Dogwood News This Week: doing the dirty work

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Published on Sunday, 29 November -0001 16:00

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Email Template r1 Your place for news and action For more than 160 years, the Crown has fought a war against the sovereign, independent nations that govern the lands where we live.

When RCMP snipers jump out of helicopters on Wet’suwet’en territory, they wear the crown of the British monarch as part of the badge velcroed to their green fatigues.

When unarmed land defenders are seized at gunpoint and marched into court in leg irons, the judge hands down their sentence under... the royal coat of arms.

The injunctions, the police and the courts are all part of a foreign system imposed on Indigenous lands and people through force. And the punishment is getting worse.

Under the BC NDP, Crown prosecutors successfully jailed Indigenous elders for leading ceremonies outside the Trans Mountain tank farm. They have now laid criminal contempt charges against 19 opponents of the Coastal GasLink pipeline.

The maximum sentence is five years in prison. It’s a transparent attempt to clear a path for not just one, but three pipelines through Wet’suwet’en territory.

Rather than deal with the underlying question of who owns the land, our government is doing the dirty work of the international oil and gas industry – all of it paid for by us.

As the BC NDP march toward a coronation of their own, it’s worth asking the frontrunner in the leadership race, David Eby, what will change if he becomes premier. After all, he’s the Crown’s top lawyer.

• Only one year after a wildfire tore through Lytton, leveling the entire town, another blaze threatens the area again. The Lytton First Nation says several homes on reserve land have been lost to the fire. -Castanet
  
  
• Elizabeth May to Prime Minister Trudeau: “TMX was always a financial loser… Shut down the expansion and convert its Crown corporation into a climate adaptation and emergency response agency. In one fell swoop, convert a white elephant into a workhorse.” -National Observer
  
  
• What are the chances?! One in five directors at Canada's Big 5 banks also sits on the board of a fossil fuel company. -National Observer
  
  
• Don’t call us, we’ll call you… Experts say the European Union’s need for natural gas will peak in about three years and begin declining before any new LNG terminals can be brought online. Turns out, EU countries are deliberately trying to avoid the kind of long-term supply contracts Canadian gas producers are looking for. -The Energy Mix

• Why more extreme weather combined with rising bills is becoming a matter of life and death for some Canadians. -The Conversation

• Governments across Canada have been dropping gas taxes to ease costs at the pump. But this temporary fix will actually benefit fuel companies in a time they’re already making record profits – and reduce funding available for public services already feeling the squeeze, like health care and education. -The Toronto Star
  
  
• Treaty 8 lands ..."are now a giant industrial sacrifice zone, with the cumulative impacts of industrialization piling up so quickly that it is harder and harder, and in some cases impossible, for nation members to hunt, fish and trap". -The Tyee
  
  
• A major U.S. study found 4 in 5 Americans have detectable levels of glyphosate in their urine (carcinogenic main ingredient in Roundup herbicides). It's the same chemical B.C. timber companies spray on cutblocks all over the province to kill berry plants and other deciduous plants that feed moose and deer. -The Guardian

• Meanwhile in Italy, the government is paying homeowners on top of appliance and supply costs to do “green” property upgrades, like installing heat pumps and solar panels, that will keep people cool and tackle the climate crisis at the same time. -iTV
  
  
• Being watched: the RCMP have admitted to “covertly infiltrating the mobile devices of Canadian citizens. The tools, which have been used on at least 10 investigations between 2018 and 2020, give the police access to text messages, email, photos, videos, audio files, calendar entries and financial records. The software can also remotely turn on the camera and microphone of a suspect’s phone or laptop.” -The Guardian

Dogwood Recommends: Listen - CBC's climate change panel

Dogwood board member Seth Klein and Dr. Melissa Lem of CAPE were guests on Vancouver’s CBC Radio climate panel this week discussing the ongoing wildfires in the north and the false promise of exporting Canadian LNG as a way to help Europe's energy crisis.

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Get Involved Take action

Dogwood supporters are getting published in their local papers using our digital Letter to the Editor page. Check out these comments from Eileen on Salt Spring and Jordon in Nanaimo. And now… write your own!

Events

Defund Trans Mountain Week of Action event in Burnaby: Friday, July 29 at 11 a.m. outside RBC & TD at 5010 Kingsway in Burnaby.

Not in Burnaby? Host your own action to support youth organizers calling on Canada’s banks to stop funding TMX! This toolkit has everything you need to join or create your own event anywhere across Canada.

Land Back webinar: Nuchatlaht Court Case Updates - July 27 at 5:30 p.m. The Nuchatlaht Nation are fighting in the Supreme Court to get their land back through a groundbreaking title case. Sign up for the webinar hosted by Wilderness Committee to hear updates from the proceedings and learn how you can continue to support their fight throughout the summer.

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