Respect the treaties. Draw the line.
Beaver Lake Cree Nation is taking on the tar sands – one of the world’s largest and most carbon-intensive energy developments. Tar sands extraction has poisoned water, eliminated whole forests, and decimated traditional food sources for the Beaver Lake Cree people.
Indigenous people are drawing a line in the sand.
Beaver Lake Cree Nation is the first ever to challenge and be granted a trial on the cumulative impacts of industrial development.
Not one project, not one mine: all of them at once.
Time to honour the Treaties and protect rights
Treaties are living agreements between First Nations and the Crown. All Canadians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, are therefore treaty people. Treaty rights of the Aboriginal peoples of Canada are affirmed and recognized as central to Canada’s very existence as a nation by The Constitution Act, 1982.
Yet despite these lofty commitments, Canada continues to turn treaty lands like Beaver Lake Cree’s territory into sacrifice zones. Beaver Lake Cree lands, waters and resources have become inaccessible and unusable for the exercise of the Nation’s rights under Treaty 6.
The Supreme Court of Canada has said that although the Crown has a right to authorize land use, there may come a time when treaty rights are rendered meaningless because of too much Crown-authorized land use. Beaver Lake Cree Nation is determined to halt the destruction before it reaches that point. This is what the Tar Sands Trial is all about.
Time to transition off fossil fuels
Canada is home to one of the world’s largest and dirtiest oil reserves – the Alberta tar sands. Scientists have warned that continuing to rely on tar sands oil would mean “game over” for the climate, triggering the melt-off of Antarctic ice and other tipping points. Climate change would then become unstoppable.
Indigenous communities are increasingly taking the lead in the transition to renewable energy. Even as they fight the tar sands giant, the Beaver Lake Cree are solarizing their schools and community buildings – exercising energy sovereignty and building an alternative to the oil and gas economy on their land.
“The beauty of this moment is that our future could easily hold much more than just oil and gas. The time for a just transition beyond fossil fuels is now. The transition in Germany, where they have created 400,000 clean-energy jobs, is waiting to be emulated here,” Beaver Lake Cree’s Crystal Lameman wrote in an editorial for the Globe and Mail.
"Beaver Lake Cree Nation is so very grateful for the unwavering support of our allies; you all have consistently shown up and stepped up when we called out. We lift you up and give thanks to you all. No one said that this would be easy, but we know it will be worth it. Together we stand up together for the health and longevity of our Mother Earth".
-CRYSTAL LAMEMAN, BEAVER LAKE CREE NATION
CAMPAIGN NEWS
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The Beaver Lake Cree belong to the Wood Cree group of the Cree people, who are one of the most numerous tribes in Canada. The Beaver Lake Cree territory is north of Edmonton, and encompasses an area of boreal forest the size of Switzerland. Dotted with hundreds of freshwater lakes and rivers, this land is home to caribou, moose and elk.
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