Young’s tour raises awareness, funds for ACFN

Some of the $630,000 - and still climbing – raised through the recent Neil Young Honour the Treaties cross-country tour and associated on-line campaign will be put to use immediately by the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation.

On Jan. 3, the ACFN filed an application with the federal court to review the recent decision to approve Shell’s Jackpine mine expansion.

“This money (raised) is totally a drop in the bucket,” said AFCN communications coordinator Eriel Deranger.  “It’s hard to say how much our fundraising efforts are really going to reduce financial stress from our Nation.”

Deranger says it is difficult to determine ACFN’s legal costs because figures are dependent on how far the provincial and federal governments are willing to push legal challenges, which could go all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.

“We have drawn the line in the region.  In all of our responses to project proposals, the ACFN doesn’t want to see development north of the Firebag river and following the southern boundary of the Poplar Point home land.  Those areas are very distinguished and mapped out and if there are project proposals in that region we will continue to oppose them and that will mean more legal costs will likely be incurred,” said Deranger.

ACFN is involved in other challenges as well. The First Nation is one of the leading participants in the regulatory process hearing opposing Shell’s proposed Pierre River Mine and Teck Resources Frontier Mine. ACFN has also filed a statutory review of the Lower Athabasca Regional Plan.

Young’s four-city tour raised not only much needed funds for the ACFN’s legal battles but publicity for the issue.

“This is about the fact that current economic development, which is the oilsands in Alberta, is threatening the treaty rights of First Nations people in Alberta,” said Deranger, who attended all the concerts. “We’re not here to say shutdown the oilsands….We’re just looking for more responsibility and accountability from our government.”

Many First Nations leaders outside of Alberta threw their support behind Young’s tour and what the ACFN was working to accomplish.

“Honouring the Treaties is an important, essential message for government, industry and all Canadians. First Nations rights must be honoured and upheld…,” said  Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo in a news release.

Ontario Regional Chief Stan Beardy and Grand Chief Derek Nepinak of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs also expressed support.

Young kicked off the tour in Toronto and Deranger says she was proud to see him on stage along with a banner that read, “Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Legal Defence Fund.” From there Young played in sold-out venues in Winnipeg, Regina and ended in Calgary on Jan. 19. Every concert site included an opportunity for concert-attendees to sign a pledge to stand in solidarity with ACFN. About 2,000 signatures were collected.

In Calgary, Deranger says she had a conversation with a man holding an “I support Canada’s oil sands” sign.  He was one of a handful of people who showed up outside the concert venue to protest. The discussion, she says, was beneficial and has led to a Facebook and phone number exchange.

Criticism of the tour didn’t come from grassroots alone. Young garnered nation-wide attention when he likened the development in the oil sands around Fort McMurray to Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped and when he referred to the Keystone XL pipeline as a “terrible idea.”

Jason MacDonald, spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, spoke out in favour of the economic benefits and jobs created by oilsands development and Dave Collyer, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said Young did not understand the benefits of oilsand development.

Deranger says she is not surprised by the criticism Young’s tour garnered.