Tutu’s harsh words prompt new focus on oil-sands fight

01/06/14
Author: 
Kelly Cryderman

First the Athabasca Chipewyan partnered with Canadian rocker Neil Young in a treaty-rights awareness tour. Then, this past weekend, the 1,100-person northern Alberta First Nation – whose members feel its land and water are being sacrificed for an estimated $200-billion in oil-sands investment over the next decade – hosted renowned human-rights leader Desmond Tutu, who toured the oil-sands region and, at a weekend conference on treaty rights and the environment, called Canada’s bitumen production “filth.”