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TORONTO – Scream‘s Neve Campbell is backing Neil Young‘s fight to get major oil companies to respect Canadian First Nation treaties.
Campbell and 20 other Canadian celebrities, including writers Naomi Klein and Michael Ondaatje, have signed a letter of support for the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) as it battles an expansion of oilsands drilling in Alberta.
News of the open letter came as Young on Sunday concluded four Honor the Treaties concerts that raised more than $500,000 for an ACFN legal fund.
“On his Honor the Treaties tour, Neil Young is doing what poets do — forcing us to examine ourselves. This is hard enough on a personal level and it can be even more difficult when we are being asked to examine the direction in which our country is headed,” the letter of support reads.
Young played four benefit concerts in Canada as part of his 2014 tour to back the ACFN as it attempts to stop expanding oilsands mining by Shell Oil Canada on protected treaty lands.
The ACFN, based in Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, contend that oilsands development directly impacts the land on which they hunt, fish and trap, and so damages their culture and identity.
The First Nation community has asked Canada’s federal court to review Ottawa’s decision to allow Shell Oil to expand its Jackpine mine, which is on ACFN land protected by treaty agreements.
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