A webinar is being held tomorrow featuring the documentary Downstream and local panelists to educate on the impact of oilsands development on fresh water.
Hosted by the Safe Drinking Water Foundation, the event is being held nationwide, beginning at 10 a.m.
The panelists include former Fort Chipewyan family physician Dr. John O'Connor, author Andrew Nikiforuk, Downstream writer and director Leslie Iwerks and Mikisew Cree environmentalist George Poitras.
This webinar will begin with a viewing of the film Downstream and a panel discussion will follow. This short documentary by Iwerks, an Academy Award nominee, chronicles O'Connor and the impacts of oilsands development on the community downstream from the industry.
Nicole Biederbeck, the foundation's director of education, said the foundation decided Downstream would be an appropriate fit for its educational program kits.
With an existing relationship with Nikiforuk, who had already done an environmental webinar with the foundation focusing on the DVD Crapshoot, the foundation approached O'Connor for his help, including setting up ties with Iwerks and Poitras.
"I hope that a lot more people are well educated about the issues the tarsands cause," she said.
While RSVPs for the webinar have been received from a variety of respondents including aboriginal communities, lawyers, land-use councils, environmental groups and Heath Canada, schools across the country will also be watching and learning -- though none in Fort McMurray.
"It's pretty commendable that the Safe Drinking Water Foundation took on this initiative to make this a public event through the webinar," Poitras said. "I think the fact that this organization saw the importance and significance of doing this nationwide to profile the tarsands and some of the impacts coming as a result of it is pretty important."
O'Connor said he hopes the webinar succeeds in educating the people -- especially the schools that are involved -- as to exactly what the reality of the situation here is and especially with regard to clean water.
"I just hope that people listen to it and realize it's just an effort to lay out the facts as they are. It's not propaganda or anti-anything.
"It's just this is how it is."
He said the timing of tomorrow's webinar is interesting given that it's being held during the first week of Syncrude Canada's trial into the deaths of more than 1,600 migratory waterfowl.