Canada

The Mohawk community at the centre of the Oka Crisis is leading plans to hold a ceremony aimed at solidifying an Indigenous alliance against the proposed Energy East pipeline.

Kanesatake Grand Chief Serge Simon said the ceremony is expected to take place in British Columbia this coming spring.

It’s a humble shack with a $9-billion view.

The Treaty 8 Tribal Association has set up an observation shack overlooking the Peace River at the Site C dam site where opponents and other interested parties can watch what critics say is the destruction of the Peace River valley.

Enbridge Inc. has cut 5 per cent of its work force – representing 500 full-time jobs and 100 unfilled positions – as the Calgary-based pipeline company copes with the severe downturn in the energy sector.

Its rival, TransCanada Corp., signalled that it, too, is getting set to announce more job cuts, adding to the gloom in the sector that has worsened as crude oil prices have been depressed for more than a year.

The new Liberal government has promised to implement the UN Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples just over a year after Stephen Harper raised objections to it.

The collapse of major salmon runs in B.C. this fall and the controversial expansion of fish farming on the West Coast have prompted First Nations to request “an urgent meeting” with newly appointed federal Fisheries Minister Hunter Tootoo.

Chief Bob Chamberlin, chair of the First Nations Wild Salmon Alliance, said the disappearance of millions of pink salmon headed for the Fraser and the collapse of the Adams River sockeye run underscore the need for immediate government action.

Business, environmental and community groups are pushing for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to shut down a pair of pipeline reviews before heading to Paris for climate talks.

The City of Burnaby, the Georgia Strait Alliance, Greenpeace Canada and the Natural Resources Defense Council are among 100 groups seeking a halt to National Energy Board reviews of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain expansion and TransCanada’s Energy East proposal. In a joint letter sent Thursday to Trudeau, the groups say the reviews should be put on pause until fundamental flaws in the process are fixed.

TORONTO, Nov. 12, 2015 /CNW/ - A broad cross-section of 100 environmental, business and community interests, including many participants in the current National Energy Board (NEB) reviews, are asking Prime Minister Trudeau, before heading to Paris, to keep his promise and stop the costly, broken pipeline reviews, including Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain and TransCanada's Energy East proposals.

Let’s be clear about the just-released, negotiated-in-secret Trans-Pacific Partnership deal. Despite how it’s being referred to by journalists, officialsand academics, as Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and economist Adam Hersh have noted, it is definitely not a “free-trade” agreement. It’s much more than that.

What are Dr. Stiglitz and others arguing, and why does it matter? Simply put, calling the TPP a free-trade agreement overplays its benefits, plays down its problematic aspects and fundamentally misunderstands what the deal is actually about.

This column is part of a package of special coverage of climate change issues by CBC News leading up to the United Nations climate change conference (COP21) being held in Paris from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11.

G20 countries are spending $452 billion US a year subsidizing their fossil fuel industries and are undermining the world's effort to combat climate change in the process, according to a new international report by an environmental advocacy group.