2023
Government of Canada Releases Interim Guidance on the Impact Assessment Act
NationTalk: Impact Assessment Agency of Canada – Attracting investment and supporting major job-creating projects requires regulatory certainty from all levels of government. Following the recent opinion by the Supreme Court of Canada on the Impact Assessment Act (IAA), the Government of Canada is setting a clear path forward for impact assessments in Canada to provide...
July 5, 2023
Wood Buffalo National Park still on environmental threat list; UNESCO calls for action on oilsands
NationTalk: Canada’s National Observer – A United Nations body has affirmed earlier findings that Canada’s largest national park remains under environmental threats from dams, oilsands development and climate change. The UNESCO report, issued Friday, concludes that the vast Wood Buffalo National Park on the Alberta-Northwest Territories boundary shouldn’t lose its place on the list of World Heritage Sites at this time. Some things in the...
June 5, 2023
The Lie of a Cleaner Oilsands
Pollution protections are stripped while Canada boasts progress. This is the history of promises made and betrayed. The Tyee: In May 2022 a tailings pond at Imperial’s Kearl Lake facility started leaking toxic waste into groundwater and outside its lease boundaries. The foul water, the product of bitumen mining, contained arsenic, sulphates and hydrocarbons and other...
May 4, 2023
Canada opens formal investigation into Imperial’s oilsands tailings leak in northern Alberta
Imperial first found discoloured water seeping from one of its tailings ponds in May CBC News: Federal environmental authorities have launched a formal investigation into a tailings leak at Imperial Oil’s Kearl oilsands mine in northern Alberta. Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) announced Thursday it is investigating a suspected contravention of the Fisheries Act,...
April 27, 2023
Canada oil sands leak heightens First Nations’ calls to clean up tailings
NationTalk: Reuters – In early February, Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in northern Alberta started fielding calls from community members after the provincial regulator revealed toxic wastewater had been leaking for months from a tailings pond at Imperial Oil’s (IMO.TO) Kearl oil sands mine. Many in the community hunt and fish downstream of...
April 20, 2023
Imperial Oil CEO ‘deeply apologetic’ in Commons committee testimony on oilsands tailings leak
Brad Corson says Imperial is still pumping wastewater into ponds that spilled Imperial Oil president and CEO Brad Corson presented himself as humbled and “deeply apologetic” on Thursday in Ottawa during testimony at a parliamentary committee studying the leak of oilsands wastewater into the northern Alberta ecosystem. In his opening statement, Corson acknowledged his company...
April 19, 2023
Suncor reports release of six million litres of water from settling pond on Fort Hills oil sands mine
The Globe and Mail: Almost six million litres of water with more than twice the legal limit of suspended solids was released from a pond at the Fort Hills oil sands project into the Athabasca River watershed over the weekend, the second large spill in the northern Alberta region this year. The water came from...
April 17, 2023
First Nations blast Alberta Energy Regulator at hearing; minister promises reform
Imperial first detected discoloured water near the oilsands site last May CBC News: Chiefs of First Nations affected by releases of wastewater from an oilsands mine excoriated Alberta’s regulator at a House of Commons committee hearing, calling it a system that serves the industry and not the public. “The [Alberta Energy Regulator] has zero credibility outside...
March 22, 2023
NWT Indigenous leaders call for investigation of oil sands’ impacts
Leaders of northern Indigenous peoples are calling for a “full, independent investigation” of the downstream impacts of oil sands pollution. CabinRadioThe call, issued at a water summit held in Inuvik last week, comes in the wake of controversy over months-long contamination emanating from Imperial Oil’s Kearl facility in northern Alberta. The Dene Nation, Inuvialuit Regional...
March 16, 2023
Ontario pledges $29M to protect boreal caribou — but the spending isn’t without criticism
4-year funding plan to support habitat restoration, protection and monitoring CBC News: Ontario plans to spend $29 million to help protect an iconic — and threatened — species: boreal caribou. David Piccini, the provincial minister of environment, conservation and parks, made the announcement Wednesday at Lakehead University’s campus in Thunder Bay, Ont. The funding will be distributed...