Author: CEDAR

Wolastoq Grand Council and St. Thomas University: Wabanaki Student Center, CEDAR research project, Women’s Studies and Gender Studies, and Sustainability and Environmental Studies programs invite you to A Conversation with Sherri Mitchell: How to be a good relative •
Lakutuwakoneyak Kilun – We are all Treaty People – We are all related

October 29, 3 PM at STU. Info HERE.

International energy expert Ralph Torrie, Research Director of Corporate Knights, has published his analysis for a renewable energy future for Maritime Canada. The CEDAR project and partners invited Ralph to New Brunswick to share his work with the public. 6 PM at the Fredericton Public Library. Info HERE.

The CEDAR project and colleagues at St. Thomas University partnered with the Fredericton Public Library to bring an exhibit “80 Years of the Nuclear Age: Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki” to New Brunswick in October. The opening talk at 3 PM on October 3 will be delivered by CEDAR partner, M.V. Ramana. Info HERE.

The Call for proposals opened in early 2025 and is now closed. Check out the event website for information on this event in October!

The CEDAR project and partners invites all community champions and social justice activists in New Brunswick to propose activities at the NB Social Forum 2025.

The event in Fredericton the first weekend of October has the theme: The Many vs The Money.

If you are a member of a group or organization in New Brunswick working on community, social justice, Indigenous, labour or environmental issues, we invite you to apply now to have an information table, make a presentation or host a workshop at the event. Deadline for presentation and workshop proposals is June 30.

The event October 4 and 5 will be open to everyone free of charge. Click HERE for more info and to apply.

Please share this invitation with your networks – we want everyone to know about this opportunity.

Everyone is welcome to join STU Sustainability and the CEDAR project for a free film screening of Peace Out: Energy Costs at 6:30 PM on Wednesday, February 26 at Gallery on Queen, 406 Queen St. in Fredericton.

Zoey McNamara and Ivory Gadsden, co-chairs of STU Sustainability, and Susan O’Donnell, lead researcher of the CEDAR project at STU will introduce the film and facilitate a discussion with those who stay on afterward.

The film, part of the Cinema Politica series, explores the conflict in Canada’s vast Peace River region in B.C. that was flooded in 2024 for the Site C hydro dam. Site C is expected to begin operations in Fall 2025.

The film, released in 2011, raises important questions even more relevant today: When is it ethical to destroy an ecosystem? Is it possible to convince people to use less energy or do we need to keep on building more large energy projects? Can we balance jobs and economic development with environmental destruction? Who benefits the most from these big energy developments?

The film won the prize for the most popular Canadian documentary at the 2011 Vancouver International Film Festival. More info and watch the trailer HERE.

STU Sustainability acts as a voice for students advocating for sustainability on and off campus. CEDAR (Contesting Energy Discourses through Action Research) is a project in the Environment & Society program at St. Thomas University, located on the unceded traditional territory of the Wolastoqiyik.

Everyone is welcome to join Wolastoq Grand Council and the CEDAR project for a free screening and New Brunswick premiere of the film Singing Back the Buffalo at 6:30 PM on Wednesday, February 19 at Gallery on Queen, 406 Queen St. in Fredericton.

Wolastoq Elder Alma Brooks and Susan O’Donnell, lead researcher of the CEDAR project at STU will introduce the film and facilitate a discussion with those who stay on afterward.

The film, part of the Cinema Politica series, explores one of the impacts of colonization on the Great Plains and how buffalo herds of North America are making their return. The film features Blackfoot Elder Leroy Little Bear, weaving an intimate story of humanity’s connections to buffalo and how their return to the Great Plains can usher in a new era of sustainability and balance.

The film raises many questions about the impact and responses to colonization for Indigenous communities in New Brunswick, across Canada and globally.

The film premiered at many national and international film festivals in 2024. More info and watch the trailer HERE.

Wolastoq Grand Council is a partner in CEDAR (Contesting Energy Discourses through Action Research), a project in the Environment & Society program at St. Thomas University, located on the unceded homeland of the Wolastoqiyik.

The CEDAR project and the Passamaquoddy Recognition Group Inc. (PRGI) published a report and video that were launched at St. Thomas University on November 29, 2024. The info page with the report and video is HERE. At the end of the page is the video record of the launch (courtesy CEDAR partner, the NB Media Co-op), photos from Emma Fackenthall (CEDAR) and Kim Reeder (PRGI) and articles published about the report and video.

The videos of the two webinars held on October 10, 2024 featuring CEDAR team members are now available.

The info page about the webinars is HERE.

1) Nuclear is Not the Solution:The Folly of Atomic Power in the Age of Climate Change
Discussion of the new book by CEDAR co-investigator M.V. Ramana (UBC) with CEDAR student research assistants from St. Thomas University: Kate Haché, Erin Hurley and Emma Fackenthall.

2) More Nuclear in Canada’s Energy Future?
Panel: M.V. Ramana (UBC), Susan O’Donnell & Emma Fackenthall (STU), Laura Tanguay (York U), Mark Winfield (York U), chair Janice Harvey (STU)

The NB Media Coop is one of the Collaborators on the CEDAR project and I am a representative of this news organization.

The NB Media Co-op was formed in 2009 following a successful New Brunswick Social Forum in 2008 in Fredericton, where 200 people rooted in a variety of social movements gathered under the hopeful banner “Another New Brunswick and World are Possible.”

The people who came together at this forum — workers, students, anti-capitalists, anti-imperialists, peace activists, Indigenous rights activists, feminists, gay rights activists, labour unionists, environmentalists, social workers and artists — recognized they had one common problem: the media in New Brunswick. Following the adage, “Don’t Hate the Media, Be the Media,” a group of activists did just that, and the NB Media Co-op was born months later and officially incorporated shortly after.

As an independent media outlet, the NB Media Co-op publishes stories not covered in the mainstream commercial media. Our stories take a social justice lens and include the perspectives of workers, students, Indigenous and racialized peoples, and other groups marginalized by society. We are mostly volunteers. Our editorial board members have journalism training and experience and all of us are committed to social justice.

In the past, NB Media Co-op has also been involved as a Collaborator in the SSHRC-funded RAVEN (Rural Action and Voices for the Environment) research project that was conducted from 2018 to 2023. I was also the NB Media Co-op representative on that project.

I moved to Fredericton in 2008 and, although I didn’t attend the New Brunswick Social Forum, I’ve been a member of the editorial board of the NB Media Co-op since 2012. I also write and edit stories on arts and culture, have supervised interns for the Co-op, among other duties. You can read my news pieces here.

Fun fact: I had my first paying gig as a freelance journalist for Le Courrier de la Nouvelle Écosse in 1993. I am also a professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies at the University of New Brunswick (Fredericton), a literary translator with various books published, and a member of the editorial board for the Canadian Journal of Hispanic Studies.