TAR SANDS: SUMMARY
NOTE: This summary does
not include all input!
See flipcharts
for more details.
WHAT WE NEED TO DO: Nationalize
resources, and forego development to decrease environmental degradation
and health problems. We need to change the Canadian Constitution to
protect resources; we need to reform the Corporations Act re corporations
having the same rights as individuals* (see note below). Push for oil
taxation and regulation.
WHAT WE CAN DO: First see the
problem, then do something: write an info article, send an e-mail, contact
your MP. Express your own convictions and concerns to apathetic minds til
they get it. Contribute wherever you are: network - get neighbours excited
by speaking. Do your own research, and distinguish myth from fact. Put
public pressure on politicians.
We need political will. We have
to do something about corporate control of spineless politicians. However,
there can be problems or unintended consequences in the details when
applying solutions. For example, the carbon tax will have the effect of
not only increasing the price of gas for cars, but also the price of
heating oil for homes. And nationalization does not always work in favour
of the people. It depends on the nature of the government in power. For
example, in PEMA in Mexico there were financial losses due to nepotism. In
Saudi Arabia, Iran and Lybia, there was outright looting by the gov’t.
We are experiencing the ostrich syndrome re planetary
changes (in this case, sticking our heads in the (tar) sand.). Situations
will likely worsen before improving. People care about money almost
exclusively and are focused on themselves. We are suffering shocks. We're
going to hit the wall.
The U.S. has ruined nearly all its water
& Canada is doing the same.
90% of the oil in the world is
nationalized, but wherever resources are privatized, environmental costs
are externalized, taxpayers pay for cleanup, while cororations internalize
profits. Citizens won't get profit, regardless of whether resources are
extracted by Canadians or companies outside of Canada.
Chavez
survived threats after nationalizing oil in Venezuela.
Prior
to the war, Iraq had free secular health care, more equity for
women & education from oil profits. The war in Iraq was about keeping
Iraq's oil unsold and raising prices - to that extent, the invasion has
worked!
Web reference:
Tar
Sands Watch
Book Reference:
Black
Gold Stranglehold, by Jerome Corsi and Craig R. Smith
*
In 1886, The Supreme Court ruled in Santa Clara County v. Southern
Pacific Railroad that a private corporation was a natural person
under the U.S. Constitution, sheltered by the Bill of Rights and the 14th
Amendment.
Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas was to write, 60
years later:
"There was no history, logic, or reason given to
support that view."
The Supreme Court thus effectively sabotaged
blossoming social protest movements against incorporated wealth.
The
U.S. Constitution makes no mention of corporations.