yeah, I knew about the first part of that... my friend Ceiridwen (ladyiolanthe) works at wood buffalo national park, and she was involved recently in an assessment of the impact of the development on the park.... but since she lives and works in northern Alberta, and often has to go to Fort McMurray and such, she has seen a lot of that stuff first hand, and I've heard about it from her... Her sister also told me about going to visit her brother in Edmonton this summer and seeing no one above the age of 18 working in any of the fast food joints...

I didn't know about the NAFTA thing, or if I did I'd forgotten. *sigh* I learned about the existence oil sands back in high school, probably a year or so before that was signed :p