NGOs Send a message to the Environment Committee: Uphold Treaty and Human Rights before Corporate Rights

May 13th, 2009, CALGARY — As the House of Commons Environmental Committee holds Oil Sands and Water Resources hearings; environmental NGO's and civil society groups ARE RAISING a huge floating banner reading "WATER IS LIFE, Protect Inherent Treaty and Human Rights" protesting the Alberta government and industry interventions to GREENWASH the tar sands. The banner sends the message to the Environment Committee to UPHOLD treaty and human rights to water before corporate rights.

“The Federal government has a fiduciary obligation to uphold Canada’s treaties and consult on a Nation to Nation basis with First Nations peoples,” said Eriel Deranger- Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation member and Rainforest Action Network Campaigner; “The Federal Government’s continual breach of this fiduciary responsibility to First Nations gives large financial institutions, like the Royal Bank of Canada, the green light to continue their financing of these fundamentally illegal projects.”

“The committee should be in Alberta to hear about the impacts of the tar sands on water and our ability to access safe water in communities. It is clear that the industry’s massive tailings ponds have leaked toxins into rivers and groundwater, posing toxic risks to life,” say's Sheila Muxlow, Prairie Organizer with the Council of Canadians. “They should be hearing that the industry operating in the tar sands needs to be regulated to protect water”. Muxlow notes that on average, two to five barrels of water are needed to produce one barrel of oil while some extraction methods require as much as seven barrels of water.

The federal standing committee on the environment and sustainable development has been discussing water in the context of the tar sands since March 2009. Over this past week, the committee came to Alberta and visited the community of Fort Chipewyan on Monday, held a hearing in Edmonton yesterday, and will be concluding its visit to Alberta in Calgary. The hearings have so far excluded voices of several communities impacted by tar sands development but have allowed for the testimony of a swarm of tar sands corporations and the Alberta Government. Joint organizing efforts have been made with communities, labour organizations, Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations, civil society groups and First Nations to send a strong unified message to the Federal Commissioners through-out the hearing process.

"We are calling for government to government consultation at the highest level with First Nations; respecting Free Prior and Informed Consent," said Heather Milton-Lightening of the Indigenous Environmental Network,"The Federal government is not presently enforcing its own legislation, such as the Migratory Birds Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Fisheries Act. We need to see viable resources for First Nations water monitoring separate from the Building Environmental Aboriginal Human Resources (BEAHR) initiative that supports all stages of water monitoring."

“We shouldn’t be using water for such a toxic resource. We are creating a toxic future for our children and our children’s children,“ said Mike Hudema Climate and Energy Campaigner for Greenpeace, Canada. “We should be investing our money and ingenuity in green industries creating hundreds of thousands of jobs across the country that strengthen our communities rather than destroying them and enhance our environment rather than poisoning it.”

The local and national concerted efforts by various groups are calling on the Environment Committee to leave Alberta with concrete recommendations to the Federal government that will bring about the action necessary to protect the rights of all those living within the tar sands extraction, expansion and infrastructures areas. These protective measures should ensure the full protection of our most precious resource, water.