Gateway panel urged to affirm it’s impartial
By Nathan Vanderklippe, The Globe and Mail, January 27, 2012
As the federal government prepares to make major changes to the way Canada reviews industrial projects, environmentalists are challenging the panel assessing the Northern Gateway pipeline to prove it’s not biased.
Over the past few weeks, federal ministers have carried out a high-profile dispute with environmental groups, some of which have been labelled “radicals.” Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said he is working quickly to bring forward new rules creating more rapid review processes that can’t be “hijacked” by such groups. He has warned about “foreigners” gumming up regulatory processes. The clear inference was to the Gateway review.
Now, Ecojustice, a legal group representing environmental advocates, is questioning whether that political pressure is affecting the ability of the three-person joint federal review panel to properly assess Gateway, a $6.6-billion project that would carry Alberta crude to the West Coast for export to Asia and California.
In a motion filed Friday, Ecojustice asks the panel to determine whether statements from Mr. Harper and Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, “constitute an attempt by those ministers to undermine or have had the effect of undermining the panel” in a way that would create “unfairness in the hearing process.”
Ecojustice, which filed the motion on behalf of Living Oceans Society, Rainforest Conservation Foundation and ForestEthics, urges the panel to issue a statement confirming its independence.
It also wants the panel to urge the government to butt out, asking it to request “that ministers of the Crown refrain from further public comments on the proceedings of the panel and participants in the proceedings until the panel’s proceedings are concluded.”
The motion comes as environmental groups scrutinize the panel’s work for signs of bias – although Devon Page, executive director with Ecojustice, said they have not seen evidence that the panelists have been tainted.
Indeed, the panel has gone to great lengths, in the hearings it has been conducting across western Canada, to maintain its independence, declining to reply to federal comments. In a statement Friday, panel spokeswoman Annie Roy said the panel “is an independent body” that is fulfilling its mandate to assess the project through a public process.
And though they have angered some, it does not appear that ministers commenting publicly on the Gateway process are doing anything wrong. Legal experts contacted by The Globe and Mail said it would be nearly impossible to mount a bias case based on statements from political leaders. While the joint review panel is called upon to be unbiased, federal ministers are not.
Indeed, Cabinet must eventually take a stand on the project, deciding whether to approve or deny it once the panel’s work is over.
With the Ecojustice motion, the panel has several possible options for response, said Devon Page, executive director of the legal group. It can refuse the motion, take it under advisement, or agree to consider the issues at the hearing.
Mr. Page argued that calling environmental participants in the Gateway review “radicals” has affected their appearances before the panel. That alone, he said, begs for a response.
“In the public hearings to date, people that have been invited to make comments have felt compelled to either reference the situation [with statements from Ottawa] or to distance themselves from it,” he said. “So, certainly, it already has affected the hearing process. And if the effect of that is to taint the participation, or taint their evidence, it’s appropriate for the National Energy Board to caution the outside world against interfering with their process.”
‘Radical’ federal remarks boost support for enviro groups
The Canadian Press, January 27, 2012
Tough talk from Ottawa about radical environmentalists and foreign-funded adversaries seems to be actually strengthening support for those groups under attack.
Environmental groups involved in the debate over Enbridge Inc.'s Northern Gateway oilsands pipeline to the west coast report that donations have soared in recent weeks -- especially after Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said U.S.-funded environmentalists and jet-setting celebrities are trying to hijack the regulatory hearings.
"We've seen an unprecedented surge of support," said Emma Gilchrist of the Dogwood Initiative, a B.C.-based group which has received $12,000 in unsolicited donations since Oliver's letter.
"We've got cheques that say, in the memo section, 'Thanks to Joe Oliver."'
Dogwood also got nearly 25,000 new signatures on its anti-tanker petition -- more than it got all of last year. Traffic to its Facebook site increased 10,000 per cent.
"We're quite disappointed to hear the things coming out of the federal government, but it has brought people together," Gilchrist said.
They're not alone.
The Sierra Club warned its supporters in December that it could be a target during the Conservative government's upcoming review of charitable status.
"We got 100 per cent more than we hoped for," said director John Bennett.
"We usually bring in about $40-50,000 toward the end of the year. It was around $100,000 this year."
Similarly at West Coast Environmental Law, said Jessica Clogg.
"We've seen pretty consistently that not only have our existing supporters been galvanized by the statements of the federal government, but that new individuals are coming to our organization and indicating their support," she said.
"We have received close to $10,000 in donations that appear directly linked to the current controversy since Jan. 2."
ForestEthics, the subject of controversy earlier this week when a former employee quoted a second-hand report that a Harper official called the group an enemy of the government, put out an appeal Wednesday. Donations started coming in almost right away, said spokeswoman Valerie Langer.
"It's not just that people are really concerned about climate and toxics," she said. "They're also furious about the federal government trying to limit our freedom to participate in major policy discussions."
The David Suzuki Foundation and Ecojustice also report modest increases in donations since the new year.
And the environmental think-tank The Pembina Institute has seen the rate of new subscribers to its electronic newsletter triple since January.
"There's a real appetite among Canadians who listen to these allegations for reliable information," said director Ed Whittingham. "They're turning to us."
Controversy appears to be good for fundraising and it works both ways. When Chiquita Brands announced in December it would avoid the use of oilsands-derived fuel in its transportation fleet, Ethical Oil spokeswoman Kathryn Marshall said she was "flooded" with donations and messages of support.
U.S. data suggests that environmental organizations raise more money when Republicans are in the White House, said George Hoberg, a University of British Columbia political scientist who's studied such issues for years.
"I'm not surprised the Joe Oliver remarks have created a strong backlash," he said. "What it's done is it has politicized moderates on energy and environment issues.
"The Harper government strategy with regard to environmental groups has unfortunately dramatically increased the polarization of energy politics in Canada. The Canada characterized by compromise is not Harper's Canada."
Pipeline itself not the only problem we should worry about
By Mark Jaccard, Vancouver Sun, January 26, 2012
As a sustainable energy researcher, I have been inundated with media requests to comment on the pro-posed new pipelines from Alberta's tar-sands, especially Enbridge's Northern Gateway here in British Columbia. I have mostly declined, assuming that with such intense public interest the key issues would get a full airing. But I was wrong - for no one is discussing the proverbial "elephant in the room." This is the connection between tarsands expansion and Prime Minister Stephen Harper's 2007 promise to Canadians to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions 65 per cent by 2050.
Harper's promise, recently recon-firmed, simply reflects the overwhelming scientific consensus that while any increase in average global temperatures from pre-industrial levels is dangerous, increases above 2 degrees Celsius will likely have cataclysmic effects for the ecosystems on which we depend. Yet human combustion of fossil fuels has already driven the temperature 1.2 degrees higher, and we are on a path of 4 degrees or more in this century alone, which will ultimately increase the sea level by tens of metres. This is why leaders of industrialized countries, like the U.S. and European Union, agreed to reduce emissions 80 per cent by 2050 and will work to require global emissions to start declining this decade.
A target 38 years hence might seem safely distant. But this is incorrect. All leading independent climate policy institutes concur that only with immediate action will we achieve a 65-80 per cent reduction in less than four decades. In the case of vehicles, this means the rapid deployment of near-zero-emission technologies which, thankfully, are already commercially available. These include hybrid vehicles using biofuels (ethanol or biodiesel), plug-in hybrid vehicles, and battery-electric vehicles. In contrast, our demand, and soon the global demand, for oil must contract, especially the demand for high-cost, high-emission tarsands.
Thus, for his promise not to be a lie, Harper cannot allow expansion of tarsands and associated pipelines, and he must require a growing market share of near-zero-emission vehicles. He knows this because his analysts are privy to the work of the world's leading researchers. Canadians on all sides of the issue should read a 20-page report from MIT's Joint Pro-gram on the Science and Policy of Global Change entitled Canada's Bitumen Industry Under CO2 Constraints (found at http: //globalchange.mit. edu). The report shows how and why the Canadian tarsands must contract as part of a global effort to prevent a 4 degree increase in temperatures and catastrophic climate change.
Why, then, would anyone argue for tarsands expansion and pipelines like Gateway? The reasons are obvious, as writers have known through the ages.
People who stand to get rich from tarsands development will delude themselves and try to delude others that the climate science is faulty or uncertain. As Upton Sinclair wrote, "it is hard to get a man to understand something when his income depends on his not understanding it." And those who stand to gain from the tar-sands indirectly (like politicians) will distract people from the obvious connection between tarsands expansion and climate catastrophe. "Tarsands are a small part of the problem."
"What about the Chinese?" "The tar-sands will inevitably be developed." "Low-emission vehicles and fuels are not ready yet." And so on - all of it bogus. As H. L. Mencken wrote, "the truth that survives is simply the lie that is pleasantest to believe."
The oft-heard argument that B.C. needs the jobs and tax revenue is particularly galling. This is like arguing we need jobs making a toxin or nuclear weapons. We are not helping ourselves and our children by creating jobs that spew CO2 into the atmosphere. We are already creating jobs that propel our vehicles without CO2 emissions, and we can do so much more.
And where is the logic in the almost-complete focus on pipeline or oil tanker spills by environmentalists and first nations? If Enbridge is able to convince the hearing panel that these local threats are acceptable, then the project goes ahead. But since climate change will devastate all of the ecosystems potentially affected by the project, efforts to prevent local damage from spills are fruitless if they are not part of a concerted effort to stop CO2 emissions. Otherwise, it's like trying to prevent a fuel leak on the Titanic as it steams toward the iceberg. We need to turn the ship.
The facts are simple. Our political leaders are lying to us if they aid and abet the expansion of tarsands while promising to take action to prevent the imminent climate catastrophe. If you love this planet and your children, and are humble and objective in considering the findings of science, you have no choice but to battle hard to stop Gateway and other tarsands pipelines. It is time to face up to this challenge with honesty and courage.
Mark Jaccard is a professor at Simon Fraser University and lead author for sustainable energy policy in the upcoming Global Energy Assessment.
Federal documents spark outcry by oil sands critics
By Nathan Vanderklippe, The Globe and Mail, January 26, 2012
Critics are attacking Ottawa’s energy strategy after internal documents shed new light on the extent of federal efforts to advocate for the oil sands industry.
The documents, obtained through an access to information request and released by Greenpeace Canada, are a draft diplomatic strategy outlining ways to shape European perceptions of Canada’s oil sands. They show that the government’s messages are intended to shift attitudes in media and among top decision makers regarding the oil sands industry, which faces a possible effective import ban in Europe as the continent pursues a low-carbon fuel strategy.
In the document, environmental organizations and aboriginal groups are shown as “adversaries.” Industry associations, energy companies and the National Energy Board – which is supposed to serve as an independent body evaluating new projects – are listed as “allies.”
Critics say the documents raise questions about the government’s ability to fairly regulate new energy projects, and its increasing embrace of the country’s energy industry. Ministers have publicly tussled with environmental groups and made clear their friendly attitude toward Corporate Canada.
Government officials quickly moved to play down the significance of the documents. A spokesman for International Trade Minister Ed Fast said “we do not agree with the characterizations” of the documents, and Environment Minister Peter Kent called them “a gross mischaracterization of reality.”
On Thursday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper reiterated his support for oil expansion at the Davos World Economic Forum, calling it a “national priority to ensure we have the capacity to export our energy products beyond the United States and specifically to Asia.”
Also Thursday, Mr. Kent, in an address to a Calgary Chamber of Commerce audience packed with some of the top oil patch executives, described the new relationship between industry and his ministry, which plays an important role in regulating new projects.
“Environment Canada is a strategic partner to everyone in this room – everyone who does business in Calgary, everyone who does business in Alberta, everyone who does business in Canada,” he said.
“I’m not here to kill your buzz,” he said, adding that “we’ve reviewed and renewed our approach as a government department” to focus on efficiency and expediency – both inside the department, and in its focus on allowing industry to create jobs and investment.
Although he said “we are still environmental regulators,” he highlighted Environment Canada’s efforts at streamlining regulations as “the equivalent of installing bright lights around a rocky path to make progress safer and swifter.”
Those statements raised eyebrows among those who say the duty of Canadian regulators is not to advocate on behalf of one party.
Environment Canada’s duties do include partnering with industry, in the sense that it must call on companies to achieve better performance. But “the focus of regulation has to be on public interest, not on the interest of one particular stakeholder group – including industry,” said Jack Mintz, the director of the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy who also sits on the board of Imperial Oil Ltd.
Environmental advocates say Ottawa has begun to shift the definition of what is good for the country.
“The Harper government is now making explicit that they define protecting the public interest as protecting the interests of the oil industry,” said Devon Page, executive director of Ecojustice, a legal defence group that works with environmental organizations. “This is consistent with a shift that we’ve seen at Environment Canada ever since Harper came into power, and it’s the shift from being a steward of the natural environment to being a partner with industry.”
Such a policy – and the provocative language the government has used to further it, including labelling some environmental groups “radicals” – could have longer-term consequences, said Warren Mabee, director of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy at Queen’s University.
He pointed to the development of the national energy program, and the Trudeau government’s provocative language toward Alberta as it worked to set that into place. That, he argued, helped set in motion the western Reform movement. Ottawa’s current battle against environmental groups could also create long-term unintended consequences, he warned.
And, Mr. Mabee added, this country’s battles over cutting old-growth forest – which led to international consumer rejection of Canadian products – should serve as a cautionary tale.
“By favouring one outcome over another, government runs the risk of creating the impression of manipulating the process. And that will just backfire, I think, in terms of market acceptance of the product.”
Joint review panel hearing arrives in Burns Lake
By Rebecca Billard, Burns Lake District News, January 25, 2012
The three person National Energy Board Joint Review Panel, that is holding hearings into the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline project arrived in Burns Lake last week.
Twenty-two local intervenors registered to provide oral evidence at the meeting, which started at 1 p.m. and wrapped up at 8:48 p.m. at the Island Gospel Church.
It was estimated by the National Energy Board that 200 people attended the Burns Lake meeting.
Registered speakers were from Lake Babine Nation, the Office of the Wet'suwet'sen, the Ned'u'ten Nation and the Metis Nation of B.C.
Hereditary Chiefs from Wet'suwet'en First Nation and Lake Babine Nation opened the proceedings with drumming and dancing, as well as a rattle cry. They chanted, "We live off the land, our territory is our livelihood .... a connection of land and animals ... Enbridge, don't step on our land ... out territory is our livelihood."
Lake Babine Nation Hereditary Chief Frank Alec said to the Joint Review Panel; Sheila Leggett Kenneth Bateman and Hans Matthews, that the rattle cry signifies the start of the serious business of talking straight and talking in an appropriate manner.
He said, "Along with the rattle cry, is the feather. The plume, when it rises means whatever that has been spoken about, that whatever is mentioned, needs to be listened to. The feather is very sacred to us when it rises. We're doing this here because this is serious business. This has to do with the livelihood of everybody, Natives and non-Natives alike. That's the way we look at it."
Leggett, who is the panel chair, explained the process the hearings would take. She said, "The purpose for the panel being here is to gather traditional oral evidence. We are here to gather the oral traditional knowledge. That’s the information that we’re after at this point."
She said registered speakers should not voice their opinions on the outcome of the proposed pipeline or advise the panel to make a decision about the project one way or the other.
"Your opportunity to tell us your thoughts about the decisions that this panel will need to ultimately make will occur later in the process."
The Joint Review process includes two sets of hearings. The community hearings where registered intervenors can provide evidence to the panel orally, followed by the final hearings in which Northern Gateway and other registered intervenors can be asked questions about their evidence and provide their final arguments to the panel.
Wet'suwet'en Hereditary Chief Moricetown Madeek [Jeff Brown] was first in line to present his traditional oral evidence. He spoke about the history of his father working on grease trails in the Morice River area. He said his father was also a packer, transporting furs across the territory.
He said it is this territory that is going to be directly impacted should the pipeline be allowed to go through.
"One of the things that really bothers me is our government and how it's run. At this point, Prime Minister Stephen Harper knows exactly how First Nations people feel about having a carrot dangled in front of them by the oil people. They [the government] don't know how to manage their land and their people. And that's what we know how to do because of our protocols on the potlatch system. We look after each and every one of our members. They are not going to go suffering or go hungry. They're always going to be fed. They're always going to have good medicines. They're always going to have the best care because of the fact that we know how to look after them," he said.
Hereditary Chief Alec showed the panel a timber wolf hide, a pine marten hide and dried salmon and said, "I'm a trapper and I'm here to tell you that I still exist out there. I am in proximity of where this development is going to be happening. In our cultural practices, we always alternate our traditional trapping, hunting. So being some kilometres away from the pipeline does not mean that it will not impact me. It will impact me and that is the reason why I took the time to come here and have a say into this process," he said.
Ron Austin, Henry Alfred, John Ridsdale, Andrew Tom, Walter Joseph, Mike Ridsdale and David Dewit from the Office of the Wet'suwet'en also presented their oral submissions.
Eleven speakers from Lake Babine Nation followed. Lake Babine Nation Chief Wilf Adam said to the panel, "The Lake Babine Nation's territory is 1,267,277 hectares, or 12,672 square kilometres. If you put that into perspective, it's twice the size of Prince Edward Island. The proposed pipeline will go through the Eastern portions of our territory. Any accidents will impact the wildlife and the resources that we rely upon in this area. Accidents will also impact the migratory birds because, in the Eastern portion it’s the Sutherland Estuary, that’s where the geese, the swans and the ducks migrate. The plume that we used this morning [during Hereditary Chief Alec's submission] comes from that area. Any accident will surely affect our precious salmon and freshwater resources, resources that are critical to our culture and economy."
Lake Babine Nation's Frank Michell, Alec Michell, Louise Lacerte, John Bertacco, Verna Power, Millie Alec-George, John West, Melvin Joseph, Grace George and Robbie Reid also made oral submissions to the panel.
Kristen Higgens, communications officer from the National Energy Board explained the reason why the hearings were not advertised.
She said, "A decision was made to not advertise since these hearings were predominately for hearing oral evidence and those intervenors had all been contacted directly about the date. A decision on whether or not to advertise for oral statement hearings has not been determined at this time. The hearings are all open to the public and anyone can attend and watch the proceedings. People can also listen to the audio broadcast of the hearings."
The hearings are set to continue until July 2012. During September and October 2012, the panel will hold the final hearings where intervenors, government participants and the panel will question those that have already presented oral or written evidence.
From November 2012 to March 2013, the panel will hear the oral statements from registered participants who do not live along the proposed pipeline route. Then in April 2013 the panel will hear final arguments from Enbridge Northern Gateway and they anticipate releasing the Environmental Assessment of the proposed project in the fall of 2013.
Complete transcripts of the Joint Review Panel hearings can be viewed at www.gatewaypanel.review-examen.gc.ca.
Crack in the Northern Gateway pipe dream ‘Foreigners’ are not the project’s only obstacle
By Nancy Macdonald, MacLean's Magazine, January 20, 2012
The business case for Enbridge’s $5.5-billion, twinned Northern Gateway pipeline, which would send Canadian crude bound for Asia to the B.C. coast, seems sound: the project could inject $270 billion into Canada’s GDP while fetching $10 more per barrel than the oil gets when transported south, to the country’s current, lone oil customer. But politics, it became clear as an environmental review launched last week in Kitimat, B.C., may yet derail the pipeline dream—its importance to the country’s financial future notwithstanding.
Ottawa’s smoke-and-mirrors strategy of bashing the project’s foreign critics, which was timed to the hearing’s launch on B.C.’s soggy, northwest coast, allows Canadian politicians to avoid pointing fingers at what really stands in their way: British Columbia First Nations, empowered by a decade and a half of legal victories that have granted them a significant say over land in their traditional territories. The powerful Wet’suwet’en, who vigorously fought a land claim over 13 years, culminating in 1997’s landmark Delgamuukw ruling establishing the existence of Aboriginal title in B.C., are among dozens of bands that oppose the project, and call its proposed, 1,176-km route home. “It’s going to get ugly,” says Terry Teegee, vice-tribal chief of the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council. “Battle lines have been drawn.”
Legally, experts say, B.C. bands have more clout than those outside the province, thanks partly to an accident of history. Few entered treaties with the Crown, unlike First Nations elsewhere in the country; and since they never signed away title, courts now require their input when resources are extracted from their traditional lands.
Look no further than 2007’s Tsilhqot’in ruling to understand what that means, even for projects the government considers fiscally necessary. The B.C. Supreme Court found the First Nation had proved title over 2,000 sq. km of valuable real estate northeast of Vancouver, stopping just short of granting it full ownership. That ruling put a stop, in the short term, to clear-cut logging plans, since they would interfere with the band’s trapping rights.
The decision’s longer-term impacts surfaced last year. Years ago, Taseko Mines Ltd., a mining firm based in Vancouver, applied to develop one of the country’s largest copper-gold deposits near Williams Lake, in B.C.’s struggling central interior. The proposed $3-billion mine, however, required the draining of Fish Lake, which the Tsilhqot’in consider sacred. Although B.C. approved the massive project, which received the backing of two premiers and promised tens of thousands of new jobs, Ottawa, in November 2010, rejected it because it would impact the Tsilhqot’in, and fish stocks. Legally, the government didn’t have much of a choice.
Contrast this with economic development in B.C.’s Treaty 8 area: one of the few corners of the province under treaty. The region, east of the Rockies, is crisscrossed with oil and natural gas pipelines, and has a 20-year history with the industry.
Given the pipeline’s entire proposed route is across untreatied land, and how disruptive and potentially harmful the Northern Gateway project portends to be, this battle, even if it receives the environmental okay, will inevitably be fought all the way to the Supreme Court, taking years to resolve, says Carleton University’s Rodney Nelson. Indeed, chiefs representing more than 20 First Nations contacted by Maclean’s acknowledge they’re planning to file suit if the project is allowed to proceed.
Litigating a multi-year court fight would be extraordinarily costly, but several front-line environmental opponents said their organizations and private donors are being lined up to help fund potential suits on behalf of First Nations. Direct action is also in the works. Supporters, along with “little, old grannies” from Aboriginal communities across the province have volunteered to be arrested, according to the Wilderness Committee’s Ben West; plans to erect traditional longhouses along the length of the proposed route are being readied. Clearly, B.C., which saw a grassroots uprising overturn the harmonized sales tax a year ago, is gearing up for its biggest environmental battle, an international cause célèbre that would make 1993’s epic fight for Clayoquot Sound look like child’s play.
This time, opponents say, the stakes are even higher. “One spill,” says Art Sterritt, executive director of the Coastal First Nations, “would spell the end of life as we know it in the Great Bear Rainforest,” a wild, misty stretch of jagged inlets and moss-cloaked trees, rich with whales and wolves, running 400 km along B.C.’s coast to the Alaska border.
But a larger stakeholder than even the several thousand natives living in its path has yet to weigh in: Victoria. Perhaps the only question more complex than the legality of the megaproject is the tangled domestic political equation facing B.C.’s pro-development, pro-business, Liberal government. What seems an uncontroversial decision to Alberta, which stands to gain almost all the pipeline’s rich rewards, is tricky for B.C., which is being asked to swallow most of the risk—a tanker spill or burst pipe.
Premier Christy Clark, who is legally bound to go to the polls by next year, has yet to take a public stance. “We have to get the facts out on the table,” she said last week, claiming not to want to “prejudge the outcome” of the ongoing review. With three-quarters of British Columbians opposing oil tankers on the coast, it would seem a pretty safe place to ride out what promises to be a bruising debate.
Except Clark’s Liberals rely on a fractious alliance of federal Liberals and Tories. The coalition faces a surging Conservative party on the right, its greatest threat since the ’90s, when the so-called free enterprise alliance collapsed, paving the way for an NDP rout.
Happily benefiting from Clark’s absence, for now, is Conservative party leader John Cummins. The former Tory MP is heading up the pipeline’s local support squad, helping him pick off Liberal votes in hard-fought rural ridings where even a few hundred Tory ballots could tip the balance in favour of the Opposition NDP.
Liberals are “frankly terrified of Cummins,” says Simon Fraser University’s Royce Koop; the Conservative party has been polling at 20 per cent since he took over six months ago, up from single digits, where it languished throughout the past decade.
The right-wing bickering plays nicely into the hands of the NDP and its popular new leader, Adrian Dix, says University of British Columbia political scientist Michael Byers. The party, which opposes the pipeline, sits at 40 per cent in the polls, ahead of the Liberals at 31 per cent.
The Liberals took the last election by neutralizing the NDP; in implementing a carbon tax, they earned the support even of Greens like David Suzuki. This time around, the NDP, which is already putting out slick, direct mailers pairing images of rusty, hulking tankers with pristine coastline, is making sure the Green vote remains with New Democrats.
For now, Clark, seeking a rare, fourth term for the Liberals, is working on strengthening her position, without coming off the Gateway fence. In the last week, she named long-time Alberta Tory strategist Ken Boessenkool her new chief of staff, and announced a social conservative with deep Reform-Tory roots will contest a Fraser Valley by-election. She punctuated that right shift by bringing Stephen Harper to her son Hamish’s atom hockey game, highlighting their growing comfort.
Two days later, on CBC’s The House, Clark deviated from her carefully neutral Northern Gateway path, attacking the project’s critics as “foreign groups, coming in and meddling in our politics.”
The reality is that even as Harper suggests Canada is on the cusp of a boom, regional politics and Aboriginal opposition could mean he will be an old man before the pipeline proceeds. Consider the endless debates over the Mackenzie Valley pipeline through the Northwest Territories. There, too, the federal government was pushing hard for development, notes Byers, promising vast riches, if only Canada could get its gas to the international market. There, too, the greatest impediment was Aboriginal rights. Laws governing those rights have grown more, not less, complex since the ’70s. That pipeline never got built. It’s far from certain the Northern Gateway pipeline ever will, either.
Government should butt out of hearings
By Barbara Yaffe, Vancouver Sun, January 19, 2012
Disparaging remarks about concerns over environment undermine objectivity of the process
The Conservative government overplayed its hand last week in launching an aggressive pre-emptive strike against those opposing Enbridge's Northern Gateway pipeline.
All that Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver's over-the-top attack achieved was to create an atmosphere of sympathy for those justifiably concerned about potential damage to B.C.'s coveted wilderness areas.
Former tree planter Ingmar Lee, an environmental activist unaffiliated with any organized group, was frustrated by Oliver's condemnation of environmentalists. "After all these years," he blogged this week, "I've never made a single buck out of environmental work, and for all my efforts, I'm not famous either."
Lee says he just happens to be partial to old-growth forests, sandhill cranes, wild salmon and whales. And, accordingly, has signed up to speak at ongoing formal hearings into Enbridge's Northern Gateway project.
So have several community groups in Smithers who this week purchased ads and wore blue scarves to register indignation at being dismissed by Oliver as radicals, influenced by foreign elements.
Members of the Friends of Morice-Bulkley and Douglas Channel Watch jointly issued a news release stating that their objective is to protect "salmon watersheds and the pristine north coast, as well as associated, cultures, lifestyles and livelihoods."
"We're a bunch of locals, not typically involved," asserted retired biologist Dawn Remington.
"I would hardly call myself a radical," said Dave Shan-non, a retired Alcan engineer. "Citizens are concerned about the overwhelming risk of this pipeline. Forces of nature and human error are capable of destroying even the best engineered designs."
It is the basic common sense of such statements that has put the Harper Conservatives on the defensive. By Wednesday, Oliver was backtracking, telling CBC the government does not necessarily favour the Enbridge project; it just wants Canada to have a way to export oil beyond the U.S.
Oliver's remark Jan. 8, made in an open letter - "environ-mental and other radical groups . threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda" - invited obvious counterclaims from environmental groups who quickly pointed out that many of the oil companies pushing for the $5.5-billion project are foreign-owned.
It also opened the door for opponents to note that Canada, as a foreign interest, did not hesitate to stick its nose into U.S. hearings last year involving the Keystone XL pipeline project, again rejected Wednesday by the U.S. president.
There's no question, pipelines pose risk to the environment and there's a need to safeguard the environmentally sensitive route Northern Gateway will take.
Also, no question it's economically crucial for Canada to install infrastructure to enable the country to ship crude to Asian markets.
But, as in all things, a compromise must be struck between these two objectives.
Without pressure from environmentalists, the only interest that would be served would be economic.
Anyone who looks at a map would immediately wonder whether Enbridge's choice of Kitimat as a port for oil tankers, while perhaps most economic, is environmentally sound.
Kitimat is deep inland, in the vicinity of the Great Bear Rain-forest. A tanker port located there would pose an obvious challenge for ships navigating the hundreds of kilometres of channels and tributaries to reach open sea - all in the vicinity of a hugely fragile ecosystem.
It can only be hoped that the three-member panel presiding over the government hearings will be objective enough to pronounce on this issue once it concludes its deliberations in 2013.
Conservatives, with their pro-pipeline rhetoric, are not making it easy for the government-appointed panelists to appear objective.
The pipeline and tanker port, being so controversial, are sure to face obstacles in the construction phase.
It's thus crucial that, before a construction phase begins, public concerns about the project are seen to be fully considered and that various competing interests are reconciled to the greatest extent possible.
To that end, during the hearing phase, the governing Conservatives should butt out.
B.C. First Nation rescinds earlier support for Northern Gateway dea
Vancouver Sun, January 18, 2012
OTTAWA - An agreement struck by Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. last month, which was supposed to prove to Canadians that there is aboriginal support for the $5.5 billion Northern Gateway pipeline, has officially collapsed, the company confirmed Wednesday.
Gitxsan hereditary chiefs voted at a meeting in Hagwilget Tuesday evening to reject the deal that would have given the First Nation $7 million in profits over 30 years.
Negotiator Elmer Derrick, who struck the deal with Enbridge, spoke at the meeting that was attended by about 125 Gitxsan members, according to the northern B.C. radio station CJFW-FM.
Chiefs voted by a 28-8 margin to reject the deal, according to the report.
"Enbridge has learned that the Gitxsan Hereditary Chiefs have reconsidered their prior endorsement of Gitxsan participation as equity partners in our project," Enbridge spokesman Paul Stanway said in a statement.
"While we are disappointed at this shift in stance in relation to our 2009 protocol agreement with the Nation and in relation to 2011 meetings with Hereditary representatives, we respect this decision.
"We look forward to receiving written communication from the Gitxsan Hereditary chiefs, so that we have greater clarity in relation to their current perspectives. And we will continue to engage with the Gitxsan Nation in relation to the project.
"In the meantime, we will also continue to work and engage with corridor First Nations groups, including the more than 20 groups who in recent weeks have fully executed and endorsed equity participation agreements deals with Enbridge."
Gitxsan chiefs who blockaded the First Nation's treaty office in Hazelton say they want a written confirmation the agreement has no longer in effect before the blockade will end, according to the radio report.
Enbridge Inc. chief executive Pat Daniel said last month the agreement was the first of many equity-sharing deals to be announced with First Nations along the pipeline route from the Alberta oilsands to Kitimat.
"This now makes it obvious to the public and to others that we do have support, and we hope that that momentum will build from here," Daniel told The Vancouver Sun.
Daniel boldly predicted in the interview that at least 30 of the 45 First Nations along the 1,170-kilometre pipeline route would have struck deals by June.
However, Derrick has so far been the only First Nation chief to publicly reveal that an agreement has been struck, and that announcement triggered an angry backlash from within his community.
‘Radical’ environmental groups fighting back
By Gordon Hoekstra, Vancouver Sun, January 17, 2012
Northern B.C.-based environmental groups opposed to Enbridge's proposed $5.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline are fighting a "radical environmentalist" label pinned on them by the federal government.
A coalition of northern B.C. groups ran an ad in a Smithers newspaper just before a federal review panel held hearings in the community Monday.
The review, expected to last 18 months, will determine whether the project is environmentally safe and in the public interest.
The ad shows the faces of more than 100 northern British Columbians and asks: "The Harper Government and 'Ethical Oil' call these people radicals.... Seriously?"
The coalition - under the umbrella of Friends of Wild Salmon - plans to run similar ads in other northwest B.C. communities.
The people in the ad include doctors, farmers, loggers, fisherman and business people, said Pat Moss, a spokeswoman for Friends of Wild Salmon.
"They are not the usual suspects when people think of environmentalists," said Moss.
She said Friends of Wild Salmon is not a charitable group and money was donated for the ad campaign from individuals in the region and other areas of B.C.
The first ad cost about $800.
The ad campaign is a direct response to federal Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver's recent characterization that radical environmental groups are trying to block Canada's opportunity to diversify trade in oil to Asia by hijacking the regulatory review of Northern Gateway.
Some environmental groups, such as the B.C.-based Dogwood Initiative, helped sign up 1,600 of the more than 4,000 people who will have an opportunity to give a 10-minute oral statement during the review.
And the group EthicalOil. org - started by conservative political activist and author Ezra Levant - earlier this month launched a series of ads in weekly northern B.C. newspapers and on radio attacking environmental groups opposed to Northern Gateway of taking money from U.S. foreign interests.
Dawn Remington, a retired fisheries biologist from Smithers, dismisses the idea she is a radical environmentalist.
The group she is a member of, Friends of Morice-Bulkley, does not take money from foreign interests, she said.
"We're a bunch of locals not typically involved," said Remington of her group, which is part of the Friends of Wild Salmon coalition.
"When we heard the news of a major pipeline going through our watershed it set off alarm bells," she said.
The Morice-Bulkley group has about 10 core volunteers and an email list of 250. It has received a $5,000 grant from the Smithers-based Driftwood Foundation, said Remington. (The Driftwood Foundation takes donations locally and from other sources, including Americans, say foundation officials).
The Morice and Bulkley are two of the rivers in northern B.C. along the 1,172-kilometre pipeline route.
EthicalOil.org has not disclosed where it gets its funding, or whether it has received funding from Enbridge or other oil companies.
Northern British Columbia Communities Respond to Minister Oliver’s “Radical” Dismissal
Douglas Channel Watch and Friends of Morice-Bulkley, January 16, 2012
New ads and blue scarves show pipeline opposition is a grassroots movement.
SMITHERS, BRITISH COLUMBIA (January 16, 2012) - As hearings into the proposed Enbridge Gateway pipeline move to Smithers this week, local community groups are buying ads and donning blue scarves to express their indignation at being dismissed as “radicals” by the Natural Resources Minister last week.
The groups want to reinforce that their opposition has nothing to do with so-called “foreign interference” and everything to do with protecting salmon watersheds and the pristine north coast, as well as associated, cultures, lifestyles and livelihoods.
“I would hardly call myself a ‘radical’,” said Dave Shannon, retired engineer from Alcan and member of Douglas Channel Watch. “Citizens are concerned about the overwhelming risk of this pipeline. Forces of nature and human error are capable of destroying even the best engineered designs.”
Friends of Morice Bulkley, Douglas Channel Watch and several other community-based groups are registered as interveners for the Joint Review Panel. The groups have been highlighting risks to wild salmon, such as landslides and avalanches, which have sheared and ruptured natural gas pipelines in the past.
“We’re a bunch of locals not typically involved. This pipeline would be a permanent risk to our salmon and our rivers,” says retired biologist Dawn Remington, of Friends of Morice-Bulkley in Smithers. “When we discovered the proposed pipeline would go through the headwaters of our river, it set off alarm bells".
The project would cross Canada’s two largest salmon producing rivers, risking multi-million dollar commercial and sport fisheries. Constitutionally-protected First Nations food fisheries would also be threatened.
See attached ad and photos of the scarves that are multiplying in the North.
Contact Information:
Dave Shannon, Douglas Channel Watch, 250-615-7639
Dawn Remington, Friends of Morice-Bulkley, (t) 250-847-3836 (c)778-210-0252
B.C. coast is hostile country for oil, pipeline panel told
By Nathan Vanderklippe, Globe and Mail, January 12, 2012
When the sun shines, it brings to life a stunning vista of snow-capped mountains and deep ocean inlets that surround the northern British Columbia town of Kitimat.
But in a place that could one day serve as a nexus for sending Canadian oil-sands crude to Asia and California, the imposing scenery is often matched by savage winds, earthquakes, avalanches and deluges of precipitation that set loose rock and mud slides.
It is not a simple place to put the terminus of a pipeline – a point that opponents of the Northern Gateway project sought to bring home on Wednesday before a federal review panel seeking public input in hearings that began this week in northern B.C.
Amid the raucous debate inspired by Northern Gateway, which has drawn the ire of some first nations and environmental groups, the forbidding geography of northern British Columbia stands to pose enough risks that the pipeline and tanker plan should be reconsidered.
“It is dangerous, to say the very least,” said Dieter Wagner, an avid sailor. Prior problems, he added, “should convince any reasonable person that this is an insane route to take.”
Those who spoke at the hearings on Wednesday drew on decades of experience in the area to question how a pipeline, and the supertankers it would fill, could operate safely in such severe conditions.
Heavy snow often blankets the area. The Canadian snowfall record was set in Premier, B.C.: 146 centimetres – nearly five feet – in 24 hours. Premier is in the same climatic zone as Kitimat, where locals have seen as much as 120 centimetres fall in a day. Residents asked how Enbridge, the project’s builder, would get to a pipeline leak buried under all that snow.
Of equal concern was the stability of the ground. Part of the pipeline’s final route into Kitimat would pass through an area with clay soil that has been known to trigger major landslides. In 1962, a slide took out 600 metres of the highway to Kitimat and left bulldozer-swallowing fissures, some four metres wide and 10 metres deep. Earthquakes occasionally trigger submarine landslides that set off local tsunamis.
The marine environment at the surface can be equally brutal. Some tankers would traverse Hecate Strait, which Environment Canada ranks as the fourth most dangerous body of water in the world. Waves in South Hecate Strait have reached 26 metres – the height of a seven-storey building.
“The storms here are so continual and so severe that it’s a recipe for disaster,” said Murray Minchin, a Canada Post delivery worker in Kitimat who is a kayaker and landscape photographer.
Tankers would travel through narrow rock-lined narrow passages where several major vessels have foundered – including the B.C. ferry Queen of the North.
However, weather is gentler in those tight passages – and even in South Hecate Strait, waves greater than six metres are seen only about 2 per cent of the time. And as bad as the weather is on the West Coast, it is not Canada’s worst. The wind and waves are even stronger on Newfoundland’s Grand Banks, an area that has already seen the construction of massive oil infrastructure. It’s where numerous oil platforms, including Hibernia, are situated.
Enbridge has pledged tugboat support of oil tankers, and committed to installing additional weather and navigational aids to ensure their safe travel. The company has said the passages, while narrow, are far larger than what is required by law. It has also planned extraordinary measures to seek safe ground: The twin Gateway pipelines would pass through a mountain tunnel created to shield the pipe in the most landslide-prone areas.
First Nation says Enbridge pipeline spill would devastate its way of life
Vancouver Sun, January 11, 2012
KITAMAAT VILLAGE — A lengthy federal review into Enbridge's proposed $5.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline began Tuesday with the Haisla warning a three-member panel that an oil spill would devastate their way of life.
The community of about 700, with its well-kept houses and a small marina of ocean-going boats, is located on Douglas Channel, sheltered by rocky cliffs and snowy, treed slopes of the Coastal Mountains.
An oil spill would devastate the wealth of food they rely on from the ocean, including salmon, halibut, cod, clams, crabs and shrimp, said the Haisla.
Chiefs told the panel the community is facing a "double-barrelled" threat from an oil spill on the ocean and a spill on the Kitimat River, which empties into the Douglas Channel just north of their village.
"It just terrifies me to know we are facing more destruction," said hereditary Chief Kenneth Hall, one of six chiefs and elders who spoke before the panel slated to run until the spring of 2013.
Chiefs said the marine and river habitat had already been compromised by existing industrial development, including pollution from Rio Tinto Alcan's aluminum smelter.
Hereditary Chief Sam Robinson, 78, said they had lived in their village for as much as 2,000 years, pointing to rocks with special meanings, rock carvings and rock paintings that demonstrated their history in the rugged coastal area.
One of those rocks, which looked like a person, was used to teach young people to not run away when threatened. If you ran away, you would turn into a rock, Robinson told the panel.
He said the Haisla — who had been taken advantage of when they were pushed onto reserves — will not run away. "We will not be walked over again," said Robinson, speaking to the panel but also to an audience of about 300 packed into the gym of the Haisla Recreation Centre.
Before the panel session started, the Haisla welcomed the joint panel of the National Energy Board and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency with traditional drumming and songs.
The dancers and drummers were dressed in rich traditional regalia of red-and-black button blankets, and some wore carved wooden head dresses representing the clans of eagle, beaver and killer whale.
In an interview, Robinson said some in the community wanted a song of protest, but they instead chose a song of welcome.
But Robinson warned that even though the Haisla are a welcoming and peaceful people, they are willing to fight Northern Gateway, including using court action.
The panel is determining whether the 1,172-kilometre twin pipeline between the Alberta oilsands and Kitimat can be built and operated safely, and if the project is in the public interest. The panel's scrutiny includes tanker traffic. The westbound pipeline would carry bitumen to ocean tankers to carry the oil product to Asian markets; the eastbound pipeline would carry natural gas condensate.
Several months of community hearings will be heard in northern B.C. and Alberta, before technical hearings begin in the fall.
A panel decision is expected at the end of 2013, after which the federal government will have a final say on the project.
"We are here to listen," said Sheila Leggett, chair of the federal panel.
Enbridge executives, including John Carruthers, president of the Northern Gateway project, attended the opening panel session.
Enbridge spokesman Paul Stanway said they were in listening mode until they have an opportunity to explain their project during the technical hearings in the fall.
The Calgary-based company has said they believe the project can be built and operated safely, and that spill risks, which are small, can be managed.
"There's a lot of British Columbians that have not made up their minds about the project," said Stanway. "This is an opportunity to put information before them."
Other first nation representatives came to the opening panel session to support the Haisla in their opposition to Northern Gateway.
Harvey Humchitt, a hereditary chief of the Heiltsuk First Nation, said he was also there to prepare for a similar community panel session in Bella Bella in early February.
He said he wasn't sure if the panel would listen to first nations. "I guess we'll have to wait and see," he said.
Coastal First Nations executive director Art Sterritt said he is concerned the federal government is interfering with the Northern Gateway review.
He was referring to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver's criticism that environmental groups had hijacked the review process.
"They are trying to bully B.C. [residents] and trying to bully this panel," said Sterritt.
Kitimat resident Mike Bagg also attended the opening session.
A worker at Rio Tinto Alcan's aluminum smelter, he opposes the project.
"Have people not seen what happened in the Gulf of Mexico or the Kalamazoo River?" he asked, referring to the 2010 oil spills.
Pipeline Review Hearings: United By Salmon, “Radical” Citizens Unite Against the Enbridge Pipeline
, January 10, 2012
KITIMAT, BRITISH COLUMBIA - A Northern wind is blowing against the proposed Enbridge Gateway pipeline, as British Columbians from all walks of life are joining in opposition on the first day of hearings in Kitimat B.C.
Facing a hostile federal government, a diverse group of citizens including outdoorsmen, fishermen, retired engineers and naturalists have found common cause in salmon.
“The threat from the Enbridge pipeline from fresh water to the marine environment, is one we will not accept," said Arnie Nagy, shore worker and executive member of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers’ Union. “We have been involved in the campaign against a supertanker oil port at Kitimat since the first proposal in 1977. Salmon is what unites us as Northerners. Risks to salmon are a ‘no-go’ up here.”
Community members across Northern BC are coming together due to the threats from Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline proposal.
“I would hardly call myself a ‘radical’,” said Dave Shannon, retired engineer from Alcan and member of Douglas Channel Watch. “The more I looked into oil tankers and walked the proposed pipeline route on the Upper Kitimat River, the less convinced I became that this project could ever be engineered safely.”
Friends of Morice Bulkley, Douglas Channel Watch and several other community-based groups are registered as intervenors for the Joint Review Panel. The groups have been highlighting risks to wild salmon, such as landslides and avalanches, which have sheared and ruptured natural gas pipelines in the past.
“We’re a bunch of locals not typically involved. This pipeline would be a permanent risk to our salmon and our rivers,” says retired biologist Dawn Remington, of Friends of Morice-Bulkley in Smithers. “When we discovered the proposed pipeline would go through the headwaters of our river, it set off alarm bells".
The project would cross Canada’s two largest salmon producing rivers, risking multi-million dollar commercial and sport fisheries. Constitutionally protected First Nations food fisheries would also be threatened.
Contact Information:
Dave Shannon, Douglas Channel Watch: 250-615-7639
Arnie Nagy, United Fishermen and Allied Workers’ Union: 250-627-6811
Dawn Remington, Friends of Morice-Bulkley: 250-847-3836
As review begins for Gateway pipeline, a warning from wary first nations
The Globe and Mail, January 10, 2012
Not far from the dark waters that could one day carry supertankers of oil-sands crude to the Pacific Ocean, the pitched battle over the Northern Gateway pipeline took a very public stage as opponents called on God and salmon to fight a project they see as dangerous.
Over the next two years, the federal review panel assessing the $6.6-billion proposed Enbridge Inc. pipeline will travel to dozens of communities, on the route and off it, and hear from the thousands who have asked to speak.
On Tuesday, the first day of public hearings, the three-person panel arrived in Kitamaat Village, a Haisla community on the shores of Douglas Channel. Although Ottawa has invoked the spectre of foreign-funded radicals plotting to derail the project, the real fight was here, in coastal communities where the Exxon Valdez spill still resonates and many first nations communities fear the consequences of a pipeline on their traditional territory and local waters.
Kitamaat Village’s spectacular waterfront could one day look out on the end of the Gateway pipeline and the ships that would carry crude to new customers in Asia and California, delivering untold extra riches to Canada’s energy sector and governments. That is, if the panel gives its blessing to a project that, while Enbridge has pledged to build it to the most modern safety standards, has stirred immense concern about what oil could do to the bounty of seafood and recreation in this part of northern British Columbia.
Before the panel could speak, it faced a community calling on a higher power to defeat the project. In the highly charged atmosphere that has surrounded the Northern Gateway, even an opening invocation was a battle cry.
“We ask you to protect our traditional territory and its treasures,” Verlie Nelson, the daughter of a Haisla clan matriarch, said in a prayer before the panel.
First, Ms. Nelson said, those natural resources were injured by local industrialization. “And now, father, there is a new threat,” she prayed. “God, please help.”
Haisla hereditary chief Sam Robinson indicated in his testimony that his people are preparing to fight for a right to say no.
“We want to have a voice, and we’re going to have a voice.”
The bitter opposition to Northern Gateway raised fears that the hearings would turn sour. At Kitamaat Village, RCMP brought in outside members to bolster its presence, while local youth helped search bags, and the panel begged for courtesy.
Fears were stoked, in part, by allegations from Canada’s government that foreign money and foreign interest groups could subvert the hearings.
On Tuesday, those concerns seemed ill-founded. The roughly 500 seats in the recreation centre where hearing was held were filled primarily with first nations faces. The non-natives, most of whom opposed the project, came primarily from the area. A retired pulp mill worker from Kitimat. A community organizer from Smithers. A concerned fishing-lodge cook from Terrace. A power engineer who works at Kitimat’s Rio Tinto Alcan smelter, and his wife, a stay-at-home mother.
The only indication of a foreign presence was a man outside the hearing in a red-and-black hat marked with an “M.” The man, a former Kitimat mayoral candidate who opposes Northern Gateway, was dressed as Mario, the video-game plumber. He waved a neon green sign that said: “I Heart Pipes.”
“Me and my brother love pipes,” he said. “We are Italian.”
Then, as someone pointed a video camera at him, he broke character:
“If this goes on YouTube, it goes viral. You understand.”
For the most part, however, the pageantry and colourful protest that often attend such events was absent. There was an opening ceremonial dance. There were no busloads of activists. Those gathered listened intently, breaking into applause a few times. For many on the B.C. coast, this is not a game. It’s an urgent struggle.
The hearing also drew first nations people from nearby communities – Klemtu, Hartley Bay, Bella Bella – accessible only by boat or airplane. The joint review panel plans to visit each of them, but the opening day was significant for those eager to prove that opposition sweeps across the waters those coastal communities share.
“This is our one and only chance to get our concern across to the panel, to make sure they understand us and where we’re coming from – that this ocean is our bread and butter,” said Ray Green, a Haisla. He and others referred to the long traditions of living from a store of salmon, halibut, clams, cockles and mussels so rich that, historically, hunger was virtually unknown.
Mary Nyce, who owns the Seamasters restaurant in Kitamaat Village, added: “If it’s pushed through, it would be the end of our history.”
Enbridge has pledged to go beyond legal requirements to ensure safety of the pipe and tankers. Pipelines are the safest way to move crude – and along much of the Northern Gateway route, first nations have shown support. Nearly two dozen have signed up to take an ownership stake.
First nations fiercely opposed to Northern Gateway
Vancouver Sun, January 03, 2012
The Gitga’at First Nation has been saying no to the Northern Gateway pipeline project since 2006.
The project will bring more than 200 huge tankers annually through the waters next to their tiny community of 160 in Hartley Bay at the entrance to Douglas Channel on B.C.’s northwest coast. Another 500 Gitga’at live elsewhere, including in Prince Rupert, also on the northwest coast.
The risks and effect of an oil spill are simply not worth any economic benefits, which the first nation views as nil, says Marvin Robinson, a spokesman for the community.
It’s a familiar refrain among B.C. first nations.
Despite the argument that opening up a new market for Alberta oilsands in Asia will benefit all Canadians — and an offer of a 10-per-cent ownership stake in the pipeline for first nations — almost all first nations’ voices in British Columbia have been raised in protest.
Unlike in Alberta, most aboriginal land claims in British Columbia have not been settled with treaties.
Court decisions, including at the Canadian Supreme Court level, have stipulated that first nations must be consulted and accommodated when their traditional lands are affected by industrial development.
Last month, more first nations signed their names to a declaration calling for an “unbroken wall of opposition” to pipelines and oil tankers along B.C.’s coast. More than 60 first nations along the pipeline route, Fraser River and coast have signed the declaration.
Among those are the Gitga’at, whose concerns on the Enbridge project increased following the sinking of BC Ferries’ Queen of the North in 2006.
Hartley Bay residents were first on the scene to rescue passengers.
The fallout from the sinking — the leaking of diesel fuel and oil onto surrounding beaches, including clam beds — woke them up to the potential harm of a larger oil spill, said Robinson, who runs guided tours of the remote coastal area.
“It’s almost like a test run. You get to see little mistakes and things that shouldn’t happen. We’re talking about a really light oil — diesel — [from the Queen of the North]. Imagine if it’s one of these [large oil tankers]. That’s the part that really scares us,” said Robinson.
Some of the tankers will be able to carry as much as two million barrels of oil. Called VLCCs — Very Large Crude Carriers — their length is longer than three football fields.
The Gitga’at are among nearly 20 first nations from B.C. that have signed up as interveners in regulatory hearings that begin Jan. 10 in Kitimat.
Enbridge has said it has aboriginal support and it expects a majority of the nearly 50 first nations with territory along the pipeline route to sign on to its ownership offer, but only one B.C. first nation has declared its support publicly.
And when Gitxsan hereditary chief Elmer Derrick announced the nation in northwest B.C. had signed an ownership deal that would provide $7 million over a 30-year period, it sparked an immediate battle with other leaders in the community who say they don’t support the project.
Unlike in B.C., most Alberta first nations have not said whether they support or reject the 1,172-kilometre pipeline.
More than a dozen Alberta first nations have signed up as interveners in the hearings overseen by the National Energy Board, but none have issued public declarations on the pipeline project.
Contacted before Christmas, Alexis Nation leaders said they were not ready to say anything about the project.
Other first nations in Alberta — including the Horse Lake First Nation — did not respond to requests for comment.
But at least one Alberta first nation is saying no to Northern Gateway pipeline.
Driftpile First Nation chief Rose Laboucan told The Vancouver Sun that following the recent completion of a traditional land-use study, the community of 2,000 has rejected the project. About 1,000 band members live on the Driftpile reserve, west of Edmonton.
“The permanent right of way will be about a 25-metre-wide scar running through the territory, harming the plants and animals, things we rely on,” said Laboucan.
She said it is ridiculous to believe there is not going to be an oil spill.
“I understand there has to be progress. I understand they want markets outside of Canada, to Asia. But at the same time, when do we balance our Mother Earth? In my opinion, it’s in pain now,” said Laboucan.
The band had reached a deal earlier with the Pembina Pipeline Corp. to build a safe house in the community over a different project, noted Laboucan.
But she said Enbridge’s take-it-or-leave-it approach of its ownership offer in Northern Gateway turned the community off.
First nations who oppose the Enbridge project stress they are not opposed to economic development.
But it depends on the development.
The Nadleh Whut’en First Nation, located in north-central B.C., has signed on to an ownership deal with the $1.2-billion Pacific Trails natural gas pipeline, but is opposed to the Enbridge oil pipeline.
The community of 470 — about 250 of whom live on the shores of Fraser Lake — supports the natural gas pipeline because if there was a rupture the gas would dissipate, says chief Larry Nooski.
There is no support for the Northern Gateway project because the oil from a pipeline leak could remain in the environment for a long time despite efforts to clean it up.
Nooski points to the more than 22-year-old Exxon Valdez tanker spill in Prince William Sound in Alaska, where research has shown that oil remains in the environment.
Nooski said that community meetings early on showed this as a concern.
“The impacts on the aquatic life and salmon was just too great for our people to even consider something of this nature,” said Nooski.
“If there is an interruption in our fishing, a lot of people would be without food. I know it sounds strange today because you have the Safeways and what have you. Personally, I still rely on my catch. I still rely on the fish that is caught in the summer and fall,” he said.
He said the first nation is already involved in the forest sector through its logging business.
Nadleh Whut’en also recently became involved in Thompson Creek Metals’ nearby Endako molybdenum mine and operates a 350-person camp for the $375-million Endako mine expansion and modernization project.
© Friends of Wild Salmon 2008
