Montreal Solidarity Action Against Olympic Greenwashing

Feb 16, 2010

Montreal Solidarity Action Against Olympic Greenwashing

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On February 13, a small group of Montrealers staged an info-picket at the Parc/Mont Royal location of Petro Canada in solidarity with actions in Vancouver against the Olympic greenwashing of corporations , such as  Petro Canada/Suncor, and their investments in the Athabasca Tar Sands through their Olympic sponsorships. 

Right here in our backyard, we have the largest industrial project on the planet, the Tar Sands. Two of the top Tar Sands investors are lead sponsors of the Olympics -- Royal Bank and Petro Canada/Suncor.  Both are trying to use the Olympics to greenwash the largest industrial project on the planet.

The Olympics are being powered up by Tar Sands crude, poisoning Indigenous people, turning our atmosphere and rivers into toxic dumping grounds and tearing up a chunk of boreal forest the size of Florida. 
 

And hidden behind the show of Indigenous culture being put on at the Olympics is a dismal Canadian record on Indigenous rights.

Canada is the only country still opposing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Canada continues to criminalize Indigenous activists who stand up for Aboriginal and treaty rights - even though these rights have been affirmed by the Canadian constitution and the UN Declaration. And at the root of the poverty of First Nations is the Canadian government's continuing policies of dispossession, which are at work under the cover of Olympic fun and games.