Public Event on Uranium Mining, May 30th, 7pm Capitol Theatre, Moncton

EVENT

1. Uranium Mining in New Brunswick / Des mines d'Uranium au Nouveau-Brunswick?

NEWS

2. Moncton MLA seeks uranium moratorium
3. Moncton wants N.B. to ban uranium mining
4. Leader speaks from jail; Lovelace resolves to continue fight
5. Ardoch leader left in jail; Oversight causes Bob Lovelace to miss court
date

-----------------------------------------------------------------

1. Uranium Mining in New Brunswick
Sunday, March 30th, 2008, Capitol Theater, Moncton, 7pm
Admission is free. You are invited! Bring a neighbour.  A Public Awareness
Night on the effects of test drilling and uranium mining on our health and
our ecosystem. Learn the facts!  Do not allow the government and mining
companies to put our wildlife, water table and air at risk. Film Screening,
Guest Speakers and Open Discussion.  “Our lives begin to end the day we
become silent about things that matter" - Dr. Martin Luther King. For more
information: call (506) 389-9818 or (506) 855-0863  or visit:
http://web.mac.com/uraniumnb/uranium/Welcome.html Organized by the South
East Chapter – www.conservationcouncil.ca/

Des mines d'Uranium au Nouveau-Brunswick?
Réunion d'information publique  Dimanche, 30 Mars, 19h. Théâtre
Capitole  Moncton. Admission gratuite. Venez vous informer sur les effets
nocifs de la prospection et de l'exploitation de l'uranium sur votre santé
et notre environnement. Vous êtes invité(e)s! et Emmenez votre voisin(e).
Venez vous informer sur les faits, ne laissez pas le gouvernement et les
compagnies minières mettre notre eau potable et notre environnement en
danger! Cette soirée comprend des sujets d'information importants ainsi
qu'une présentation vidéo sur le sujet.
« Nos vies commencent à la fin de la journée nous devenons le silence sur
les choses qui comptent. » - Dr. Martin Luther King. Pour plus
d'information: téléphonez (506) 389-9818 ou (506) 855-0863 or visit:
http://web.mac.com/uraniumnb/uranium/Welcome.html  Branche du sud-est –
www.conservationcouncil.ca/

NEWS

2. Moncton MLA seeks uranium moratorium
Minister says modern exploration techniques are safe
By Jesse Robichaud
Times & Transcript Staff
Published Thursday March 20th, 2008

Moncton Crescent Conservative MLA John Betts has tabled a motion asking the
legislature to establish an immediate moratorium on uranium exploration in
the Moncton area.

The motion asks that the moratorium be upheld until "appropriate and
acceptable public hearings have been held."

The motion cities the potential damage to the environment and citizens'
health in relation to the fact that the Turtle Creek watershed, which is a
source of drinking water for the City of Moncton and surrounding areas, has
been staked for prospecting.

"The possible health risks to individuals resulting from the mining
operations, radioactive tailings, and chemicals used to extract the uranium
are substantial," said Betts.

"The potential for water supplies to become contaminated with uranium,
radon gas and chemicals is significant."

However, Natural Resources Minister Donald Arseneault appeared less
concerned by the exploration boom, which is being fuelled by the rising
price of uranium.

"It is very easy for people to make declarations when they haven't been on
the site to see what the activities are," said Arsenault, who is overseeing
a mining sector that is in full development in the province.

"The things people are talking about are things that happened 30 or 40
years ago," he said, noting that regulations and technology have made for
much safer exploration practices.

Arseneault didn't offer any indications he would consider the motion, and
said that Nova Scotia is considering lifting their ban on uranium
exploration in that province. However, environmental groups there have
vowed to fight it.

3. Moncton wants N.B. to ban uranium mining
CBC News, March 18, 2008

City council in Moncton, N.B., voted unanimously Monday night to call on
the province to ban all uranium exploration and mining in New Brunswick.

The councillors are particularly worried about uranium exploration on the
outskirts of the city.

The mining giant Vale Inco (formerly known as CVRD-Inco) is exploring for
uranium south and west of Moncton.

A smaller exploration company announced two weeks ago it found an
interesting deposit just north of the city.

Coun. Louisa Barton-Duguay said she feels besieged by the mining companies.

"[That's] because there's properties that have been staked right up to our
boundaries. Moncton's ringed," she said.

"I believe this resolution needs to be passed tonight to protect our
province too. I don't think it should be the garbage dump of North America,
which some of our premiers seem to want to make it."

Councillor Pierre Boudreau said it should be about protecting the
environment and people's health.

"We're talking about big money," Boudreau said. "That should not be what
rules the day in New Brunswick on an issue that could affect the health of
our children and ourselves."

Two councillors noted they've already tried to stop oil and gas exploration
in the city's watershed. A resolution to that affect was sent to Premier
Shawn Graham months ago.

So far it's been ignored.

4. Leader speaks from jail; Lovelace resolves to continue fight
The Kingston Whig-Standard
20 May 2008

The Queen's University lecturer who is becoming the central figure in the
battle against a proposed uranium mine north of Kingston said his time
behind bars hasn't weakened his resolve to keep fighting.

"My only regret is that I should have started earlier and worked harder,"
Ardoch Algonquin community leader Bob Lovelace said from a Lindsay jail.

Lovelace is serving a six-month sentence for refusing to stop opposing
uranium prospecting efforts near Sharbot Lake by Oakville-based Frontenac
Ventures. He has now been behind bars in the Central East Correctional
Centre for five weeks.

One of the province's new super jails, the correctional centre is a harsh
mix of steel and concrete where the inmates sleep two to an approximately
three-metre-by-two-metre cell in ranges of 30 men or more and wear
identical orange uniforms. They get out of their cells three times a day
for a total of 7.5 hours.

"It's not a great place to spend time," Lovelace said Tuesday. "Personally,
right now, I'd rather be out playing with my kids and finishing my courses."

Nonetheless, he said, he's doing OK.

It helps that he is familiar with life behind bars as a result of running a
regular aboriginal sweat lodge at Kingston Penitentiary from 1984 to 1992.

"I understand a little about ... how to get along," he said.

To stave off the constant push of boredom, Lovelace writes letters to
supporters, designs a house he hopes to build with his Algonquin friend
Harold Perry, and reads whatever he can get his hands on.

"I got Scientific American in my canteen on Sunday and I was so hard up for
good reading material that I read it in about three and-a-half hours -
every word, including the ads," he said.

Lovelace understands he could get out of prison within a few weeks, if he
was willing to follow a judge's order to stop blocking Frontenac Ventures
from working at the prospecting site on Highway 509.

But that's not going to happen, he said.

"This is really the front line of the greening of Ontario and a better
relationship between aboriginal people and the government," he said. "We've
just got to keep at it until the politicians wake up and start talking
because right now they seem to be fast asleep."

Sharbot Lake isn't the only frontier where aboriginals are going to jail
for fighting mining interests.

On Monday, a judge in Thunder Bay sentenced six members of the remote
northwestern Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) First Nation, including its
chief, to six months in jail for obstructing an exploration company's
access to lands near the local reserve.

Lovelace was sad to hear they had received the same maximum sentence for
contempt of court that he received, but he hadn't heard the OPP have just
charged six more people at the Sharbot Lake-area site for being inside a
200-metre no-go zone.

It's hard to get news in jail, he said.

He can receive only two visits per week and can only call people collect
from a payphone he shares on the prison range with more than 30 other men.

He said he's been trying to reach Ardoch Algonquin lawyer Chris Reid for
more than a week without luck.

Reid, who is defending the Ardochs for hunting meat, has had his hands
full. He is also defending the KI First Nation.

Incidentally, Frontenac Ventures lawyer Neal Smitheman is also representing
Platinex, the exploration company drilling in Thunder Bay.

After returning from the northern town Monday, a frustrated Reid joked with
the Whig-Standard that all his clients are being locked away.

Unbeknownst to him, Lovelace was supposed to appear in court Tuesday, but
Smitheman failed to arrange his transport order.

Lovelace said Tuesday afternoon that he didn't know what was going on.

"I'm sort of in the dark right now," he said.

He isn't the only person who has been found in contempt of court in
relation to protests against mining exploration north of Sharbot Lake.

Ardoch Algonquin co-Chief Paula Sherman, Elder Harold Perry, and members of
the Shabot Obaadjiwan were found in contempt of an earlier interim
injunction issued by another judge.

The Shabot Obaadjiwan have opted out of the struggle, claiming their real
dispute is with the provincial and federal governments.

On Tuesday, they entered into a second undertaking promising to try to
discourage other members of their community and other organizations from
interfering.

Perry and Sherman have entered into similar undertakings, but they still
received fines. Sherman was fined $15,000, the Ardochs were fined $10,000
and Lovelace was fined $25,000, with a provision for additional fines of
$2,000 a day for any future violations.

They all still face prosecution on the charges arising from a second
judge's injunction.


5. Ardoch leader left in jail; Oversight causes Bob Lovelace to miss court
date
Posted By Sue Yanagisawa
19 March 2008
http://www.thewhig.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=949696

A second round of contempt charges against two Algonquin communities and
several of their supporters, arising out of last summer's uranium-mine
protests north of Sharbot Lake, never really got off the ground yesterday.

In mid-February, Superior Court Justice Douglas Cunningham sent Queen's
University lecturer Robert Lovelace, a spokesman for the Ardoch Algonquin
First Nation, to jail for six months after Lovelace refused to stop
opposing the prospecting plans of Oakville-based Frontenac Ventures Corp.
But Lovelace, whose image was on multiple placards stuck in the snowbanks
along Court Street yesterday, never arrived inside the Frontenac County
Court House.
Frontenac Ventures' lawyer Neal Smitheman, who's prosecuting the contempt
charges, failed to arrange for a "production order" to bring him from the
Central East jail in Lindsay, where he's currently being held.

Lawyer Chris Reid, who represents the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation and
Lovelace as a member of that community, told the judge he'd received an
e-mail the previous night around 11 p.m. asking "what arrangements I'd made
to have Bob Lovelace here, and I said: 'None. He's not my prisoner.' "

Three days had been scheduled this week to deal with a second round of
charges, alleging that leaders and members of the Ardoch Algonquin
community and Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nation defied Cunningham's injunction
of Sept. 27, placing themselves in contempt of a court order.

The injunction required that Frontenac Ventures have "unfettered and
unobstructed access," to the 58.6-square kilometres of Crown and private
lands that form its mineral exploration claim. The Algonquin had set up a
protest camp just inside the gates of the company's base camp early last
summer.

Cunningham has already found that Lovelace, Ardoch Algonquin co-Chief Paula
Sherman, Elder Harold Perry and members of the Shabot Obaadjiwan were in
contempt of an earlier interim injunction issued by another judge. He
jailed Lovelace for refusing to "purge his contempt" on that order,
stipulating that his six-month sentence could be discharged at any time if
he agrees to sign an undertaking promising to stop troubling Frontenac
Ventures.

Shabot Obaadjiwan opted out of the struggle with the prospecting company
early in the last hearing and the community's lawyer, Stephen Reynolds,
said yesterday that their real dispute is with the provincial and federal
governments.

On behalf of the community, Shabot Obaadjiwan Chief Doreen Davis and Elder
Earl Bedore signed undertakings on the first set of charges in February,
agreeing not to interfere with Frontenac Ventures activities, including
drilling. They entered into a second undertaking yesterday, agreeing that
they'll try to discourage other members of their community and other
organizations from interfering. Smitheman told the judge that his client
would not seek any further sanctions against them, although his client is
asking for court costs, which are still being negotiated.

Ardoch Elder Harold Perry and Chief Paula Sherman entered into similar
undertakings in February, but Cunningham imposed fines of $15,000 against
Sherman, $10,000 against the community and $25,000 against Lovelace, with
provision for additional fines of $2,000 a day for any future violations.
They also still face prosecution on the charges arising from Cunningham's
injunction.

Lawyer Chris Reid has filed an appeal of Cunningham's earlier decision,
including an order striking his clients' counter-suit challenging the
Mining Act.
Smitheman withdrew contempt charges "without costs" against private
landowner Frank Morrison and Christian Peacemakers David Milne and Rev.
John Hudson, three non-Natives charged with defying the initial August
interim injunction, but split from the proceedings in February.

In the meantime, however, the OPP has laid new charges, served just the
night before against six people - one of whom hadn't been located - for
being inside the 200-metre set-back from the property's front gates over
the weekend.

The group charged included Oskar Graf, founder of the Blue Skies Music
Festival, who was represented by Kingston defence lawyer Fergus O'Connor.

O'Connor told Cunningham, "by my instructions, my client didn't breach
either the letter or the spirit of your honour's order," and told the judge
he was prepared to go to trial then and there. Smitheman admitted he didn't
know anything about the substance of the charges, which were laid under the
auspices of the "John Doe" and "Jane Doe" warrants he demanded be issued to
the OPP in February. He said he'd need time to investigate them.

Those new charges and the outstanding allegations against Ardoch Algonquin
First Nation, as well as Shabot Obaadjiwan's counter-claim seeking summary
judgment against the government of Canada, have all been put over to June 2.