Standing within the throng of demonstrators at last month’s Defend Our Coast rally it became clear to me that a palpable shift in the collective expectations of Canadians had taken place.


















In lockstep with the campaign to prevent the construction of tar sands pipelines and export tankers is the anti-FIPA movement, which generally holds that Canada needs to tighten the reins on bitumen production, not rescind its authority to foreign national energy companies that may not have this country’s best interest at heart.
Because Canadian confidence in the government is at a shocking low, and public trust in Big Oil is flagging even moreso, the Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA) has all but imploded under fierce national opposition.
This week, campaigners with SumofUs.org and Leadnow.ca traveled to Ottawa to deliver 60,000 signatures opposing the trade deal that would put Canada in a legal straitjacket for 31 years in all matters regarding Chinese investors and their interests in the tar sands and export thoroughfares like the Northern Gateway Pipeline.
Since the petition’s delivery, nearly an additional 11,000 signatures have been collected, bringing the total to 70,923 as of today.
As a country already suffering a massive crisis of confidence in our current government, the wholesale surrender of decision-making authority under FIPA appears as the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.
The Defend Our Coast organizers are preparing to carry the opposition forward, with personal action kits in the works. So stay tuned and join in for more creative ways to voice your concerns about Canadian energy, environment and democracy.
And if you haven’t already jumped in to support these anti-FIPA causes, there’s no time like the present:
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