Brandi Morin and Geordie Day win the Canadian Hillman Prize!
Killer Water: The Toxic Legacy of Canada’s Oil Sands Industry on Indigenous Communities has been awarded the 2024 Canadian Hillman Prize, one of the most prestigious journalism awards in Canada.
In this documentary, Brandi and Geordie visit the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and examine the detrimental impact of toxic tailings and leaks on the delicate ecosystems, water sources, and human life in and around Fort Chipewyan.
Killer Water uncovers that most Canadians who reap the benefits of the oil sands industry in Alberta continue to turn a blind eye to its devastating effects.
Killer Water was produced through an innovative collaboration with The Real News and IndigNews. Here at Ricochet, we believe collaborations like these are the future of journalism – this award proves it.
Chief Na’Moks: The RCMP’s specialized C-IRG unit exists to crush Indigenous resistance
One year since a system review was launched, the hostile situation between Indigenous communities and RCMP has only gotten much worse.
By: Chief Na’Moks
This month marks one year since the RCMP’s civilian watchdog, the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission, launched an investigation into C-IRG. The RCMP’s Community Industry Response Unit (C-IRG) was created to police Indigenous peoples like me who protest against exploitative oil and gas projects on our territory.
The review is investigating whether C-IRG’s operations and activities respect the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Last month, audio recordings of C-IRG brutality were played in a British Columbia courtroom, including audio of the RCMP ridiculing Indigenous women wearing red handprints to symbolize our missing and murdered. They called us “ogres.” They taunted men for responding to pain when beaten.
Still, the unit was not suspended during the systemic review nor will any public hearings be held. It’s been over a year and we have heard nothing, though this is no surprise, and our expectations are not high. The RCMP was created to control Indigenous peoples, and remove us from our homelands. C-IRG is a new tool that enables this legacy of racist discrimination to continue to this day. It’s long overdue to abolish C-IRG.
Brandi Morin: In oil country, First Nation accuses government of ‘regulated murder’
In Fort Chipewyan, industrial pollution leads to lawsuit.
By: Brandi Morin
There were over 100 people in the gathering hall in the isolated Northern Alberta hamlet of Fort Chipewyan on an evening in early March, as residents waited to hear from Alberta Energy Regulator CEO Laurie Pusher. He made the trek to the fly-in community to address the AER’s response to a massive tailings leak from an Imperial Oil site that was first disclosed in February of last year.
When he arrived he was met with scowling faces and angry outbursts, as residents expressed their frustration with the regulator’s failure to promptly notify the community of the leak.
Athabaska Chipewyan First Nation councillor Mike Mercredi stood up several times to yell across the room to Pusher, accusing him of overseeing “regulated murder.”
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