Current Problems: Environment

Exploring Theme: "Specific Industry Environmental Issues"

Updates on this page: 23 (Filtered by Stakeholder "Canada")
 

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....

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