The film Fractured Land has its world premiere in Toronto today. The film is focused on the life and work of Caleb Behn, an Eh Cho Dene and Dunne-Za from the Fort Nelson First Nation in Treaty 8 territory in British Columbia, and the struggle to defend the land and water there from fracking operations.
Toronto Film Scene reports, “Thirty-one-year-old Behn has spent the past nine years studying to be a lawyer, and in the process has become one of the most outspoken and sought after speakers from the First Nations community to talk about the controversial process of fracking and how it pertains to land and water rights and conservation issues.”
It adds, “The fracking industry – which has taken a shine to his land in Northeastern British Columbia, home of the third largest deposits of hydrocarbons in North America – operates in such a way when it comes to honouring treaties that a ‘consultation’ often means ‘we’re just coming in and taking the land, anyway’. It’s a practice that the federal and provincial government has become complicit with, offering deals to almost anyone who asks. Behn has made it his mission to bring these issues to greater light as he continues on with his chosen career.”
The Council of Canadians is very pleased to have been able to make a modest donation several years ago toward the making of this film. Given that association and our commitment to stop fracking, our Toronto-based organizers Mark Calzavara and Ailish Morgan-Welden will be at the premiere screening of the film at the Hot Docs Film Festival today.
We also hope to be able to promote community screenings of the film through our chapters in the months to come.
To watch a trailer for the film, please click here.
In addition, Council of Canadians water campaigner Emma Lui has noted, “Behn, along with Dr. Kathleen Nolan from the Concerned Health Professionals of New York, will be in Ottawa on Tuesday, May 12 for a briefing to Members of Parliament on hydraulic fracturing and the regulatory role of the federal government.”
Our association with Behn began back in September 2012 when Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow met him and Fractured Land filmmaker Damien Gillis at the Keepers of the Water conference in Fort Nelson. The following month, Behn spoke alongside Barlow during our ‘no pipelines, no tankers’ tour which opposed the Trans Mountain, Northern Gateway and Pacific Trail pipelines on the West Coast. And then in December 2012, Behn and Barlow spoke together again at a public forum in Ottawa about the Line 9 pipeline in Ontario and Quebec.
Further reading
New trailer for ‘Fractured Land’ documentary (January 2013 blog)
Fort Nelson First Nation ‘extremely concerned’ about massive water use for fracking (November 2012 blog)
Photo: Caleb Behn.
