Canada

Let’s be clear about the just-released, negotiated-in-secret Trans-Pacific Partnership deal. Despite how it’s being referred to by journalists, officialsand academics, as Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and economist Adam Hersh have noted, it is definitely not a “free-trade” agreement. It’s much more than that.

What are Dr. Stiglitz and others arguing, and why does it matter? Simply put, calling the TPP a free-trade agreement overplays its benefits, plays down its problematic aspects and fundamentally misunderstands what the deal is actually about.

This column is part of a package of special coverage of climate change issues by CBC News leading up to the United Nations climate change conference (COP21) being held in Paris from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11.

G20 countries are spending $452 billion US a year subsidizing their fossil fuel industries and are undermining the world's effort to combat climate change in the process, according to a new international report by an environmental advocacy group.

With the world focusing on climate change leading up to the COP21 United Nations gathering in Paris at the end of November, some Indigenous elders in Canada say it’s an issue that they’ve been witnessing unfold for decades.

Francois Paulette from Smith Landing First Nation in the Northwest Territories (NWT) has been speaking out about changes to the landscape in his home territory.

“The north is a very sensitive, delicate place with impacts from pollution to the air and water,” said Paulette.

In May, Premier Christy Clark named 19 people to a new Climate Leadership Team that included representatives from provincial and municipal governments, industry, academia, the environmental community and First Nations. She said the team was to “consider the best actions” to get a lagging B.C. back “on track” in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

November 30, the deadline for the committee to submit its recommendations, fast approaches. On that day, international climate change talks begin in Paris and Clark will likely be there boasting of B.C.’s green credentials.

Suncor Refinery outside of Fort McMurray with the Syncrude Refinery visible in the background. Photo by Colin O'Connor, Greenpeace.

Alberta and its oil sands needs to be the focus of the Trudeau government's climate action if it is serious about helping limit dangerous planetary warming to two degrees this century, warned a national group of environmental thinkers.

(Editor`s note:  This article from the Financial Post shows how the oil industry keeps on trying to get their product to "tide water"!)

 nation-building project, endorsed by the Assembly of First Nations, should be the top infrastructure, trade and First Nations priority for the new Trudeau government.

It is the proposal to build a railway from Alberta to Alaska, supported by native groups along way, that could carry 1.5 million barrels a day from the oil sands to the super tanker port in Valdez Alaska.

(Editor`s note:  This article from the Financial Post shows how the oil industry keeps on trying to get their product to "tide water"!)

 nation-building project, endorsed by the Assembly of First Nations, should be the top infrastructure, trade and First Nations priority for the new Trudeau government.

It is the proposal to build a railway from Alberta to Alaska, supported by native groups along way, that could carry 1.5 million barrels a day from the oil sands to the super tanker port in Valdez Alaska.

View lecture at https://youtu.be/Y-aaZN67y-c  

[Webpage editor's note: A good summary of the history of this project.] 

After seven years of acrimonious court battles, profligate spending and hardball political lobbying, the Keystone XL pipeline is dead. U.S. President Barack Obama rejected the proposal, as most suspected he would.

"Several years ago, the State Department began a review process for the proposed construction of a pipeline that would carry Canadian crude oil through our heartland to ports in the Gulf of Mexico and out into the world market," said Obama in a press conference on Friday November 6.

As the slowdown in northern Alberta deepens, tens of thousands of unemployed oil patch workers — rigger, welders, pipe fitters, and heavy-haul drivers — are heading home. During the boom times, Fort McMurray attracted workers from across the country, from British Columbia to Newfoundland. Now, those days feel like another lifetime ago.

But what is it like for those people who are already home? What happens to people who live in Fort McMurray — those who bought homes, enrolled their kids in school, got involved in their communities? What has the downturn meant for them?