Letter of Support from HOPE-GEO to the Beaver Lake Cree
As the founder of Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE) and the lead campaigner of
HOPE�s Global Emergency Operation (GEO), I am writing on behalf of HOPE-GEO
in support of the Beaver Lake Cree�s legal challenge against the governments
of Canadian and Alberta for their immoral, unethical and indeed, we contend,
illegal, maneuvers to force their fossil-fuels-extraction projects, in
particular those pertaining to the tar sands, on the fragile environment of
northern Alberta, the First Nations peoples who by right inhabit these
region, those Albertans who value the Alberta environment, those Canadian
who value the Canadian environment, and those world citizens who value the
global environment.
Having worked as an environmental technologist whose job was to monitor
the discharges of effluent into the environment by major industries,
particularly mines and pulp mills, the former mainly regarding heavy metals
and cyanides, and latter regarding organo-chlorines, PCBs, PAHs, dioxins and
furans, where even one part per million in excess of the maximum allowable
concentrations set by the British Columbian government would be sufficient
grounds to close down the operation in question until the problems have been
resolved, I can say without hesitation or doubt that most Albertan
fossil-fuel projects, and all tar sands projects, even if their discharges
were diluted a thousand fold, could not have passed any scientifically valid
environmental assessment by any margin.
Until the tar sands raised their ugly heads, there was not a single mine
in Canada, nor in the United States for that matter, that could be opened
without a rigorous environmental assessment which would often take years to
conduct and conclude, nor could they proceed without extensive open
community consultations. The tar sands have changed all this. Fully knowing
that there is not one hope in a million that these operations could pass any
environmental assessment, the Canadian and Albertan governments, in abject
obedience to their Big Oil puppet-masters and overlords, have massively
violated their own environment-protection laws, health-security measures and
their treaty obligations. The ones to massively profit are the oil companies
and their unconscionable shareholders.
The ones to lose the most are the First Nations peoples of Alberta, very
concept of aboriginal rights, and of course the global environment that we
all share. Therefore, we in HOPE-GEO, which is in the process of forming the
global Coalition to Abolish the Tar Sands (CATS), offer our full support to
the endeavor of the Beaver Lake Cree to take the Canadian and Alberta
governments to task, and to any similar legal action undertaken by any other
First Nation, now and in the future.
Yours sincerely,
Anthony Marr, founder and president
Heal Our Planet Earth � Global Emergency Operation (HOPE-GEO)
www.HOPE-CARE.org
604-222-1169
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