A workshop on the tar sands is now underway at the Peoples World Conference on Climate Change in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

The presenters include Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow, Tom Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network, Susana Deranger of Fort Chipewyan, and Kimia Gomeshi of the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition.

The workshop is being facilitated by Council of Canadians climate justice campaigner Andrea Harden-Donahue.

Kimia gave in Spanish an overview of the problem of the tar sands, Susana presented a PowerPoint highlighting the impact on her community by bitumen mining, and now Maude is speaking about the destruction of water by ‘dirty oil’ and the role of trade agreements.

In her presentation Maude said, “We will not have climate justice until we have trade justice, we will not have climate justice until we have water justice, and we will not have climate justice until affected Indigenous communities have justice.”

More to come.

For information on the Indigenous Environmental Network campaign against the tar sands at http://www.ienearth.org.

Brent Patterson, Director of Campaigns and Communications, Council of Canadians

www.canadians.org

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Brent Patterson

Brent Patterson is a political activist, writer and the executive director of Peace Brigades International-Canada. He lives in Ottawa on the traditional, unceded and unsurrendered territories of the Algonquin...