Sun. Dec.11th. I was on the National News. I was so glad that The National was talking about the fight to stop the Enbridge pipeline.I really liked their story. Thank you CBC.
Friday, Dec. 9th. This week I got interviewed by Duncan McCue from CBC The National. I I was so amazed and honored to be on the National News. He interviewed my parents. He also filmed Aileen giving me a singing lesson, and my violin teacher, Patrick Ernst, giving me a lesson. The next day he filmed the Down2Earth Kids film crew who were filming me and Lee, an Ethnobotany specialist from U. Vic. in a webispode for the pilot of this new show.
Nov. 26th I spoke on TedxSFU. I was so honored to speak with people who have accomplished so much in their lives.
Nov. 7-22. We (My dad, my Mom, and me) drove to Oregon to see my big sister Sky. She lives outside Coquille, which is near Coos Bay right on the coast. My sister Sky and my uncle Keith have 3 children, my nieces. We have so much fun and every year I look forward to it so much. This year we surprised them!
Nov.5th & 6th. I went to a workshop, and sang and spoke at a rally for Indigenous Peoples Against Mining. At the workshop, I met some new people. We broke up into teams and decided what we should put on banners. I learned a lot more about what is happening in BC with mining on native land, and the effects of mining.
Nov. 5 Sat. I sang and spoke at Occupy Vancouver. I had been waiting to sing there so long, but I had to finish recording my song Earth Revolution first. Then I got to sing it!
Oct 28th I spent 2 weeks getting ready to record Earth Revolution in the studio. I had some extra lessons with Aileen and my other singing coach named Red. I have to practice a lot when I am getting ready to record. I recorded it finally with Aileen and the studio producer, Joe Cruz. We started at 11 and went into the evening. It was fun but is serious too. There is always one more time to do it over. You have prep your voice so people can feel what you’re feeling in the song.
Oct 16th. Sunday. We spent the week in Sliammon and visited my Kookpa and Chichia. We were learning how to can salmon that they saved for us. Our jars didn’t seal so Chichia had to do them over for us. She said she learned when she was 10 years old.
October 9th, Sunday I arrive back from Jakarta. I stayed a week later to visit my cousins, aunt and uncle who live in Kuala Lumpur, which is in Malaysia.
Oct. 1st, Saturday. When I got to Indonesia, I couldn’t help thinking how different it was from Canada. When we would travel from the hotel to the conference each day, there was a police motorcade. There was a lot of poverty . There were children and beggars in the street. Most people ride mopeds. The buses look like Scooby Doo vans. But unlike Vancouver, there are lots of buses. The roads were really hectic. When it rained, waves of rainwater were on the street.
I met the Vice President of Indonesia. Funny story, on the very first day, my Mom left the gift that I was going to give to the vice president at the hotel. So, she had to go back to hotel on the back of a motorcycle to get it. The gift was a First Nations carving. I shook the Vice President’s hand and he said thank you. During the first and last day, everyone wore their national dress. It was really amazing to see that. I really liked the traditional dress from Africa, from Holland, from Indonesia. Everyone couldn’t stop taking pictures together. Afterwards, it was non-stop attending meetings for children and youth from different countries. We were divided up into world regions. Next everyone attended workshops, except me, because I had to give 3 workshops. My first workshop was on the causes of Canadian Deforestation (the cause of it) and the next 2 workshops were on Environmental Songwriting. There were 40 kids at my last 2 workshops
I sang my new song, “Earth Revolution” at the closing ceremonies. I made some new friends. Shruti, from India and Vicki from We Canada. I was so depressed when I left because I couldn’t believe this wonderful conference was over, but |I had an amazing experience.
Sept. 24th Saturday, 2 am, I leave for Bandung, Indonesia to attend the UNEP Tunza International Children and Youth Convention 27 Sept. – 1 October 2011.
Sept. 12. 2011
Countdown to Carbon Clease, No Impact Week!
I just got this email: Hi! I’m a web editor at YES! Magazine, where we were recently thrilled to feature Ms. Blaney’s moving song, Shallow Waters:
This is the schedule, and I will be blogging about it.
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-Monday: No trash— just using reusable, recyclable, or compostable materials.
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-Wednesday: Focus on a local food diet. Eat food produced in your region.
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-Thursday: Cut down on energy use, like electricity and coal.
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-Friday: Conserve water, try to use less.
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-Saturday: Give back to the community by volunteering somehow
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-Sunday: Take an eco-sabbath without technology for a day.
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The point is not to kill yourself trying to accomplish absolutely everything, but to push yourself and observe your habits and see where there is space for making changes.
Low Impact week day one. Honestly I am not having such a hard time with Low Impact week , my parents, though are really finding effort in in this event. The reason why I am doing Low Impact week is because One event leads to another big event. Low Impact week can lead to NO Impact Month or year or a complete change altogether. I feel the more people join in this event the higher the chances are of rescuing our earth from it’s current situation. So far my family is proud not to have bought something at all today ,big steps for my mom. My mom usually asks my dad for a ride to the store in the middle of the night. She says ‘Oh, I only need to get two things’, half an hour later she comes back with two shopping carts of food in eco bags(we don’t use plastic bags). Hopefully this Low Impact week will help her break down her habits. Woah, its only mid september and I am already exited about october, with thanksgiving and halloween and school soon to be arrived. Thinking about thanksgiving we should really be giving more thanksgivings to the earth. I will be missing most of the feast this year because I am a vegetarian. I quit eating meat due to the methane that is released into the environment and adds to global warming. I had to give up my gigantic craving for bacon to help the Earth. The other holiday I mentioned is Haloween. I am extremely exited for this upcoming halloween. I am pumped to go as Mother Earth for Halloween. It sounds cheesy, but I think I will make it work with the right costume. Hey, all you need is a youtube tutorial and an imagination and your good to go. I don’t buy my halloween costumes 1. Low Impact, ofcourse 2. I like making my costumes Ta’Kaiya originals 3. Halloween is once a year why buy a walmart costume? I am also excited to start homeschool after a long break, all my school supplies this year are going to be environmentally friendly. Another thing I am excited about is Indonesia. Supurb. 
Low Impact week day three. Today was Transit day, I presume. We took Transit which is normal for us because we bus everywhere. We took the Sea-Bus and three buses,we also exersised with lots of walking and leg cramps (ouch)! Reminds me of the song the Kermit the frog sings ‘It’s not easy being green’ . Though there was an Angry Bus driver we ran into today. She was strange because bus drivers are usually in a good mood ( Actually one bus driver was fighting with a passenger, they were Arguing about jobs). My mom’s phone was malfuntioning so I was trying to fix it. Her phone makes a beeping noise every time a button is pressed, but the noise is silent. I can’t really hear it at all. The bus driver said “Please don’t do that behind my back,”she wasn’t kind about it either. My mom disagreed and told the bus driver “She isn’t playing a game”. The Bus driver then interupted my mom, she said “Yea, yea, but lady, its very distracting, “??? Ugh, I got so infuriated, but sometimes you run into people like that. 
In respect of the first day of the Carbon Cleanse I have not bought anything new
Sept. 15th. 1st Greenpeace Day in Vancouver. Greenpeace celebrates it’s 40th Anniversary. I sang for the mayor and spoke too. I met lots of people and saw my friends from environmental organizations.
Sept. 11th, 2011
In August I got to meet with Aleksandra, a director for We Canada. She has arranged for me to travel to Indonesia to attend the Tunza Internatioal Children and Youth Conference. It is a UN conference for youth about the environment. I will speak, perform and hold 2 workshops there. I can’t wait. Aleksandra has given me lots of encouragement.
On Tues, Aug. 30th I sang and spoke on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery for the Wild Salmon Warrior Rally. My cousin Drew Blaney came down from Sliammon to perform with me. I also was able to perform a song together with my friend and musician, Kalilah. That was so great. Next, I sang and spoke at the Wild Salmon Warriors evening show on Sat. Sept. 3rd.
- Me and Kalilah at Salmon Warriors Rally
August 9, 2011
“Earth is our planet, the only one we have, and we must protect it. I don’t want the planet trashed and polluted. I am from the Sliammon Nation and my culture is important to me. The Northern Gateway pipeline is proposed to go through the territories of many First Nations. The pipeline would carry Tar Sands oil, the most corrosive oil, through beautiful pristine places, destroying our culture. Our culture of which we have had for thousands of years which would be destroyed by this pipeline for the sake of money. I believe WE have a chance to turn this around before it is too late. Though it’s scary because some scientists already think it is too late.”
“You have a voice, be heard. You have a gift, share it.”
http://youtu.be/Ea1jVkN0DU0
http://youtu.be/KhOZDtSbYPo
http://youtu.be/ZuD6POtudGg
June 25th, 2011.
I first heard about the pipeline through a newspaper article in March, 2010. The reason it caught my eye is because: I had recently been studying otters at in my homeschool. I had always cared about the environment, but never did anything to save it before. Halfway through the article, which my mom was reading, I knew I had to do something about it.
This is me in my homeschool in Grade 3, when I wrote the song, “Shallow Waters.”
- Photo by Catherine Crouch, Graphic Art CD Cover by Bobby Whang
I had an idea to make a song about an oil spill, and I told my singing teacher. We write songs together. I wrote “Shallow Waters” with my singing teacher, Aileen De La Cruz. She has been my singing teacher since I was 4 years old. The song’s deadline was supposedly Earth Day, but we didn’t get the song done by then. During us writing the song, oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico.
It was sad but gave other people an idea of what the future could be like for the rest of the world. Imagine ocean water oily black, no birds no fish no whales. Just mocking silence and memories of the things we could have saved but didn’t.
Some people ask themselves, “Why should we care about the environment?”. You can ask yourselves questions like that, but, what you should be asking is “Why don’t we care about the environment?”, “Why don’t we get the message that we can’t carry crude oil in tankers anymore?”
We have been encouraging oil to be carried across the coast and what happened? Exxon Valdez, Gulf of Mexico, Great Barrier reef. I can go on all day naming places once teeming with life, now still and sad. Once we finished the song my singing teacher heard about the song writing contest. Me my mom and Aileen decided to enter our song in. It did not make it to the finals, but, “Shallow Waters” managed to get in the semi finals.
Later, we made a music video. Greenpeace donated environment tal footage. Tina House took video of me in Tofino and with the Squamish Nation Kxwu7lh Canoe Family in the Burrand Inlet.
Shallow Waters is about an oil spill and how it would affect land, the ocean, the culture, the animals. The future is at risk and all Enbridge (the company that is proposing the pipeline) can think about is profits. Enbridge is handing money in exchange. They do not understand the future cannot be sold. The future is not to be bargained. Not the future of First Nations, not the future of animals and wildlife, here before we were. It is not even Enbridge’s future they are putting at stake.
Aug.3 2011 Ta’Kaiya Blaney
Later on I decided to show it to Green Peace when it was all finished. Greenpeace called Enbridge to tell them we would be there and we went to Enbridge to deliver my letter and music DVD. They refused to let me see the office and talk to the persons in charge. Later on they said if we had called and let them know that we were coming they would’ve let us come in… I was interviewed by Global News outside of the bental building.
- Photo by Vancouver Province
The next day, the article appeared in the Vancouver Province. I was surprised at how many people watched the news because sometimes on the bus I was recognized by other people. I was also interviewed by CBC Radio in Victoria and the North Shore News.
On the day I was to deliver the speech to the Enbridge Corporation, Greenpeace emailed my music video and letter to 350 politicians. I was amazed at the feedback. Christy Clark, BC Premiere wrote me back “Your message is clear we must be concerned about the environment, we support the environmental assessment process. It is needed to ensure that the issues and concerns of the public,First Nations, interested stake holders and government agencies are considered before any decisions are made.”
Larry Bagnell MP for the Yukon and Bruce Hyer, MP from Thunder Bay, Ontario emailed me support. Pat Daniel the CEO of Enbridge corporation wrote me a long email asking me to take into account things I might not have considered he said: ” Enbridge is one of the hundred sustainable companies of the world. As a young person of my generation I will stand to benefit most from jobs, prosperity and community investment that the pipeline will bring to north British Columbia.”
But I ask, at what cost?
The Yinka Dene Alliance of 5 First Nations stopping the Enbridge pipeline invited me to speak at the annual Enbridge AGM meeting May 11 to share.
- Photos by Arnie Nagy
Some people ask me what message do kids specifically have for the environment ? Well, kids see and appreciate things that sometimes adult don’t. Adult don’t really have time, or find time to explore and discover nature the way children do. Nature is amazing for everyone especially for kids.
- Photo by Wanda Griffin
I think all kids are worried about the future and we need to let BIG corporations like Enbridge know that it is our planet and it is children that will be inheriting it. We just can’t keep digging up, intoxicating, and littering our planet. Pretty soon if we keep being careless then we will be practically living in a big garbage dump.
- Me in Bella Bella, May 2011
It is my vision to close access of the coast to tankers and pipelines, I hope to do this by speaking to youth, spreading the word, following the example as a research scientists such as David Suzuki, talking to Enbridge and learning everything I could about coastal wildlife.
I turned my research into a speech and a letter (that was the letter I wrote about earlier that was sent to 350 politicians and the CEO of Enbridge). To accomplish my vision, I am asking for the help of other youth to help. I want kids to fnd out as much as you can and help the planet and fight the pipeline. I won’t give up even if they build it.