Fort MacKay First Nation members short on cash after oilsands profits dip

Tar Sands factory complex in northern Alberta.

Band CEO blames low profits for missing annual payments

CBC News,  July 11, 2014

Some residents from the wealthy Fort McKay First Nation are in financial trouble after the band failed to provide an expected dividend from oilsands profits last month.

Band members have long been receiving the payment, known as a PCD, which the band is able to pay out due to profits gained from oilsands-related operations. Recently, members collected more than $10,000 per year from the funds. 

Oilsands benefit First Nations

Some of the “scant evidence” of the environmental impacts of the Tar Sands referred to by Quesnel; trucks the size of houses haul earth from the Tar Sands.

Protestors show ignorance of reality of oilsands development

By Joseph Quesnel, Winnipeg Sun, January 31, 2014

Aboriginal peoples benefit from oilsands development.  That was the one reality missed by protesters at a recent lecture at the University of Winnipeg involving Phil Fontaine.

The Oilsands: First Nations struggle to save traditions while profiting from boom

Tar Sands in northern Alberta.

By Marty Klinkenberg, Edmonton Journal, December 15, 2013

FORT CHIPEWYAN — On a hill overlooking Lake Athabasca, the big water that sustained their forefathers for 9,000 years, a dozen residents of Fort Chipewyan gather in a teepee with the legs and shoulders of a freshly killed caribou before them.