Media release: This morning, the Council of Canadians together with Mi’kmaq grassroots grandmothers and community researchers shared documents that show the Alton Gas Project is on a path to break the Fisheries Act by depositing high concentration brine into fish-bearing waters.
Reporter Elizabeth Goodridge attended a flash mob and round dance in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en people at the Halifax Shopping Centre.
The Nova Scotia Federation of Labour (NSFL) is donating $5,000 in support of the Alton Gas water protectors. The donated money will be used to deal with legal costs associated with a court case asserting treaty rights.
On a chilly Thursday earlier this week about 100 people rallied in front of the Halifax Regional Police Station on Gottingen Street to show solidarity with Wet’suwet’en land defenders fighting the Coastal GasLink (CGL) pipeline.
Elizabeth Goodridge writes that the revelations that police were permitted to use lethal force against Wet’suwet’en land defenders on the West Coast were not surprising. Just consider the state violence against Indigenous peoples on the East Coast. And that violence will likely only get worse, she believes.
Alton Gas water protectors Dale Poulette and Rachael Greenland-Smith did an amazing job filing Freedom of Information requests and identifying numerous serious flaws in the Alton Gas approval processes. Now they have compiled all that info into a report. Read a summary and download the report here.
Last week Mi’kmaw Water Protectors traveled to Antigonish to confront politicians attending the annual meeting of the provincial Liberals about federal efforts to accommodate the Alton Gas Project. Sadie Beaton explains what is going on. Video by Eliza Knockwood included
The Mi’kmaq and allies will converge to St. FX, joining Extinction rebellion, demanding Prime Minister Trudeau withdraw plans to provide “Industry ordered Regulations” on allowing a regulatory exemption to Alton Gas to kill Fish.
“When we checked around, we noticed that even for more minor regulatory changes the department offers longer comment periods. They also offer discussion documents and information sessions before a notice is posted in the Gazette,” says Sadie Beaton, Community Conservation Research Coordinator at the Ecology Action Centre.
Wherever he looks Ray Bates sees corporations exploiting Nova Scotia’s natural resources as if there is no tomorrow. This must stop, he writes.