Winnipeg, May 4, 2012: Ta’Kaiya Blaney speaking at the Circle of Life Thunderbird House in Winnipeg about the need to oppose the Enbridge Gateway Pipeline Project. Photo: Paul S. Graham

One of the youngest passengers on the Yinka Dene Alliance Freedom Train is Ta’Kaiya Blaney, 11, of Sliammon First Nation in British Columbia. I don’t believe I have seen a more articulate, self-possessed, and inspiring child in my life.

She spoke in Winnipeg last night, at the Circle of Life Thunderbird House, about the struggle to stop the Enbridge Gateway Pipeline. Her presentation was impressive enough, but then she performed “Shallow Waters,” a song she co-wrote with her singing instructor, Aileen De La Cruz, and the audience was entranced.

“Shallow Waters” could become the anthem for all who love and seek to protect the Earth. And Ta’Kaiya Blaney? Well, judge for yourself. She could become pretty much anything she chooses.

Important Links

• Yinka Dene Alliance
• Yinka Dene Alliance Freedom Train
• Yinka Dene Alliance Freedom Train Petition

See also

• Video: Tar Sands Pipelines & Tankers
• Video: Yinka Dene Alliance Freedom Train Winnipeg News Conference

UPDATE: After posting the first video I went to a Yinka Dene Alliance rally at the historic junction of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers. Ta’Kaiya was one of the featured speakers. Here she performs “Carried Away” – which is both a lament for the loss of the natural environment and a call to action. You can find the lyrics on her web site.

Winnipeg, May 4, 2012: Hereditary Chief Tsodih of the Nak’azdli First Nation speaking at a news conference at Circle of Life Thunderbird House. Photo: Paul S. Graham

The Yinka Dene Alliance is on a cross country mission to tell Canadians why they have decided to refuse the construction of the Enbridge Gateway Pipeline across their land. They arrived on VIA Rail last night and held a news conference this morning at the Circle of Life Thunderbird House in Winnipeg. Mainstream media response was underwhelming; it appears that most were distracted by Jim Flaherty’s visit to the Winnipeg Mint to watch the last shiny copper come off the assembly line today. Oh, those shiny pennies!! Oh, how bedazzling for the media!

Because most of the mainstream media declined the invitation to participate, you and your friends are unlikely to find out what was said — unless you watch this video and share it widely.

If you don’t have 52 minutes, here’s an interview I recorded last night at Union Station with Hereditary Chief Na’Moks.

Was Glover poorly informed or spinning for her boss, Stephen Harper? Watch the video and judge for yourself.

After you’ve watched this, you may want to watch Tar Sands, Pipelines and Tankers – the forum at which Gerald Amos spoke, along with Wade Davis, Lynne Fernandez and Anne Lindsey.

The project is meeting fierce opposition, especially in northern BC, and the federal government has declared war on anyone who opposes this project. In Winnipeg, a coalition of environmental groups banded together to hold a public forum on February 16, 2012 at the University of Winnipeg entitled Tar Sands, Pipelines and Tankers. Over 300 people turned out to view an excellent 16-minute documentary by Pacific Wild entitled Oil in Eden and to dialogue with an expert panel, moderated by journalist Ricard Cloutier.

The Panel

Dr. Wade Davis is Explorer in Residence, National Geographic Society, Visiting Professor and Senior Fellow of the Masters in Development Practice (MDP) Indigenous Development program, University of Winnipeg.

As well, he is the author of The Sacred Headwaters: the fight to save the Stikine, Skeena and Nass.

Gerald Amos was Chief Councillor for the Haisla First Nation for 12 years. He has been a leading voice for conservation in Canada for thirty years.

He is the author of an open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Natural Resources Minister, Joe Oliver “No apology forthcoming.”

Lynne Fernandez, of the Canadian Centre of Policy Alternatives has an MA in economics from the University of Manitoba. As a research associate at the Manitoba office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Lynne has studied municipal and provincial social and economic policy. She is also interested in labour and environmental issues.

Anne Lindsey is former executive director of the Manitoba Eco-Network. Since 1984, Anne has worked on such Manitoba and national issues as nuclear waste, forestry, food, pesticides and environmental reviews.

This event was organized by the Manitoba Eco-Network, Green Action Centre, Climate Change Connection, the Council of Canadians (Winnipeg), and the Green Action Committee of the First Unitarian-Universalist Church, with the support of the University of Manitoba’s Global Political Economy Program and the University of Winnipeg.

I hope you can schedule some time to view the video report I prepared in collaboration with Ken Harasym for Winnipeg Community TV. At two-and-a-half hours, it is long, but it is crammed with information and analysis that make it well worth the time.

By contrast, Green Party Leader James Beddome answered with a thunderous denunciation of allowing nuclear waste on Manitoba soil and declared the possibility of a Conservative government being elected Oct. 4 to be “hypothetical.”

Judging from the applause for Beddome and the lack of it for Stephanson, it was clear where the audience stood on this issue.

This is not a hypothetical issue. A movement has sprung up in Saskatchewan to prevent the establishment of a nuclear waste dump.  A respected aboriginal elder, Emil Bell, is on a hunger strike against storing nuclear waste in Saskatchewan.

Kudos to Beddome for clearly stating his party’s anti-nuke position.

You can see the whole debate at here.

Where should Manitoba Hydro construct its planned Bipole 3 transmission line – or should it be built at all?

How should we save Lake Winnipeg from choking to death on toxic algae?

How best can Manitobans respond to rising energy costs and climate change?

These are only some of the issues that representatives of four political parties debated in this two-and-a-half hour public forum held Sept. 14., 2011 in Winnipeg. Naturally, I brought my video camera.

Moderator: Terry MacLeod, CBC Information Radio

Panelists:
- James Beddome, Green Party of Manitoba
- Paul Hesse: Liberal Party of Manitoba
- Jennifer Howard: New Democratic Party of Manitoba
- Heather Stephanson: Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba

Sponsors:
- Manitoba Eco-Network
- Green Action Centre
- Provincial Council of Women of Manitoba
- Green Action Committee of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Winnipeg

By every conceivable measure, private automobile ownership is an irrational choice that drains our health, destroys our environment and locks us in a downward spiral of indebtedness. In a discussion hosted by the Manitoba Eco-Network on July 7, 2011 in Winnipeg, Yves Engler explains why.

On International Mother Earth Day, April 22, 2011, Barlow spoke to a packed hall in Winnipeg, Manitoba on the international campaign for the Rights of Nature and the need to retake the Commons from corporate predators. Her appearance was sponsored by the Council of Canadians (Winnipeg Chapter) and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (Manitoba Office).

This is an excerpt from her speech that I recorded at the Fort Garry Hotel.

April 20, 2011: Dennis Lewycky (NDP), Ilona Niemczyk (Liberal) and Jacqueline Romanow (Green) at a Federal Election Forum on the Environment at the First Universalist Unitarian Church in Winnipeg. Photo: Paul S. Graham

If the state of our environment is a defining issue for you in this Canadian federal election, you must be disappointed at the scant, superficial mainstream media coverage to date. Despair no more.

I attended an “all-candidates” forum on the environment in Winnipeg last night (April 20, 2011), and posted a two hour video on YouTube to redress this portion of our democratic deficit. (For other insightful creations, go to http://youtube.com/redriverpete – but I digress.)

The phrase “all candidates” sits between inverted commas because the Conservative Party, true to form, chose not to participate. The Bloc Quebecois was not invited, understandably, because it is not running in Winnipeg (or elsewhere outside of Quebec). Other parties were excluded because they are not running candidates in all ridings.

Nonetheless, representatives of the Greens, the NDP and the Liberals were there. All gave good accounts of their respective parties’ positions. The questions put by the organizers were challenging in substance and comprehensive in scope. Panelists and audience members addressed each other intelligently, thoughtfully and respectfully. In short, it was an informative, educational evening, refreshingly free of the rhetorical bombast that passes for political discourse in this era of spin doctors and attack ads.

The candidates were:

• Jacqueline Romanow (Green Party, Winnipeg Centre)
• Ilona Niemczyk (Liberal Party, Elmwood-Transcona)
• Dennis Lewycky (New Democratic Party, Winnipeg South Centre).

The forum was held at the Unitarian Universalist Church and moderated by CJOB Radio’s morning talk show host Richard Cloutier. It was sponsored by:

• Green Action Centre
• Manitoba Eco-Network
• Unitarian Church Green Action Committee
• Manitoba Provincial Council of Women

Grab some non-GM popcorn if you can find some, kick back and enjoy. And don’t forget to share this with friends and family, because it may be one of the few opportunities they will have to compare the environmental positions of three of the four main parties running across Canada. As for the Tories, the silent empty chair on the stage pretty much illustrates their environmental platform.

With the annual retreat of snow and ice blessedly underway, the crap and crud that mysteriously didn’t make it into my back lane dumpster is revealed in all of its putrescence. I call this a mystery because I don’t know how apparently sentient, reasonably healthy, bipedally-capable adults with opposable thumbs could miss the dumpster’s gaping maw and deposit their refuse behind it, under it, beside it — anywhere but in the damn dumpster. But they did. And because it apparently  bothers me more than my neighbours, I suppose I will have to clean it up.

After I stopped fuming at the unfairness of it all, I started thinking about garbage. We make a lot of it. Even little Winnipeg (pop. 684,000) manages to dispose of over 200,000 tonnes annually. While this is a minuscule share of the estimated 1.2 billion tonnes of municipal waste that is tossed away every year around the world, it’s still a lot. Judging from what doesn’t make it to the landfill, such as the recently mapped Atlantic Garbage Patch, it’s probably a lot more and definitely unsustainable.

Strangely, I’m grateful for my messy neighbours. Were it not for their disagreeable practices, I wouldn’t have taken the time to think about garbage at all. Bag it. Toss it (hopefully in the dumpster). Forget it. Out of sight, out of mind. Somebody takes it away, never to be seen again.

But most garbage doesn’t really go far. Nor does it go away. Not for decades. As it slowly decomposes, it leaches poisons into the groundwater and expels noxious gases into the atmosphere. Garbage is both a symptom and a cause of serious, potentially game ending challenges to human survival – which brings me to Canada’s federal election, replete as it is with the toxic flatulence that passes for political wisdom these days.

I gotta tell ya, looking at the sorry record of politicians of all stripes, I’m almost at the point of erecting a billboard in my yard that screams “DON’T VOTE. YOU’LL ONLY ENCOURAGE THEM!”

Yes, yes. I know. Stephen Harper is a contemptible, war-mongering, fossil-fueled son of a bitch and if he gets a majority he’ll shred the social safety net, torch the CBC and declare the Fourth Reich. (I don’t really think he’s a Nazi, but he has twice shut down Parliament to avoid the embarrassment of being held accountable by the Official Opposition. This betrays a certain contempt for democracy. It could become habit forming.)

Michael Ignatieff? Ummm. No. No thank you. I have nothing against Iggy personally (except for his support for the Iraq war and torture, until it became a political liability). But no. He leads the Liberal Party that has governed Canada for most of the last 143 years with unswerving loyalty to big business. In this respect their role is indistinguishable from that of the Conservatives. Stephen and Iggy: two little corporate castrati singing the Hallelujah Capitalist Chorus.

This brings us to Jack Layton and the NDP. (Though I like his style, I won’t bother with Gilles Duceppe until he does the anatomically impossible and runs candidates in the rest of Canada.)

I have voted NDP since I was old enough to vote – and that was a long time ago. In my youth I supported them because of their ties to labour, their socialist roots (sadly all but plucked out by now) and their willingness to take risks on behalf of working people (think Tommy Douglas and Medicare).

As I grew older and, if not wiser at least more experienced, I voted NDP because it represented the lesser of evils. The NDP might not be perfect, I reasoned, but at least it wasn’t as bad as the others. Or so it seemed.

After countless focus groups and rebrandings “Today’s NDP” (as we call it in Manitoba) has morphed into something approximating the Liberal Party – which is good news for the Liberal Party and bad news for the New Democrats.

Grits and Dippers want to put a human face on the economic system that creates all the garbage I was kvetching about at the top of the page. Tories aren’t so sentimental. So, while there are differences between the three parties, they owe a common allegiance to capitalism. And while all of them, to varying degrees, talk about environmental issues, none are willing to put The Environment front and centre in their vision for Canada.

Which brings me to Elizabeth May and the Green Party of Canada. Canada’s Green Party is unique in Canadian electoral politics because it has put the environment front and centre, where it belongs. They put forward a set of principles and proposals which, if adopted, would give me a measure of confidence about my grandchildren’s future.

Check out their program. I don’t agree with everything (who does?) but I like their approach. Intelligent. Straightforward. Thoughtfully developed and thought provoking. It won’t fit into a series of TV sound bites. You’ll be challenged and pleasantly inspired.

Can the Greens form the government? Not this time, but that shouldn’t disqualify them. Part of the reason we’re in this mess is because we vote for the “lesser of evils.” Motivated by fear, we support something we don’t want to block something we fear more. Or, because we don’t want to “waste our vote,” we give it to someone we think might win, even if they don’t really have that much to offer – a brain deadening strategy if ever there was one.

If you like the Green Program, vote Green. Your vote will not be wasted. To quote Tennyson, “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” The same applies to voting.