THeBlueCashew

Quote from: "seoulbro"I know Neil Young often plays smaller centres. I wonder if he would have the gonads to play Fort MacMurray?

QuoteNeil Young, the aging rocker who can't live without a cause, launched his latest tour - Honor the Treaties - on the weekend.



Money raised from the four concerts is to help fund the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation's opposition to Shell's Jackpine oilsands mine expansion. The intent is to raise awareness for First Nations and treaty rights.



Young has taken the position that the federal government has broken treaties with First Nations and is plundering the natural resources to which they have treaty rights.



Of course, Young was not about to kick off his protest tour without a healthy dose of hyperbole, which again included a reference to the oilsands being worse than Hiroshima.



Young's weekend statements should insult anyone with relatives who lived through the horrors of Hiroshima. The devastation, destruction and loss of life will never compare to what is taking place in the oilsands.



But it raises a couple of interesting questions.



The first is that anything and everything said by oil and gas and pipeline companies, the respective industry associations as well as the provincial and federal governments is closely scrutinized. The same standard, however, is not applied to people like Young, who feel entitled to say whatever they like - most of it not grounded in anything remotely resembling fact - and not be called to account for it.



For example, during an interview with CBC Radio, Young claimed production in the oilsands emitted the same amount of carbon dioxide on a daily basis as all the cars in Canada. Well, Neil, here are the real numbers.



According to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the oilsands emit 55 megatonnes, while emissions from light cars and trucks is 92.5 megatonnes.



Add in planes, trains, buses and other forms of transportation and the number would be even higher.



Does a level of celebrity or wealth - as in the case of former hedge player and Keystone XL critic Tom Steyer - confer on some people the opportunity to say whatever they like and not have to explain their errors or hyperbole? The second, from the perspective of Young, are his statements about the energy sector and the claim Ottawa has sold out for the purposes of creating wealth.



What Young has conveniently forgotten, or ignored, is the vinyl records - the sales of which contributed to his wealth - are made from oil byproducts.



The people who bought Young's records, attended his concerts and protested with him in the 1960s and 1970s - the baby boomers - are the very individuals he is railing against for having developed the oilsands. Does he not understand that? And just how does Young get around these days - other than driving? Presumably he likes to fly 'private.' Of course the math on that travel option reveals a rather substantive carbon footprint compared to what the numbers would look like were he to fly commercial.



Young's comments Monday, that he is a 'rock star' and doesn't need oil - are laughable. He may have driven his car to Fort Mc-Murray - but what was the road paved with? And what are his tires made of? And here's a good one: apparently, when Young was in Fort McMurray last year filming his documentary on carbon dioxide emissions, he hired not one but two helicopters.





Exactly how did those helicopters fly, Neil? On vegetable oil? Solar power? This weekend, Young brings his protest show to Calgary.



Will he demand everyone holding a ticket walk, take public transit or cycle to the venue? Even better, how does he think the lights will stay on? Surely Young knows that more than half of Alberta's electricity is from coal-fired plants, which means the carbon emissions associated with that process are higher than producing every barrel of oil - light or heavy.



It might surprise Young to discover the oilsands emit as much greenhouse gases as do coal-fired power in each of Alabama, West Virginia and Georgia - states in his adopted country of residence.



Aside from Young being unencumbered by the facts, there is another issue here - and it relates to the First Nations.



One could argue his involvement and the associated language cheapens the argument for the First Nations in their quest for treaty rights. This is a multifactorial issue. An aging rocker's concert tour using First Nations representatives as props will do nothing to move the needle.



And as to helping the ACFN achieve their goal of stopping the expansion of the Jackpine mine? As Jim Prentice has said on more than one occasion, the failure to negotiate treaty rights stands as one of the biggest public policy failures in Canadian history.



What Young cannot, or chooses not to, acknowledge is the role the energy sector - including the oilsands - has played in the well-being of many First Nations communities, not just in Alberta, but British Columbia and Saskatchewan.



One need look no further than the Fort McKay group of companies, which generate annual revenues of more than $100 million. The prospect of a job gives young people a sense of hope, which is not the case on many First Nations communities across this country.



The energy sector is the biggest employer of First Nations in this country and that number is set to rise, given the ongoing activity in Alberta and the prospect of a liquefied natural gas industry in British Columbia.



Whether he wants to recognize it, or not, the ability to make a decent living enables First Nations to pursue their traditional ways of life. It might be a Faustian bargain, but life would be very grim in First Nations communities without the jobs that exist because of energy sector activity.



The only thing to give Young in all of this, is simply that he has always been the protesting rocker - whether it's songs like Southern Man, Ohio or Rockin' in the Free World, Young has looked to deliver a message through his art. For the most part, he has succeeded.



Now, Young says he is speaking for all Canadians. But Neil Young left this country for the United States decades ago. To play a role in a national debate one has to have a measure of credibility that comes with being a consistent part of the national fabric. Young relinquished that when he left Canada.



He can keep on rockin', but Young needs to heed some advice from one of his own songs: to take a closer look at himself and realize he isn't the man he thinks he is.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Yedlin+Neil+Young+tune+insulting/9388321/story.html

QuoteA left-wing lobby group in San Francisco wired $55,000 to the bank account of an Indian chief in Northern Alberta, paying him to oppose the oilsands.



And sure enough, that chief – Allan Adam, from the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation – earned his money. Last weekend, he flew to Toronto to sit on a stage next to Neil Young, the folk singer who was in town to demonize Canada's oil industry.



Now, $55,000 might sound like a lot of money to pay, just to rent a politician for a day if all the chief did for his money was to appear on stage in Toronto beside Neil Young. But to the Tides Foundation, it's well worth it. Think of Adam as an actor, hired to play a part in an elaborate theatrical production.



Neil Young had his role: he's the American celebrity who can draw crowds of fawning Baby Boomer journalists. But at the end of the day, he's just another millionaire celebrity. When he talks about the oilsands, he quickly reveals himself as a low-information know-nothing.



Adam brings what Young can't: authenticity. Young likes to wear an Indian-style leather vest, but Adam really is an Indian, and he really lives near the oilsands.



Adam didn't do a lot of talking in Toronto. He was more of a prop than an actor. See, the Tides Foundation is from San Francisco. And Neil Young lives on a 1,500-acre estate near San Francisco. Without Adam, this would have just been some California millionaires coming up here to boss Canadians around. That's why they had to hire Adam, to aboriginalize their attack on Canada. It was political sleight of hand, to distract from the fact that this was a foreign assault on Canadian jobs.



Tides could have hired an actual actor, like maybe Lorne Cardinal, who played the Aboriginal policeman in the comedy series Corner Gas. But they didn't hire an actor. They hired an elected public official. That's the problem.



Adam's official title is "chief." But it's not a religious or cultural title. Under the Indian Act, that's just the legal title given to the elected mayor of an Indian Band.



The Tides Foundation put $55,000 into the bank account of a mayor to get him to take a particular political position. Depending on what Tides was getting the Chief to do, the payment might well have been a bribe. But we won't know, because no one is talking about the $55,000 payment.



How is it acceptable that a foreign lobby group can simply deposit cash into a bank account of a Canadian politician? Who else is being paid cash to oppose the oilsands?



This fact almost escaped detection. It was buried in the Tides Foundation's 138-page filing with the IRS, who only disclosed it to get a tax break. Even then, it was shrouded in secrecy.



The money was paid to a numbered company, 850450 Alberta Ltd. Only a search of Alberta's corporate registry revealed that 850450 Alberta Ltd. was owned by another company, called Acden Group Ltd., that had changed its name twice in the past four years. Adam and other band politicians were directors and shareholders, in trust for the band.



The payment was well-hidden – and Adam certainly didn't disclose it when he was on stage with Young.



The same IRS disclosure shows Tides made 25 different payments to Canadian anti-oilsands activists in a single year, totaling well over a million dollars. And that's just one U.S. lobby group. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund out of New York, spends $7 million a year in Canada, with an explicit campaign strategy of fomenting Aboriginal unrest, through protests and lawsuits.



If a foreign oil company – say, ExxonMobil – was depositing secret payments in the bank accounts of MPs, it would be a scandal. Those MPs would face an RCMP investigation, Exxon would likely be charged with bribery, and the media on both sides of the border would have a field day.



Yet none of those things will likely happen with Adam.



Because the Tides Foundation knows that the Canadian media and even the police are cowards when it comes to Aboriginal politicians. They don't dare hold them to account, for fear of being called racist. If you doubt this, look at the continued success of Theresa Spence, Attawapiskat's chief.



Tides got its money's worth.

http://www.edmontonsun.com/2014/01/17/first-nations-chief-received-55000-from-tides-foundation

QuoteCanada ranks 11th among OECD nations for the quality of our environment. While our country faces criticism over the oilsands, the country's measured PM10, a tiny particulate that can lead to health issues, is 15.6 micrograms per cubic metre. This is lower than the OECD average (20.9 micrograms per cubic metre) and the World Health

Quote Organization's annual guideline limit of 20 micrograms per cubic metre.



In 2011, Canada reduced its mercury and lead emissions by 23 per cent and 21 per cent, respectively, compared to the year before, according to Environment Canada. Sulphur oxides and nitrogen oxides were reduced by seven per cent and six per cent, respectively. By 2020, Ottawa pledges to lower greenhouse gas emissions by 17 per cent from 2005 levels.



Access to clean water also indicates the health of the environment and 89 per cent of Canadians said they were satisfied with the water quality they receive.

http://money.ca.msn.com/investing/why-its-great-to-be-canadian#image=7

QuoteNeil Young ended his Blame Canada tour in a bizarre way.



At his last anti-oilsands concert in Calgary, he left his five diesel tour buses idling outside throughout the entire concert.



They kept burning fuel. "Bio-diesel," we're assured, trucked in from the U.S.A., so I guess that's OK.



Inside the concert, Young did something even weirder. All week, he had been comparing the oilsands to Hiroshima, claiming it caused cancer, that there was no reclamation of the land afterwards, that it caused pollution in faraway China, etc.. But then on Sunday, he said he was fine with all of it — he could actually support the expansion of the oilsands — if "the First Nations treaties (are) honoured."



Huh? So all that Hiroshima talk was just a bargaining chip to get some legal tinkering?



It's uncertain what Young means by "honouring the treaties," which happened to be the name of his concert tour. Actually, "Honor the Treaties" was the title of his tour. It was designed in California, and they don't spell honour with a u down there.



They don't do a lot of treaty honouring or honoring in California. It's a state that didn't sign any treaties with its Indians. They pretty much just wiped them out, including the Tongva tribe that used to live near Young's massive 1,500-acre estate. Juana Maria was the last of the Tongva, and she died in 1853. Which is why Neil Young has to come up to Canada to lecture people about Indians.



Unlike California, Alberta signed a treaty with all of its Indians.



Young's inability — over an entire week — to come up with a single example of how we're not honouring them is easy to explain: "As far as me not knowing what I'm talking about, everybody knows that, that couldn't be more obvious, I'm a musician."



That aw-shucks routine gets Young out of situations where he embarrasses himself. But it's just an act. You don't amass a fortune of $65 million without being a sophisticated operator. And a sophisticated operator doesn't start a multi-city concert tour without a deep-pocketed investor.



And that investor just happens to be an anti-oilsands lobby group in California called the Tides Foundation.



They're the same ones who wired $55,000 directly into the bank account of a numbered corporation of the northern Alberta Indian chief who joined Young on tour.



While we don't know the details of the payments, or how much if anything Neil Young was paid to perform on the tour, it sure looks to me like Tides sponsored the whole tour.



Honor the Treaties has one "fiscal sponsor," called the Lakota People's Law Project. And their major donor is the Romero Institute — an anti-industry group. And their big donor is the Tides Foundation — almost half a million dollars in just the past few years.



All of them are located just a few miles from each other — and Young's estate — in California.



It's not often that a lobby group sponsors a concert tour. Normally it's a financial investor, looking to make a profit. Or a marketing sponsor like a beer or soft drink company. But Tides wasn't looking to sell itself; it likes to stay in the shadows and use wire transfers and numbered companies.



Each year, Tides pays out more than a million dollars to anti-oilsands groups in Canada.

But how many people who went to Young's concerts knew they were being marketed to by San Francisco lobbyists?



And how many reporters, covering that "independent artist" Neil Young, knew his tour was part of a Tides campaign?

http://www.edmontonsun.com/2014/01/20/young-changes-his-tune-at-last-canuck-concert