The Canadian National Newspaper: Ecocide and Treason in the Tar Sands: Stand on Guard, O Canada

All the grinding noise and the stink of exhaust fumes, all the heavy metals and chemical toxins leaching into clean, crystal water … and poisoning all the millions of fish, birds, animals – and people – who live in it and have to drink it.

We all know that thousands of square miles of virgin forest and its inhabitants -- who have lived here in Canada’s True North for millennia -- are literally being torn up and killed in seconds by the huge digging machines … everyday, 24/7. We know that all the topsoil is destroyed, so any future regeneration is impossible.

We know that our governments have poured our own tax money by the 10’s of billions into the obliteration of one of the world’s last great wildernesses, -- Canada’s Amazon of the North.

(At least in Brazil, the government policy is to protect its forest, even if its success has been somewhat limited. In Canada, it is not only the policy to destroy the forest, but to pay for the destruction out of the public purse.)

We know that the CO2 emissions from the Tar Sands make Canadians amongst the most polluting people in the world. And we know that by dumping greenhouse gases into the arctic atmosphere we are unbalancing one of the most crucial and fragile climate systems on earth, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the whole planet.

We know it is no accident that the High Arctic is heating at an accelerating rate, and that the permafrost is melting. We know that as the dead forests rot, we are turning a carbon sink, into another huge new source of green house gases.

But if we don’t think about it, we will not do anything about it. Then, it will be too late. Remember that extinct is forever. And that goes for humans, as well as polar bears.

In addition to being short-sighted, cruel, suicidal, insane, greedy … and all the rest, what is being done in the Tar Sands could be illegal under Section 46 of the Criminal Code of Canada, High Treason.

According to the law, the first count of High Treason refers to doing “bodily harm tending to death and destruction” to Canada, characterised as “Her Majesty”. In order to be meaningful, Section 46 must mean something more than breaking Queen Elizabeth’s jaw with a left hook. That would be covered by the Grievous Bodily Harm law. In law, ‘Her Majesty’ represents the sovereign country of Canada.

The Tar Sands with its destruction of forests, wildlife and the poisoning of the waters must constitute “bodily harm tending to death and destruction” to the sovereign country of Canada. Therefore its perpetrators should be brought to book on the first count of High Treason.

A second count of High Treason refers to “levying war” against Canada or “any act preparatory thereto”. The utter devastation of Canada’s “true North” in the region of the Athabasca Tar Sands is on the scale of a nuclear bombardment, and it is perpetrated by Canadians paid by foreign powers, such as the Chinese National Oil Corporation and Shell Oil. Therefore, anyone aiding and abetting this war against Canada’s sovereign land in return for foreign money must be charged with High Treason on the second count, too.

The success of the charges depends on what is meant by the “sovereign country of Canada”. If it means only the people who happen to be alive within its territorial boundaries at a given time, completely disregarding past and future generations, and totally ignoring all the plants and animals who live there, then the charges may fail.

If, on the other hand, the sovereign country of Canada includes past and future generations, as well as all the non-human inhabitants, that is, both the Land and its Peoples, then the charge of High Treason must stand on both counts.

So who should be charged? Politicians and oil tycoons, certainly. They did it. But we, the peoples of Canada, favoured it, and even paid for the betrayal and destruction of this Land, of which we are but a fleeting part, out of greed for foreign money. Apart from a small band of heroic resistors, all Canadians must answer both counts of High Treason against their country, and would, in all fairness be found guilty.

Since we cannot all imprison ourselves for life, which is the punishment for High Treason, what can we do? Think about it? Yes. Stop doing it now. Yes.

A moratorium on any further Tar Sands development is an easy option now that the price of oil has fallen below the Tar Sands production cost. (And it is likely to stay there, since people can never pay more than they can afford for it.)

Then what? How can we redeem ourselves? We can force the politicians to draft a Law against Ecocide, so that in the future, any perpetrators will not be able to get away with billions of dollars at the expense of the Land and the future generations of its peoples.

Then we can set up a Polar Ecological Protection Zone where we undertake never to exploit natural resources in ways which upset the local ecology or the global climate.

What greater duty can there be for Canadians than to protect their Land, and by example, show the world, how it can be done? Stand on Guard, O Canada! The opportunity is now.

Was - Diplomat at the Canadian Department of External Affairs, Journalist at the Montreal Star, Intelligence analyst at the Canadian Trend Report, Published authority and consultant on business and news classification systems (taxonomies)
Is - Founder and Senior Research Editor with Open Intelligence Ltd, Woodland collaborator and cyclist.
Email j.wyllie@open-intelligence.co.uk

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