• Beth McLaughlin Environmental Journalism Award Winner Announced

    The Southeast Chapter of the Conservation Council of New Brunswick (CCNB SE) is pleased to announce that Simon Delattre of l'Acadie Nouvelle is this year's winner of the 3rd annual Beth McLaughlin Environmental Journalism award.

    “Simon Delattre broke an important New Brunswick story that made everyone, including political decision-makers, aware of our growing use of glyphosate and the dangers it poses to human health and the environment,” said the judges of this year’s award.Delattre’s two-part series, published in August 2017, revealed that the forest company J.D. Irving was spraying the glyphosate-based product Weed Master in the protected area of the Turtle Creek watershed, which supplies drinking water to more than 144,000 residents in Greater Moncton, Riverview and Dieppe.Upon receiving his award at the Southeast Chapter’s meeting on Nov. 14, Delattre, who is from France, said he is asking more questions about how closely the New Brunswick government is aligned with the forestry industry. He said he is interested in covering more environmental stories.

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    Simon Delattre (R) of l’Acadie Nouvelle accepts this year’s Beth McLaughlin Environmental Journalism Award at the Dieppe Public Library  on Nov. 14 from Dave MacDonald, president of the Southeast Chapter of the Conservation Council of New Brunswick. (Photo by Serge Robichaud)

    The judges also selected the Red Dot group to receive an honourable mention for their work over the past four years in publicizing the poor water quality at Parlee Beach, as well as threats to coastal wetlands in the Shediac area.

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    Arthur Melanson, speaking for the Red Dot Group at the Beth McLaughlin Environmental Journalism Award Presentation on October 14 at Dolma Food in Moncton. (Photo by Nancy Arsenault)
    During their campaign, the Red Dots were constantly in the media, writing scores of letters to the editor, granting interviews to reporters, filing multiple Right to Information requests, and communicating directly with the provincial politicians responsible for protecting the environment and New Brunswickers' health.By April 2017, the group had more than 2,000 members, among them such familiar names as Arthur Melanson, Tim Borlase, Brenda Ryan, Michael Sullivan and Dr. Scott Mawdsley, who wrote a 100-page letter to then-Premier Brian Gallant pointing out that the government knew about fecal contamination at Parlee Beach for well over a decade, but did nothing to fix it.

    The call for nominations for next year’s Beth McLaughlin Environmental Journalism Award will be out in the coming months. The Award for environmental reporting in New Brunswick comes with a $500 prize. The judges of this year’s award were Roland Chiasson, Erin Steuter, and Bruce Wark.
    The CCNB SE Chapter thanks the judges, nominators, and the many other volunteers who make this award possible.

     
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    Media contact:  Anita Cannon (506) 364-2572  ccnbsoutheast@gmail.com

  • Press Release, Council of Canadians, Hugh Akagi, October 3rd 2013

    The following are the words of Passamaquoddy Elder Hugh Akagi. He presented at the 'Energy For Everyone' initiative, run recently in Saint John.

    Address by Chief of the Passamaquoddy Nation, Hugh Akagi at 'Energy For Everyone'

    Saint John October 3, 2013



    Once again I wish to thank the wolastoqiyik for the honour to walk in your territory.

    When first asked to speak at this event I recommended someone I knew who would deliver a better message in a more powerful way than I possibly could, yet I was gently reminded through the following message that I have an obligation to be here: “I thought - and you can correct me - that the pipeline marine terminal and marine traffic, poses a risk to the waters of the Passamaquoddy. This may be an issue that you are interested in.”

    Needless to say, I was humbled and she was right. 

    “I see signs all through Passamaquoddy territory, including the waters, that we can no longer entrust the safety and well being of this planet to those compromised by their addiction to money”

    I am interested and more than concerned that our energy bubble is about to burst. I see signs all through Passamaquoddy territory including the waters that we can no longer entrust the safety and well being of this planet to those compromised by their addiction to money. Money is not real, it is a paper substitute for land, for water, for creatures that share this planet with us and even for the lives of those often described as collateral damage for the comfort of others.

    “Don’t forget our earliest dependence on oil put the largest creatures to ever inhabit this planet on a list of endangered species just to keep the lamps burning in Europe”

    Do you require proof of each of these? In sequence: comprehensive claims for Indians (money for land, well yes we are supposed to be grateful that they no longer bribe us with alcohol, but come on, paper? Let’s use the currency of the day- - land!), water is threatened every day by our addiction to energy. . .Irving Whale, Valdez, Gulf of Mexico, Ocean Ranger, Grand Banks Newfoundland . . . Don’t forget our earliest dependence on oil put the largest creatures to ever inhabit this planet on a list of endangered species just to keep the lamps burning in Europe.

    When asked to attend a meeting on the destruction of science, I gave simple advice, help us help you. Natives have rights you need to access if we are to counter the behaviour of governments willing to sacrifice anything so that corporations will fill their pockets come election time when campaign contributions determine who will be the elite in the world they create for us.

    Read the Paper. Why did Chief Sock feel the need to evict a corporation? Why did he assure that “Private property owners have nothing to worry about . . . But companies exploiting Crown lands for fish, wood, minerals or gas are being told to get out now”?

    “…Governments willing to sacrifice anything so that corporations will fill their pockets come election time when campaign contributions determine who will be the elite in the world they create for us”

    Could it be because one represents a non-human entity empowered with human rights and the other is a human entity deprived of human rights, and he knows the difference! Perhaps because governments have reneged on their promise to protect human rights, not sell out to the highest bidder at the first opportunity.

    As Canadians aren’t we tired of being the brunt of jokes such as: If you hit an American he will hit you back, but if you hit a Canadian, he’ll apologize?

    Why do we accept Government behaviour as normal when it is often immoral in character?

    “…Wake up New Brunswick, it’s time to stop the tail from wagging the Dog. It is time to take control of our lives and we can start by standing in solidarity with those who are willing to do the right thing”

    Wake up Canada, Wake up New Brunswick, it’s time to stop the tail from wagging the Dog. It is time to take control of our lives and we can start by standing in solidarity with those who are willing to do the right thing. We can stop believing the constant diet of lies we are being fed by those attempting to convince us to give them what they do not have and that is our consent. A portion of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples protects the will of the People using “free, prior, and informed consent”. No wonder Canada likes to refer to this as an “aspirational” document.

    Let’s see are there any other documents that might be considered aspirational, I believe the series of omnibus bills would indicate that the Oceans Act is simply an aspiratinal document, as is the fisheries act, and if you follow the trail of behaviour I might suggest the province is willing to take a page from the Feds by treating the Human Rights Act and Rights to clean Water as aspiratinal as well.

    “No written law may be forced by the government unless it conforms with certain unwritten, universal principals of fairness, morality, and justice that transcends human legal systems. Perhaps our Mother and her creatures have more rights than we realize” 

    Oh by-the-way, I cannot find the word aspirational in Wikipedia, Websters or Oxford, so it would appear our Federal leadership has created a word which is not real to describe a document as not being real!

    Something I did find in the dictionary was the “legal” definition of “LAW”: No written law may be forced by the government unless it conforms with certain unwritten, universal principals of fairness, morality, and justice that transcends human legal systems. Perhaps our Mother and her creatures have more rights than we realize.

    So, if we cannot believe the Feds, and we cannot trust the Province, who can we trust, the Indians?

    “We honoured the treaties of peace and friendship which means we were the only party to respect the covenant between our Nations. You need to understand us, you need to understand that our connection to the land is real”

    This won’t be easy folks because I believe most of you are still afraid of us. We are not the enemy. We are not friends because we are the enemy of your enemy. We honoured the treaties of peace and friendship which means we were the only party to respect the covenant between our Nations. You need to understand us, you need to understand that our connection to the land is real. Our need to protect comes not from acts or legislations but from the Earth herself. Now I have come full circle, this is a Native thing. The reminder was not that this is about an issue but about existence. It is about respecting the Earth as our Mother and protecting her while she nourishes us and our children.

    “The reminder was not that this is about an issue but about existence. It is about respecting the Earth as our Mother and protecting her while she nourishes us and our children” 

    If we keep behaving like spoiled children demanding more than she can give, then we will destroy her. If we do not protect her lifeblood, what you refer to as the waters then she will suffer as well. No amount of pipelines and black oil could replace her incredible circulatory system scientists call the world’s air conditioner. If you keep clear-cutting her hair, which you refer to as forests, she will burn from exposure to the sun. If you poison her blood, your oceans, all the life giving contents will die as well.

    “No amount of pipelines and black oil could replace her incredible circulatory system scientists call the world’s air conditioner. If you keep clear-cutting her hair, which you refer to as forests, she will burn from exposure to the sun”

    Sometimes we feel overwhelmed by the task ahead but we always have a choice, and that is to do what is right or do what is easy and like I said, this won’t be easy. But we have friends in-the-room. We need to believe that there are good lawyers who will not charge an arm and a leg to help, we need to believe there are police authorities that understand the need to protect the People above corporate profits, we need to believe there are politicians willing to give instead of take from their communities, and we need to believe that we can all work together for the common good.

    Often this world seems upside down when I hear that Julian Assange is being punished (seeking asylum) for telling the truth and Bradley Manning was condemned for having a conscience while the murderers remain unpunished and free. What country hunts Eric Snowden for exposing the “spy story” of the century while protecting the criminals who were entrusted with a Nation’s security? And how can a Nation with Nuclear weapons attack another country because they are “suspected” of having weapons of mass destruction? The United States Government is shut down because parties cannot agree on a health plan to serve their citizens. People who have lied about their credentials are used to justify Fraking, when confronted they too are protected by those in authority who should be embarrassed but never are.

    Yet giving up is not an option and we now know that energy is not all it’s fraked up to be.
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