Tar Sands Church Leaders Delegation

In May 2009, a group of seventeen Canadian church leaders, Southern partners, Indigenous leaders from Canada and KAIROS staff traveled to Northern Alberta to learn more about Canada's tar sands.

The delegation’s tasks included:

exploring the theological, ethical and social implications of fossil fuel extraction;

hearing about the experiences of and engaging in dialogue with workers, industry representatives, environmental groups, Indigenous people, and members of local churches.

The delegation included church leaders from across Canada:

The Rev. Bruce Adema,
Director of Canadian Ministries, Christian Reformed Church in North America

Dana Bush,
Calgary Monthly Meeting, Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)

Abe Janzen,
Executive Director, Mennonite Central Committee Alberta

The Rev. Susan Johnson,
National Bishop, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada

Sr. Anne Lewans, osu,
Vice-President, Canadian Religious Conference

The Right Rev Thomas O. Morgan,
Retired Archbishop of Saskatoon, Anglican Church of Canada.

The Rev. Cheol Soon Park,
Moderator of the 134th General Assembly, The Presbyterian Church in Canada

Donald Peters,
Executive Director, Mennonite Central Committee Canada

The Very Rev. Bill Phipps,
Former Moderator of the United Church of Canada

The Most Rev. V. James Weisgerber,
Archbishop of Winnipeg, President, Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops

Also participating was a representative from an Indigenous community in Canada that is impacted by fossil fuel extraction, and two Southern partners who spoke to the impacts of oil exploration on their Indigenous communities:

Ray Jones is Hereditary Chief of the Gitxsan First Nation in British Columbia, and has been involved with his community's response to a coal-bed methane project on a part of Gitxsan territory in northern B.C.

Fabricio Guamán works with Accion Ecologica and Oil Watch International in Ecuador.

Michael Keania Karikpo works with Oil Watch International in Nigeria.
(See the delegates' full biographies here.)

The delegation was rounded out by KAIROS staff:

Mary Corkery,
Executive Director

Ed Bianchi,
Indigenous Rights Program Coordinator

Sara Stratton,
Education/Campaigns Coordinator (Sustainability)

The delegation came to seeking to learn more about the tar sands projects and their impacts on all involved communities – society at large, workers, Indigenous peoples and communities, and the earth community. It was a time of listening and dialogue, of reflection and action, both pastoral and prophetic. The tar sands are raising many questions for Canadians across the country and for Albertans in particular. They play a huge role in Canada's economy, in the varied communities of this region, in the Boreal forest and in the global climate. What are their impacts, positive and negative? How should they be developed? These are big questions, questions that every Canadian Christian should take to heart.

These photographs were taken in September, 2008 by Sara Stratton when KAIROS staff undertook an advance visit to the tar sands region in anticipation of the May 2009 Ecumenical Delegation. Though the seasons changed and some of the work sites seemed less busy in May than they had been in September, the landscape shown in these pictures is very much what the delegates themselves experienced.