The Canadian government has criticised its most vocal petroleum industry opponent for using his fame to spread “ill-informed messages” about the country’s oil sands’ operations.
Neil Young, world-famous rock star and fierce environmentalist, has made a number of public appearances in recent months slamming his country’s support of the oil trade and mining activities which are hurting the native Canadian communities, he claims.
The singer and songwriter is due to start his anti-oil tour, Honour the Treaties, in Toronto on Sunday, before performing in Regina, Winnipeg and Calgary.
All the proceeds from the sold-out concerts will support the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation’s legal action against Shell’s expansion of the Jackpine Mine, 70 kilometres outside Fort McMurray, approved last month.
“Fort McMurray looks like Hiroshima. Fort McMurray is a wasteland. The fuel’s all over, the fumes everywhere – you can smell it when you get to town,” Young said in September last year.
“People are sick. People are dying of cancer because of this. All the First Nations people up there are threatened by this.”
Watch Neil Young’s comments below
http://youtu.be/J_QAdup7G0o
Leaders of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers have criticised Young’s approach to the topic, saying he ignored the economic benefits of oil sands to the community.
“Mr Young may represent that rock stars don’t need oil. But we would represent that Canadians very much do need oil,” said the body’s president Dave Collyer at a Thursday news conference in Calgary.
“His rhetoric is ill-informed, it’s divisive, and I think it does a disservice to Canadians, including those First Nations that he’s ostensibly trying to help.”
http://youtu.be/EwYEZO8dkjQ
Collyer maintained oil sands provide jobs to the First Nations, and aboriginal companies in the production region have earned billions in revenues in recent years.
Shell says the expansion of the Jackpine Mine will create 750 new full-time positions plus construction jobs.