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Kamloops chapter screens ‘Fractured Land’


Kamloops screening

An information table at the Kamloops chapter screening of’ Fractured Land’.

The Council of Canadians Kamloops chapter screened ‘Fractured Land’ at Thompson Rivers University’s (TRU) Barber Centre on March 1.


Chapter activist Anita Strong tells us that they had an audience of about 100 people, that filmmaker Damien Gillis was there for a question & answer session, and that they collected names for the Leap Manifesto at the event.


On Feb. 20, Kelowna Now reported, “An awarding-winning B.C. made film is gearing up for a showing in the City of Kamloops. Fractured Land is a Canadian feature documentary that follows a young Indigenous lawyer, Caleb Behn from Northeast B.C. With some of the world’s largest fracking operations on his territory, the film follows Behn as he confronts the cracks within his community, his family, and himself, exploring the struggles to reconcile traditional teachings with the law to protect the land. Behn is the son of a high-ranking oil and gas officer mother and a staunch environmentalist father. The film follows Behn as he balances between two different ideologies and confronts the impact of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) on his territory.”


That news article notes, “Following the screening, a panel discussion with Gillis, representatives from the TRU Human Rights Committee, and members of the Council of Canadians Kamloops chapter will take place.” Gillis has commented, “This isn’t an environmental or ‘issue’ film. Yet through Caleb’s intensely personal journey, we delve deep into important topics like fracking, resource politics and Canada’s colonial legacy.”


Our association with Behn and Gillis began back in Sept. 2012 when Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow met them at a 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 in Alberta and British Columbia. In Dec. 2012, Behn and Barlow spoke together again at a public forum in Ottawa about the Line 9 pipeline in Ontario and Quebec. The Council of Canadians is also very pleased to have been able to make a modest donation several years ago toward the making of this film.


Several chapters have already screened the film – including the Mid-Island (Nanaimo), Williams Lake and now Kamloops chapters – and 16 more chapters are scheduled to show it in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, the Northwest Territories, Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick between March 18 and April 22.


To read our Fractivist Toolkit that highlights the threat posed by fracking in these provinces and territories, and how to challenge the industry, please click here.


To see a 3-minute trailer for the film, please click here.


You will note that in the trailer that there’s a clip of Janet Annesley representing the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, “the voice of Canada’s upstream oil and natural gas industry”. Since this film was made, Annesley, who has also been a senior communications manager for Shell, was appointed the chief of staff to federal natural resources minister Jim Carr.