Fredericton Peace Coalition

Power plants in Canada – including NB Power’s Belledune plant – and elsewhere get the coal for their power plants from one Colombian mine, the Cerrejón mine. This video report shows how coal consumption is contributing to negative consequences for the people living in the area.
The Danish NGO – DanWatch – has put pressure on [...]

On Friday, December 4th, over 80 people rallied in front of the Wolfville, NS, office of Scott Brison, MP for Kings-Hants. Brison, the Liberal International Trade Critic, was targeted because of his support of Bill C-23 – an Act to implement the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (CCFTA). The rally also came only days after the [...]

An interview with Aviva Chomsky on mountain top coal mining in Kentucky and coal mining in Colombia.

The president of Colombia clashed with NDP and Bloc Quebecois MPs, who questioned the South American country’s human-rights record.

To walk among these posts filled me with an intense feeling of sadness of lives being slowly suffocated as the mine creeps forward. To live among these posts, with the whines of mine machinery playing over the sound of the wildlife, appears to me like psychological torture for the remaining 17 families.

MPS must defend human rights before trade
April 24 marks the beginning of a week of action against the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement, with special focus on convincing Liberal MPs that whether or not they support free trade, this is a bad agreement that can only worsen human rights violations, increase violence against labour and civil [...]

Reflection on the Mining the Connections Forum, Tatamagouche NS, November 2008.
Excerpt: In view of this, I was absolutely shocked and appalled at how little legislation there is in Canada regarding mining, and how little protection there is for the environment and surrounding communities. What was most distressing to me was learning about how the [...]

Garry Leech, independent journalist and lecturer in the Department of Political Science at Cape Breton University, has spent the last eight years working in the most remote and dangerous regions of Colombia, uncovering the unofficial stories of people living in conflict zones. Beyond Bogotá is framed around the eleven hours that Leech was held captive [...]

A case of environmental racism in New Brunswick concerns the coal extracted from mines in Colombia that is then exported to our province for power generation. Coal from Colombia has been dubbed “Colombian blood coal” because of violent displacement of communities and assassinations of union leaders at the country’s coal mines.

Toronto, December 7, 2008.
Featuring:
• Jesús Erazo, union leader with Sintracarbon, Colombia, talking about working conditions and their opposition to the Colombia-Canada Free Trade Agreement.