Current Problems:
Exploring Theme: "Specific Industry Environmental Issues"
Updates on this page: 36
(Filtered by Stakeholder "Canada")
September 10, 2024
Bloc Québécois backs First Nation fighting nuclear waste site
Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet takes questions at a press conference on Sept. 9, 2024. Photo by Natasha Bulowski / Canada’s National ObserverListen to article Canada’s National Observer: Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet is throwing his weight behind a First Nation fighting a nuclear waste disposal site near the Ottawa River. Flanked by three BQ MPs...
August 14, 2024
Is Canada’s critical-minerals strategy a green shift or greenwashing?
Indigenous and remote communities will bear the long-lasting ecological, social and cultural impacts of mining. This cannot be ignored. NationTalk: Policy Options – Canada has followed the lead of many countries recently by adopting policies and measures to promote rapid development of its value chain for domestic critical minerals essential in clean energy technology. Climate change, geopolitical and economic turmoil are...
July 10, 2024
Grassy Narrows First Nation appeals to international human rights commission over mercury contamination
IACHR hearing latest effort by the First Nation in Ontario to push governments to act CBC Indigenous: In its efforts to press the Ontario and federal governments to do more to address mercury contamination of its river, Grassy Narrows First Nation told the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) that many community members have “lost...
June 24, 2024
Environment minister responds to chief’s concerns about toxic sewage spill at Chalk River
‘We … have to be optimistic that it can’t get any worse,’ says Chief Lance Haymond of plant’s communication CBC Indigenous: The federal environment minister is open to improvements after an Algonquin leader raised concerns about a toxic sewage spill at the Chalk River nuclear research laboratory about 175 kilometres west of Ottawa. Steven Guilbeault,...
June 12, 2024
Chemical Valley plant under benzene orders to close by 2026
A photograph from the front yard of the Aamjiwnaang Resource Centre on the First Nations Reserve in Sarnia. Behind it stand Ineos Styrolution. Photo courtesy of TheKurgan / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0 Deed) Listen to article Canada’s National Observer: Ineos Styrolution, the plastics plant mired in controversy since high levels of benzene pollution were reported...
June 7, 2024
Canadian mines a threat to Alaskan Indigenous rights
Ooligan, caught on the Unuk River in Alaska. Photo by Sonia Luokkala/SEITC This story was originally published by High Country News and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Canada’s National Observer: In Southeast Alaska, winter fades and the return of the ooligan (also known as eulachon) in the Unuk River marks the arrival of spring. Ooligan, sm’algyax,...
May 31, 2024
Sulphur dioxide levels off the charts in Ontario’s Chemical Valley
Children play outside the Aamjiwnaang First Nation Reserve school in Canada, across the U.S.-Canada border from Port Huron, Mich., Oct. 21, 2005. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio) FINAL WEEKEND! WE URGENTLY NEED YOUR HELP TO FUND BOLD CLIMATE JOURNALISM BY JUNE 3 Goal: $100k $82,316 Donate Canada’s National Observer: In the aftermath of a crackdown on benzene...
May 27, 2024
Grassy Narrows proves environmental racism is not over
NDP MP Blake Desjarlais in his office. Photo by Matteo Cimellaro / Canada’s National Observer SUPPORT JOURNALISM THAT LIGHTS THE WAY THROUGH THE CLIMATE CRISIS BY JUNE 3 Goal: $100k $35,153 Donate Canada’d National Observer: The discovery that pollution from a paper mill is contributing to the long-standing mercury poisoning afflicting Grassy Narrows First Nation...
May 25, 2024
Don’t take our jobs, First Nations spokesman tells Canadian PM
Failure to renew BC salmon farm licences would come at high cost to Kitasoo Xai’xais Isaiah Robinson pictured with Justin Trudeau last year. Robinson has added his voice to calls for six-year licence renewals for salmon farms in British Columbia.Foto: FNFFS NationTalk: FishFarmingExpert – PUBLISHED Friday 24. May 2024 – 11:55 LAST UPDATED Saturday 25. May 2024 –...
May 23, 2024
The mercury poisoning Grassy Narrows First Nation was supposed to go away over time. A new study reveals why it’s worse than it should be
A new study has found current sulphate emissions from a paper mill are exacerbating the impact of the old mercury still in the river system. By Morgan Sevareid-BocknekInvestigative Reporter Toronto Star: For decades the people of Grassy Narrows First Nation were told the toxic mercury dumped in the river by a paper mill in the 1960s...
May 2, 2024
Toxic sewage discharged at Chalk River nuclear lab
Environment Canada issues direction to correct breach, confirms effluent was toxic to fish CBC Indigenous: Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) discharged toxic sewage at the Chalk River site along the Ottawa River during peak fish spawning season earlier this year, CBC Indigenous has learned. Environment Canada confirms its enforcement officers in late April issued CNL a...
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 26, 2024
‘Our Mother Earth is sick’: Leaders speak out on rampant plastic pollution in the Arctic
Vi Waghiyi, environmental and justice program director at ACAT, poses with IPEN’s The Arctic’s Plastic Crisis report. Photoy by Matteo Cimellaro / Canada’s National Observer Listen to article Canada’s National Observer: Every year, Delbert Pungowiyi’s community comes together to clean up the trash on the beach of his small island in Alaska. “Name a country, any...
April 25, 2024
Plastics industry treats Indigenous lands as ‘sacrifice zones’
Canada’s National Observer: A sign for the Aamjiwnaang First Nation Resource Centre is located across the road from NOVA Chemicals in Sarnia, Ont., on April 21, 2007. (CP PHOTO/ Craig Glover) Listen to article Days after the Aamjiwnaang First Nation issued an emergency alert due to high benzene levels in the air, members from the front-line community are...
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...
March 11, 2024
First Nations, Métis and environmental groups request investigation of harmful tailings pond substance
NationTalk: OTTAWA/TRADITIONAL, UNCEDED TERRITORY OF THE ALGONQUIN ANISHNAABEG PEOPLE – In January 2024, Canada announced their decision to not include naphthenic acids in the list of regulated substances in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. Environmental groups and a First Nation have submitted a formal request for the federal government to assess the harms caused by...
February 14, 2024
PM dismisses Algonquin concerns over Chalk River nuclear waste dump
Trudeau touts nuclear safety commission’s expertise as Bloc leader allies with First Nations CBC Indigenous: Algonquin leaders are finding the Canadian government largely unmoved, but they continue to fight construction of a radioactive waste dump on unceded territory near Deep River, Ont., roughly one kilometre from the Ottawa River. First Nations chiefs have allied with Bloc Québécois and federal Green...
February 14, 2024
First Nations urge Environment Minister not to green light Chalk River nuclear waste dump
The Globe and MaIl: Ottawa – Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault was urged by First Nations chiefs Wednesday not to issue a permit to allow a nuclear waste dump on a forested site northwest of Ottawa where a variety of wildlife, including “at risk” wolves, live. Ten chiefs and members of First Nations in Quebec and...
February 6, 2024
Indigenous and Environmental Groups Denounce Government Inaction on First Anniversary of Imperial Oil Tailings Disaster
ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENCE, KEEPERS OF THE WATER NationTalk: Ottawa | Traditional, unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg People – A year ago, news broke that Imperial Oil’s Kearl mine had been leaking toxic industrial wastewater for over nine months while keeping local Indigenous communities in the dark. The public only learned about the leak after a...
January 11, 2024
Radioactive waste site ‘shoved down our throats,’ critics say
From left: Lance Haymond, chief of Kebaowek First Nation; Dylan Whiteduck, chief of Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg; Algonquin elder Verna McGregor from Kitigan Zibi; and Coun. Justin Roy of Kebaowek. Photo by Natasha Bulowski Canada’s National Observer: Some First Nations and environmentalists are dismayed by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s approval of a proposed storage facility...
November 29, 2023
Caribou numbers will decline as long as Nunavut goes without land use plan says former premier
APTN News: Nunavut’s first premier says caribou numbers in the territory will continue to decline as long as it goes without a land use plan. Paul Okalik says one of the problems is that mining companies are allowed to operate on calving grounds. “These companies, they won’t be here in the long run,” says Okalik....
November 28, 2023
First Nations group says environmental impacts of B.C. salmon fish farm industry overstated
APTN News: A councillor with the Kitasoo Xai’xais Nation in British Columbia says uncertainty in the open-net salmon farm industry is negatively affecting First Nations that rely upon it. “This overall industry supports a 99 per cent employment rate within my community and 51 per cent of its overall economy is represented in this sector,”...
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...
August 10, 2023
Proposed radioactive waste dump in Deep River met with opposition at final hearing
Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission heard final arguments Thursday CBC News: The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) held its final hearings in Ottawa on Thursday into a proposed radioactive waste disposal site further north in the Ottawa Valley that is fiercely opposed by Algonquin First Nation groups. Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) wants to build an engineered mound near the...
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 20, 2023
Proposed Chalk River nuclear dumpsite violates UNDRIP, says Algonquin chiefs
‘We never agreed to this and it continues to be operated on our unceded territory.’ APTN News: Algonquin First Nations are calling on the federal government to abandon a proposed radioactive waste dump site on their unceded territories. On Tuesday, the Chiefs of Kebaowek First Nation, Kitigan Zibi First Nation, the Algonquin Secretariat and the...
May 31, 2023
Minister to delay plan for closure of B.C. salmon farms after pressure from industry, Indigenous chief
The Globe and Mail: The federal Fisheries Minister is delaying a decision on closing the remaining ocean-based salmon farms in British Columbia, after pressure from First Nations and the fish-farm industry. Joyce Murray had been expected in June to release a transition plan to move open-net fish farms out of B.C’s coastal waters, to land-based...
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,...
May 2, 2023
UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues calls on Canada to shut down the Line 5 pipeline
NationTalk: THE GREAT LAKES | ANISHINABEK TERRITORY – Last Friday, the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) recommended that Canada and the United States decommission the Enbridge Line 5 oil pipeline. In the Final Report of its annual session, issued last week, the UNPFII recognized that Line 5 “jeopardize[s] the Great Lakes” and...
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 7, 2023
Indigenous chiefs fly to Ottawa in rival moves as salmon farm battle intensifies
The Globe and Mail: Indigenous chiefs representing B.C. Indigenous communities came to Ottawa on Tuesday to make opposing arguments about whether open-net salmon farms should be able to continue off the coast or be closed and moved to tanks on land. As the battle over the future of ocean-based salmon farms off the coast of British...
March 6, 2023
Ontario approves environmental assessment terms of reference for 3rd and final road to Ring of Fire
Plan co-developed and submitted by 2 First Nations in the area, but faces pushback from others in region CBC News: The province has approved the terms of reference for an environmental assessment (EA) on the third and final road leading to the mineral-rich Ring of Fire in northern Ontario. The terms of reference lay out the work...
February 24, 2023
One fish, two fish, red fish, dead fish? Feds fail to disclose Coastal GasLink data on salmon eggs, habitat
Pipeline contractors estimated there were at least 273,000 salmon eggs in a Wet’suwet’en river crossing. Fisheries and Oceans Canada said it was ‘impossible to confirm’ The Narwhal: Shannon McPhail said she felt like the “world’s biggest schmuck” after reading an email from a senior official at Fisheries and Oceans Canada. The official told her it...
February 17, 2023
Fisheries department to shut 15 salmon farms off B.C.’s coast to protect wild fish
The Globe and Mail: Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray has announced the federal government will not renew licences for 15 open-net Atlantic salmon farms around British Columbia’s Discovery Islands. Murray says in a news release the Discovery Islands area is a key migration route for wild salmon where narrow passages bring migrating juvenile salmon into close...
December 8, 2022
Tahltan’s decades-long struggle to protect Sacred Headwaters
David Suzuki Foundation: That’s just one of many revelations in the powerful new film The Klabona Keepers, about the Tahltan Nation’s struggle to protect the Sacred Headwaters, or Klabona, from mining. (The film, co-directed by my grandson Tamo Campos, is a collaboration between non-Indigenous filmmakers and Indigenous elders, who were given ownership of the intellectual property....