[Ost-announce] [Edmonton] Everyone's Downstream III: January 15, 16, 17, 2010.

[Macdonald Stainsby]

Everyone's Downstream III:
 From the Front Lines to the Finish Lines--Races to the bottom

Friday to Sunday, January 15-17, 2010 (related events begin January 12, 
see below) Edmonton, Alberta. Organized by OilSandsTruth.org with the 
Indigenous Environmental Network and the Rainforest Action Network.

Come for a tar sands focused conference that discusses the true meaning 
of 'corporate responsibility" as it relates to development. Many large 
players will be explored with discussions of Suncor, Enbridge, BP, Royal 
Bank as well 2010 Winter Games Sponsorship and the impacts on near and 
far communities with representatives speaking from affected communities. 
Space for planning a response collectively will be provided.

Everyone's Downstream III is to be held in Edmonton once again, this 
time occurring in January, 2010.

ALL Friday to Sunday events (January 15, 16, 17.)to be held at 
Strathcona Community League,
10139 87 Avenue (five blocks north of Whyte Ave)


EDSIII Launch event
The Green Shift & the global Capitalist Economy:
Can Capitalism be made Green?
Is it a viable strategy?

post Copenhagen discussion of market-based environmental solutions and 
offsets with:

Ricardo Acuña, executive director, Parkland Institute
Tom Goldtooth, executive director, Indigenous Environmental Network

Saturday, Jan 16:

Everyone's Downstream III:
 From the Front Lines to the Finish Lines-- Races to the Bottom

9am: conference opening.

Opening Panel
time: 9:30-12pm (break if/as needed)

SUNCOR across Turtle Island

Arnold Yellowman, Aamjiwnaang First Nation (near Sarnia, Ontario)
Billie Pierre, Nlaka'Pamux Nation (speaking on 2010 Olympics and 
sponsorship)
George Poitras, Mikisew Cree First Nation (Fort Chipewyan, Alberta)
Shannon Walsh, Montréal, QC (PetroCanada/Suncor Refinery)

12:00-1:00pm: lunch

Second Panel:
ENBRIDGE & Royal Bank of Canada:
Financing and flowing across Turtle Island
time: 115pm -330pm

Mel Bazil, Wet'suwet'en Nation (north-central BC).
Warner Naziel, Wet'suwet'en Nation (near Smithers BC).
Laurent Busseau, resident of Dunham, QC. (Enbridge Trailbreaker/ 
Portland Montréal Pipeline reversal)
RBC Toronto: Taylor Flook (Rainforest Action Network-- Toronto, tar 
sands and 2010 campaigns)

final Saturday panel: 3:45-5pm
WHAT DO WE DO ABOUT THIS? action/organizing planning.

Sunday, January 17, 2009

First Panel
time: 9am-1030am
The Social Impacts of Development

tar sands and the anti-war struggle:
Clayton Thomas-Muller, Indigenous Environmental Network-- Canadian 
Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign.
Palestine/Israel and the Tar Sands:
Macdonald Stainsby, OilSandsTruth.org
March for Missing and Murdered Women, Edmonton:
Danielle Boudreau, founder and march organizer

Second Panel:
Alberta Community level impacts-- presenters invited from:
10:45-12:30pm:
Little Buffalo (Lubicon Lake First Nation, northern Alberta)
Beaver Lake Cree Nation (south of Lac La Biche, northern Alberta)

LUNCH

BP[former British Petroleum]:
taking resistance beyond Canada.
1:30-3:15pm
Alaskan nations -- tbd.
BP headquarters in London, England-- Jess Worth (New Internationalist, 
UK Tar Sands Campaign) via skypecast.
Whiting/East Chicago, Indiana BP refinery-- Debra Michaud (RAN-Chicago)

3:30-5pm
What do we do now?
Action planning and/or strategy session

************************
Other events, from earlier in the week associated with Everyone's 
Downstream III.

NOTE THAT THE DATES PRECEDE MAIN CONFERENCE AND ARE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF 
ALBERTA:
************************

Tuesday, January 12:

Launch of Dominion special issue on the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in 
Vancouver/Whistler with editor Dawn Paley and Billie Pierre from the 
Nlaka'Pamux Nation speaking on the 2010 Winter Olympics in the evening.

facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=209662892090&index=1

Time: 6pm
Location: University of Alberta,
Education building, rm 128

Thursday, Jan 14.

Offsetting Resistance launch.
discussion of environmental NGO accountability and democracy

location: University of Alberta,
Education Building, Room 128
Time: 6pm until 9pm.

Qwatsinas (Ed Moody),
hereditary chief, Nuxalk Nation (speaking on Great Bear Rainforest deal)

Maude Prud'homme, Réseau Quebecois des Groupes Ecologistes (RQGE)
(speaking on influence of foundation funding on emerging campaigns in 
Québec)

Petr Cizek, Land Use Planner (speaking on Pew/Sunoco, the Canadian 
Boreal Initiative and the Protected Areas Strategy deal in the North 
West Territories)

facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=210607287390&index=1

++++++
More on Everyone's Downstream III, as well as the Dominion and Ofsetting 
Resistance launch events below.
++++++

In the shadow of many successful and ascendant campaigns against the 
world's largest industrial project-- the gigaproject-- this year 
Everyone's Downstream will highlight several of the corporate campaign 
targets and the communities most directly affected.

With developments (the Alberta tar sands and the 2010 Winter Olympic 
Games) that cause displacement, land dispossession, massive climate 
footprint and dislocation of entire communities, resistance always 
emerges. Add in militarism-- both in cause as well as result-- and the 
human toll is vast and the resistance extremely fertile.

All of these issues will be highlighted for discussion and planned 
resistance in a horizontal network at the community level. We host this 
in Alberta but we plan for the world.

Corporations like Suncor Energy mine here and refine tar sands across 
the continent and sponsor the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

BP (formerly British Petroleum) extracts in Alberta, refines in the 
United States and produces products for North America-- yet headquarter 
their operations in Europe.

Royal Bank of Canada invests more than any other financial institution 
in tar sands operations and is the third largest sponsor of the 
Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, yet is based in Toronto.

Enbridge wishes to link up the entire continent with pipelines of poison 
across waterways of life in the East, West, North and South.

A map of all of these developments is also a map of our natural allies.

For these reasons and many more,

Everyone's Downstream III: From the front lines to the finish lines-- 
races to the bottom.

is set to take place from January 15, 2010 to January 17, 2010 in 
Edmonton, Alberta. Supported and associated events begin on Tuesday, 
January 12, 2010.

+++++++++++

The Dominion Special issue on 2010 Winter Olympic Games

Everyone's Downstream along with Ap!rg in collaboration with *The 
Dominion* will be hosting a launch event in Edmonton to celebrate the 
publication of the special issue on The Olympics. Join us in an informal 
setting where we will have snacks and be chatting about strengthening 
grassroots media and distributing the new special issue!

"*In Canada, you will find a nation that works every day towards 
creating the conditions of the Olympic ideal.*" --Jean Chrétien

*The "Olympic Ideal" is part of one of the world’s most successful 
marketing campaigns, built around concepts that almost everyone can 
agree upon: world-class amateur sport and peaceful competition.*

But a rising chorus of critical voices say that the Olympics are deeply 
implicated in the expropriation of land, money and resources. From 
movements demanding "No Olympics on Stolen Native Land" to angry 
business owners, resistance to the Olympics economic and social agenda 
is growing.The Olympics budget includes a billion dollars for security. 
A billion dollars each will be spent on a new convention centre, a 
larger highway to Whistler, and SNC Lavalin's rail link from the 
Vancouver airport to downtown.In the political and economic manoeuvres 
leading up to the 2010 Olympics, a different "ideal" has been revealed – 
one of exclusive contracts, sponsorship deals, displacement, social 
cleansing, and corruption. At times, sport seems like an afterthought.

Many of the real stories behind the Olympics remain to be told.*
*

Billie Pierre is from the Nlaka'Pamux Nation and will speak about the 
impacts of the 2010 on her and others traditional lands, and how the 
Superhighway being built from the Tar Sands to the Vancouver Port is 
impacting local indigenous communities.

She is a co-founder of Redwire Magazine, has strong ties with the Native 
Youth Movement, and has actively organized with the International 
Indigenous Youth Network.

Dawn Paley is a journalist based in Vancouver, BC. Fluent in English, 
French and Spanish, she writes for magazines and newspapers across 
Canada. Her work has appeared in the *Vancouver Sun*, *The Globe and 
Mail*, *BC Business Magazine*, the *Georgia Straight*, the *Tyee* and 
*This Magazine*.

Dawn works as a contributing editor with *The Dominion*, and is 
currently pursuing her Masters in Journalism at the University of 
British Columbia.

She will be speaking on the issues related to the olympics, media 
coverage and sponsorship, and the importance of national resistance to 
the games.

*The Special Issue:*

Thousands of copies of the Olympic special issue will be printed and 
distributed through grassroots networks across Turtle Island in November 
2009. As you might be aware, previous special issues of *The Dominion* 
have received critical acclaim for their coverage of Canadian foreign 
policy, the Athabasca tar sands, and the Canadian mining sector.

Please visit http://www.dominionpaper.ca

++++++

Offsetting Resistance Launch:
discussion of environmental NGO accountability and democracy


With movements around climate change in general and tar sands in 
particular reaching larger and more sympathetic audiences than ever 
before, what kind of accountable, democratic structures are formed in 
response is more and more a critical question.

Yet as more people become concerned with these issues and look to 
participate in that movement, avenues for funding, accountability, 
participation and basic grassroots democracy are being smothered by a 
secretive, hierarchical coalition of professional insiders.

This is not a new occurrence in the environmental world. Among many 
places, it has taken place in British Columbia and the Northwest 
Territories and had anti-democratic results.

Qwatsinas (Ed Moody), herditary chief from the Nuxalk Nation (located 
within the recently dubbed Great Bear Rainforest) will discuss what 
transpired in negotiations with environmental organizations, the 
government and logging corporations. The Great Bear Rainforest deal was 
cut and signed behind closed doors and without larger democratic oversight.

The implications of such on self determination for his and other First 
Nations communities dealing with tar sands, pipelines and refineries 
makes this discussion critical.

Maude Prud'homme has been organising on environnmental issues for more 
than 12 years. She has been working specifically on the case of the René 
Levasseur Island in Nitassinan, Innu territory, for the last 7 years as 
well as forging ecofeminism tools and networking. She is currently 
working as coordinator of the Réseau québécois des groupes écologistes, 
a network formed by grassroots groups in 1982 to provide collective 
tools of support and representation on common issues.

She will address the impacts, so far, of financing by big foundations in
Quebec, and in what context it occurs. What have been the reactions of 
the different groups, and what are the differing perspectives as the 
whole forestry regime is being revamped. There will be a historical 
background introduction and some hypothesis as to which interests are at 
sake in regards to big energy interests and Quebec's forests.

Petr Cizek, land use planner and former employee of several first 
nations involved with ENGO's, larger foundation funded coalitions and 
government negotiations, will discuss the role of foundation and 
industry grants to environmental groups and the possible threat to 
democracy of such funding, including personal reference to his 
experience in the Northwest Territories working with first nations in 
relation to the Mackenzie Gas Project.

Copies of http://offsettingresistance.ca will be available.
To receive one before the event, contact macdonald at oilsandstruth.org

All events listed at:
http://oilsandstruth.org/edsiii