A large number of groups are working to oppose the proposed pipeline from Alberta’s oil sands to the coast of British Columbia. If you are involved in that effort, or you have ideas about how to improve the odds of success, please contact us.
First step: if you oppose the pipeline, sign the petition.
Here are some resources related to the pipeline and the effort to stop it:
Web resources
Wikipedia entries:
Blog posts:
- Demonstrating British Columbia’s beauty
- The Northern Gateway pipeline
- Strategies for stopping Gateway #1: The Hecate Strait
- Blocking the Northern Gateway pipeline
- Blocking in the oil sands
- Canada’s Third Great Pipeline Debate: The Political Landscape as the Northern Gateway Pipeline Hearings Start
Videos:
- Risking it All – Oil on our Coast – by Twyla Roscovich
- Behind the Scenes of Conservation – Great Bear: Our Crucial Choice
Websites:
- Reuters: Factbox: Enbridge pipeline to the Pacific: facts and issues
- 350.org petition – Canadians Against the Oil Sands
- Pipe Up Against Enbridge
- Friends of Wild Salmon – blog on the Joint Review Panel hearings
- Leadnow.ca campaign
- Sierra Club BC – Tar Sands Pipeline and Tanker Traffic
- Greenpeace Canada – Stop the Pipeline
- WWF Canada – The Great Bear Sea: No place for a pipeline
Reports
Pipeline and tanker trouble
The impact to British Columbia’s communities, rivers, and Pacific coastline from tar sands oil transport
Published Nov. 29, 2011
By Living Oceans Society, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Nathan Lemphers
There are also documents that can be sent by email to anyone who is interested in helping out.
Last updated: 18 June 2012.
From a climate perspective, this effect of operating this pipeline is the same as if they just set one end of it on fire and used it as a giant flame burning 525,000 barrels of oil per day.
Whether the oil is burned in vehicles around the world or at the pipeline terminus, all that dangerous CO2 ends up in the atmosphere.
The dubious merits of Northern Gateway
Environmentally damaging project is in slower-growth, sunset industry
By Jim Baird, Times Colonist
n his Jan. 17 column, “Pipeline would bring jobs and tax revenues,” Lawrie McFarlane asked, with respect to environmentalists stalking the oilpatch, “What do these people think keeps us afloat?”
His is an interesting choice of words, considering scientists tell us the last time global temperatures were two to three degrees Celsius warmer – which is where they also tell us we are headed, with a businessas-usual scenario typified by the Northern Gateway pipeline proposal – sea levels were 25 metres higher.
Carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning are causing the warming, 95 per cent of which is being absorbed by the oceans, mostly the upper layer.
The only way this damage can be counteracted is by converting as much of the heat as possible to work in accordance with the first law of thermodynamics – energy can be transformed, but it cannot be created or destroyed.
Dear friends in Canada,
I’ve been visiting Canada all my life, but I’m a little worried about my upcoming trip.
In late March I’m supposed to come to Vancouver to give a couple of talks. But now I read that Joe Oliver, your country’s Minister of Natural Resources, is condemning “environmental and other radical groups that would seek to block” Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline from the oil sands of Alberta to the Pacific.
I think he’s talking about people like me.
So I’m pushing back a bit, and I need your help. Let’s tell Joe Oliver that preventing the combustion of the second-largest pool of carbon on the planet isn’t “radical†— it’s exactly the opposite. It’s rational. It’s responsible. And it’s just plain right.
Click here to sign the petition to Prime Minister Harper and Joe Oliver, and help show that Canadians everywhere are committed to stopping the oil sands.
Here’s the thing: I’ve spent much of the last year helping rally opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline from the oil sands to the Gulf of Mexico. I was arrested outside the White House in August, and emceed the demonstration that brought thousands of people to circle the White House in November. And later today, I’ll help lead a crew of hundreds of “climate referees” who are blowing the whistle on the influence that Big Oil has over our democracy.
When I come to British Columbia, I’ll urge everyone I meet to join a growing movement standing in solidarity with First Nations Peoples accross Canada who oppose Enbridge’s Gateway project. Since a majority of Canadians, according to the polls, also oppose the pipeline, I’ll be in good company. But Oliver, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the organizers of the “Ethical Oil†campaign don’t want any outside voices. As the latter explained on its website, “It’s our pipeline. Our country. Our jobs. And our decision.”
Fair enough. But you know something? The atmosphere belongs to all of us. There’s not some wall at the 49th parallel that separates Canada’s air from everyone else’s. Since the oil sands is the second biggest source of carbon on the planet, that makes their development everyone’s business. As NASA’s James Hansen, the planet’s premier climatologist, put it recently, if you heavily develop the oil sands, it’s “essentially game over for the climate.” That’s why I’m doing everything I can do build this movement — and that’s why I need your help to unite a groundswell of activists in Canada.
Click here to add your name to the petition saying you’re ready to take a stand to stop the oil sands — if we can get 10,000 Canadians to sign on, we’ll stage a high-profile delivery that Joe Oliver, Prime Minister Harper, and the oil companies won’t be able to ignore.
It’s much easier for Ottawa to pretend that anyone who raises doubts about the oil sands are ideological extremists who hate Canada, much easier to demonize the scientists and citizens who ask uncomfortable questions. You can judge for yourself, but I don’t think I’m some kind of extremist. I’m a Methodist Sunday School teacher who happened to write the first book for a general audience on climate change.
To me, the extremists are the ones running the oil companies, because they’re willing to alter the chemical composition of the atmosphere; those of us who want to keep the planet a little like the one we were born on seem more like conservatives.
I know I don’t hate Canada. I spent five years living in Toronto as a young boy, while my father worked for Business Week magazine. I remember with great fondness Mrs. Reesor, Miss Beer, Miss Conway and Miss Wright, who taught my first four grades. I remember rooting for Davey Keon, the Toronto Maple Leafs centre, and I remember waiting with great impatience each summer for the CNE to open.
In later years I’ve travelled the country stem to stern, written about fishermen struggling in Newfoundland, hiked the mountains above Jasper, skied the trails of the Gatineau. The Canada I remember was open to the world: It welcomed the rest of the planet to Expo 67, it hosted the Olympics, it helped crack the Great Wall of China.
I don’t know how that changed, but my guess is that the wealth of the oil-sands had something to do with it. Canada’s government doesn’t want to hear from the rest of the world because paying attention to their legitimate fears might cost it some money.
To judge from Oliver’s nasty little letter, those vast pits of bitumen across Alberta aren’t just dirtying the sky, they’re starting to do some damage to the country’s soul.
Help start to undo that damage, and sign on today.
Onwards,
Bill McKibben for 350.org
P.S. If we’re going to have any shot at stopping the wholesale burning of the oil sands, we’re going to need a massive movement of Canadians willing to take a stand. Please help spread the word on Twitter and share it on Facebook — it only takes a couple of clicks. Many thanks in advance.
MORE LINKS AND INFO
– Oil Lobby Lagging Reality – Financial Post
– An open letter from Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver – The Globe and Mail
Pingback: 350.org oil sands petition
The Northern View – If pipeline can’t go to Kitimat then we’ll re-examine Rupert, says Enbridge CEO
Excerpt: The CEO of Enbridge inc., Pat Daniel, says if his company isn’t able to build the Northern Gateway Pipeline to Kitimaat, the company would examine the possibility of having the Pipeline go to Prince Rupert instead. “We will relook at (Prince) Rupert, we will do whatever we can to find the best solution for Canada, but our information and our engineering studies and environmental studies suggest that Kitimat is the best location,†Daniel said during an interview with Reuters in China.
Discourse on the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline from the Alberta oil sands to the B.C. coast got off to a raucous start with name calling, accusations and concerns that Canada’s economy is at stake even before the hearings in Kitimat, B.C. even began.
Underlying the debate is the assumption that the oil sands are good for Canada’s economy. But are they more a Faustian bargain? Is Canada sacrificing the stability of the environment and other key economic sectors for the sake of generating as much money as possible from a non-renewable commodity? While concerns over the pipeline’s safety are legitimate -any spill could seriously affect the ecologically sensitive west coast and Fraser River for hundreds of kilometres — there are more widespread concerns that have largely been ignored.
If given the green light, the Gateway pipeline will serve as a conduit for accelerated oil sands development. The Harper government prefers not to put oil sands and climate change in the same sentence, but they do go together. James Hansen, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, warns that development of remaining oil sands and coal reserves will tip the planet towards dangerous global warming.
Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that the burning of fossil fuel has increased the parts per million (ppm) of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which is warming the planet. Civilization has prospered for 10,000 with greenhouse gases stable at 280 ppm up until the dawn of the industrial revolution. That figure is now at 392 ppm and rising by an astonishing 1.5 to two ppm per year.
Changes of just one or two degrees Celsius to the global mean temperature can cause radical changes in the climate -widespread drought in some regions, flooding in others, and more severe and extreme weather events, which undermine agriculture, economic development and public health.
Transport Canada gives Enbridge nod for supertanker route
Supertankers can safely carry huge volumes of oil sands crude through the winding waterways that connect Kitimat, B.C., to the open Pacific, a review by Transport Canada has concluded.
The review examined the marine passages that would allow the proposed Enbridge Inc. (ENB-T38.54-0.06-0.16%) Northern Gateway pipeline to export Alberta oil to buyers in China and California. That $6.6-billion project has become one of the country’s most important industrial initiatives, backed by important energy producers and opposed by a raft of first nations and environmental groups.
Critics have pointed to a number of safety concerns for the huge oil-carrying vessels, including narrow, rock-lined marine passages, the regular occurrence of severe weather – fog, raging winds, massive waves – and the lack of suitable shelter in a storm.
For example, only one anchorage point has been approved for supertankers along the route. Even the waters off Kitimat, where the ships would be loaded, don’t offer enough room for a proper anchorage. Simulations conducted for Enbridge concluded that on some routes, even tugboats would be unable to keep a safe grip on tankers in the event of strong winds, above 75 kilometres an hour. Indeed, in those conditions, tethering lines would be expected to snap.
Some of the tankers that would sail into Kitimat far exceed anything seen on the coast before. Until now, the largest vessels calling on Kitimat have been 50,000-tonne tankers delivering condensate, an oil-thinning product imported by oil sands producers. Even in Prince Rupert, which has open-water access, the largest vessels to date have been 250,000-tonne carriers.
For Gateway, roughly 60 oil tankers a year would be very large crude carriers with a deadweight of 320,000 tonnes.
The Gateway project would bring a total of 250 new vessels a year. Proposed new natural gas terminals could bring that total to 415 “additional oil tankers, liquefied natural gas carriers and bulk carriers calling at Kitimat, or 830 additional transits of the waterways,†Transport Canada found.
Northern Gateway: From Tar Sands To Tankers (event in Ottawa)
Today, I submitted a letter to the Joint Review Panel (PDF) that is considering the Northern Gateway pipeline.
Wildrose Alliance leader Danielle Smith, sounding an alarm about the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline to the B.C. coast, argued Thursday that an oil sands pipeline should instead go to Atlantic Canada.
Ms. Smith, expected to give Alberta Premier Alison Redford a serious challenge in the upcoming spring election, advanced the idea publicly for the first time at a speech in Ottawa.
She offered what she described as a solution to the problems faced by land-locked Alberta given the Obama administration’s rejection of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to the Gulf of Mexico, and the aggressive environmentalist-aboriginal campaign against the Enbridge Inc.’s $5.5-billion Gateway project to Kitimat, B.C.
Help us get the message through to Enbridge (and learn more about our work to keep our coast and rivers free from oil spills)
West Coast would like to make it possible for people who will be directly affected by the Enbridge pipeline and oil tankers to speak directly to the Enbridge board of directors and shareholders at their annual general meeting (AGM) in Toronto this May 9 (e.g., individuals representing coastal communities, fishers, wilderness tourism, and First Nations). To do this, we need proxy passes to attend the AGM. If you are an Enbridge shareholder (or know someone who is) and would like to help us to make sure these voices are heard in Toronto, please watch your mail for your AGM package, and get in touch with us so that we can arrange to use your proxy to have people attend the meeting.
* Send us an email if you can help: jpaterson@wcel.org
* In other Enbridge news: Click here for info on the legal impact of revelations that Enbridge lobbied to get the federal government to walk away from PNCIMA, a decade-long marine planning process.
* Two of our interns were blown away by the incredible coming together of local communities to oppose the Enbridge Pipelines and Tankers project when they traveled to a Joint Review Panel Hearing near Prince George.
* If you or anyone you know will be in Ottawa on Monday, March 12, West Coast staff lawyer, Josh Paterson, will be speaking at this event: Northern Gateway: From Tar Sands to Tankers – In Whose Interest?
* Not attending the Enbridge AGM or going to a review panel hearing? Here’s another way you can make your voice heard on the Enbridge oil pipelines and supertankers project – join West Coast and other engaged folks at the “No Tankers Rally: Stand up for the Coast” event in Vancouver on March 26, 2012, 12:00-1:00 pm.
Help us get the message through to Enbridge (and learn more about our work to keep our coast and rivers free from oil spills)
Decrying Ottawa’s ‘bully tactics,’ B.C. natives vow to block pipeline
SHAWN McCARTHY – The Globe and Mail
Ottawa is headed for a legal showdown with British Columbia first nations if it insists on proceeding with the Northern Gateway pipeline, the leader of the Yinka Dene Alliance warns.
Chief Jackie Thomas, of the Saik’uz First Nation, was part of a delegation in Ottawa Tuesday meeting with opposition members of Parliament to build support for their anti-pipeline stand. She said her group will pursue a legal challenge if Ottawa approves the pipeline over their objections.
Along with other first-nation communities, the Dene alliance has taken a firm stand against Enbridge Inc.’s plan to build a crude oil pipeline across their land to transport oil-sands bitumen to the B.C. coast for export to Asia.
“We will defend our rights, no matter what bully tactics the federal government throws at us,†she said. “Our decision has been made: Enbridge will never be allowed in our lands.â€
Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver has lashed out at opponents to the Gateway pipeline, saying they are undermining the country’s national interest and oppose all resource development.
Courts could overturn pipeline because of “unreasonable” consultation with natives, feds cautioned
OTTAWA — Senior bureaucrats from multiple federal departments have been warned that the review process for a proposed pipeline linking Alberta’s oilsands sector with the northwest coast of British Columbia could be overturned by the courts because of an “unreasonable” consultation with aboriginal communities, according to newly-released internal records.
The warnings, delivered by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, noted that the federal government was facing “adverse legal consequences” if it failed to offer adequate funding to help First Nations communities fully participate in consultations with the necessary resources to review evidence, material and proposals made by Alberta-based Enbridge regarding the Northern Gateway Pipeline project.
The Northern Gateway pipeline Joint Review Panel has posted my letter.
It’s one of Joe Oliver’s most common refrains when talking about oil sands resource projects:
“We have a moral and constitutional obligation to consult with Canada’s First Nations,” intones the Minister of Natural Resources.
Constitutionally speaking, he could not be more right. If you’re going to run a pipeline through native land, you’ve got to sit down and talk about it with the natives. The 1982 Constitution and any number of Supreme Court of Canada rulings have spelled that out pretty clearly.
But what makes for a constitutionally acceptable consultation when it comes to Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline?
A number of the First Nations along the route and at its terminus on the B.C. Coast can’t stand the idea of a giant pipe full of bitumen passing through their traditional territory. The risk of a spill – no matter how remote – means there will have to be a pretty persuasive argument and a whole lotta face-to-face time with federal government officials.
Enter the Joint Review Panel (JRP). That’s the public inquiry run by the National Energy Board and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency tasked with determining whether the Enbridge pipe is safe for the environment and is in the national economic interest. There are hundreds of intervenors and thousands of people making oral statements.
Lots of them are native groups and individuals.
But if the Harper government thinks the Joint Review Panel is enough to satisfy their constitutional obligation, Jackie Thomas would like to tell them they are wrong.
“It doesn’t even meet the legal standard,” argues the chief of the Saik’uz First Nation near Vanderhoof, B.C. They are part of the Yinka Dene Alliance and the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council in Central B.C.
Diverse gathering for pipeline protest
By BYRON CHU, QMI AGENCY
A vocal crowd of about 1,200 people packed the Vancouver Art Gallery lawn Monday afternoon to mark the 23rd anniversary of the Exxon Valdez tanker spill and to oppose the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline.
The protestors then marched to the offices of pipeline company Enbridge, blocking off Burrard Street.
The city’s largest anti-oilsands rally to date even surprised speakers at the event.
“If I was a politician, and I was looking at how many people showed up on a rainy Monday afternoon to say no to oil tankers right here in British Columbia, I would literally be shaking in my boots right now,†said Wilderness Committee campaigner Ben West to loud cheers. “Big oil has got their back up against the wall and it’s because of you guys.â€
The diverse gathering included aboriginals, union members, environmentalists, students, academics and politicians, including recent NDP leadership candidate Nathan Cullen and Green Party leader Elizabeth May.
New regulatory review time limit to apply to Northern Gateway: Flaherty
Posted on Thu, Mar 29, 2012, 4:12 pm by James Munson
iPolitics
Major resource projects will have to complete their regulatory reviews under new fixed time-lines, including those underway like the controversial Northern Gateway pipeline, Ottawa revealed Thursday.
“The one project, one review plan applies to all major projects, including the Northern Gateway,†said Finance Minister Jim Flaherty in a press conference ahead of his budget speech.
The National Energy Board (NEB) is currently in the middle of conducting hearings across northern British Columbia on the pipeline where First Nations and locals have voiced opposition to the project.
The NEB, which began its hearings in February, had been hoping to make a decision on the project by the beginning of 2013, but the Thursday’s revelations could throw its plans up in the air. An NEB review will now have to finish its work within 18 months under the budget proposal. Details on when the fixed timeline would come into effect during the regulatory process weren’t available.
The new timeline is part of a large system-wide revamp of the regulatory process for major resource projects that will require changes to how over forty federal departments do their work.
The ambitious effort will require a slew of new legislation over the next few weeks that aim to consolidate regulatory power. The budget didn’t outline the specifics of any new legislation, leaving the severity of such changes unclear.
The government does plan to give the Major Project Management Office (MPMO) more clout by more than quadrupling its annual budget of $6 million to $27 million, the budget says.
Speeding up Northern Gateway review risks ‘battle’
Head of Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs Stewart Phillip attacks government decision
B.C. First Nations are reacting with anger to the government’s decision to retroactively shorten the regulatory review for the Northern Gateway pipeline project in British Columbia.
“This incredibly stupid move on the part of the Harper government will only serve to expedite the battle in the courtrooms and on the land itself,” said Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs. He described the situation between B.C. aboriginals and the federal and provincial governments as “volatile.”
This “pipeline is going to traverse the territories of literally dozens and dozens of First Nations. And all of them have said very clearly that they do not support the Northern Gateway project and that they will do everything that they can to stop this project,” added Phillip.
Students plan to canvass Clark’s riding on pipeline; Organizers of the door-to-door petition campaign hope to convince the premier to take a stand on Enbridge’s proposal
Students from the University of B.C. and local high schools plan to go door to door in Christy Clark’s Vancouver-Point Grey riding Saturday in an attempt to convince the premier to oppose Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline.
Teams of students, aged 16 to 21, will try to visit every home in the riding between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. asking residents to sign a petition demanding that Clark oppose the pipeline, said George Hoberg, an environmental policy professor at UBC’s department of forestry.
Hoberg is also a member of UBCC350, the group behind Saturday’s event, composed of UBC students and faculty advocating for government action on climate change.
As of Tuesday afternoon, almost 230 people had con-firmed their participation on the event’s Facebook page.
Clark and the B.C. Liberals have yet to take a position on the pipeline, which would transport bitumen from the Alberta oilsands to the port of Kitimat, where it would be loaded onto tankers for trans-port to Asia. Enbridge and the federal government argue the pipeline is crucial to diversifying the export market for oil-sands product. The B.C. NDP oppose the plan.
He recounted his trip last month in testimony before the National Energy Board, which was marked by cheers from pipeline opponents and objections from lawyers for Enbridge, the pipeline company.
Cullen said he was struck by “the incredible sharpness of the turns that are required” of any vessel, let alone a supertanker.
“Can we sail that narrow channel 15,000 times through all kinds of weather, all kinds of circumstances, both human and environmental, with never having made a mistake once? Because we can’t make a mistake once,” he said.
Surrounded by true believers, he is more strident. “We will defend our home to our dying breath,” he tells the crowd in the Ottawa pub. “This will not happen.”
Northern Gateway hearings in limbo as rowdy welcome unsettles review panel
Four days of hearings by the joint review panel examining the Northern Gateway Pipeline project may have been derailed by a rowdy welcome in Bella Bella, on B.C.’s central coast.
Heiltsuk First Nation Chief Councillor Marilyn Slett has told a community meeting in Bella Bella that review panel members have sent a notice that they will not proceed with today’s hearing.
She says the cancellation came late Sunday afternoon, shortly after panel members were greeted by protesters at the airport and lining the road into town, 300 kilometres south of Prince Rupert.
B.C. New Democrat MLA Gary Coons says the cancellation is shocking because he arrived with the panel and thought the protesters were respectful.
He hopes the problem can be resolved at meetings expected this morning.
The review panel is holding hearings across B.C. and Alberta to consider a proposal by Enbridge to pipe Alberta oil from the Edmonton-area to port in Kitimat for shipment overseas.
Your hysteria amazes me. Coal, oil and gas is the cheapest energy products these is. Coal has been functioning for more than 500 years. Oil has been around for more than a hundred years. The investment into the science is immense and cannot be counted into a monetary equation. This design will not go away as replacements are really just stupid toys which cannot replace the vacuum the loss of the other will generate. For you to wish away coal, you will starve 50% of the World population, who generate income from it. You must be totally crazy to see this happening.
As this economic climate changes with the environmental one, all of us on this globe will be forced to seek the cheapest outcome, regardless of issues which crown emotions.
Instead of lobbying against proposals to define the naturals track, I think you all should spend your efforts to help the developments in a way which will be least damaging to the environment. Against the tide of procrastination, radiate a rational design and positive attitude to find a solution, not the negative litigation. The reason why “Occupy Wall Street” protests don’t attract attention is because you guys are putting a brake on a system which will not respect your input. Instead of braking, you should climb the same vehicle but produce an alternative which will have the outcome you desire, with less damage or neglect.
Why does it look as if the complaints department in your device has little or no leadership? Will it have to be an outsider that teaches the Mounties how to ride a horse?
Fighting the natural needs of man is senseless. Rather take the time to set up Websites and influence the starving people to stop having babies. This is the only big reason why we are sitting with this heap of manure. I don’t understand how the World and you as Canadians can mount huge surveys and give meticulous scientific reasoning but cannot see the exact problem facing us. When your race starts dying of hunger and climate change, being forced into euphemism, you may want to look back and see your own miss alignment with real answers. When that day comes, and I guarantee you it will, you will have failed our race dismally.
HS
Gateway pipeline-review process hits another snag as second native band pulls out
The federal review of the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline has hit another setback this week after a coastal first nation community withdrew from the process, saying the Harper government has predetermined the outcome.
The hearings were temporarily derailed when the panel was greeted by protests in the remote native community of Bella Bella on Sunday. The panel ended up holding abridged hearings in Bella Bella.
On Thursday, the Nuxalk First Nation of Bella Coola cancelled its status as an intervener, vowing to find other ways to oppose the project.
“Our intention was to be part of the process, but just seeing how they treated our neighbouring community, it was disheartening,†Nuxalk hereditary Chief Charlie Nelson said. It was last week’s announcement from the federal government that the process will be fast-tracked, however, that persuaded the band’s leadership to withdraw.
Mr. Nelson said it is clear the federal government intends to approve the project, adding that the new time limits only serve to further compromise the independence of the panel.
Bishops call for fair pipeline hearing; Northern Gateway deal should not be rubber stamped: clergy
Six Anglican bishops from across British Columbia and the Yukon came together on Good Friday calling for the environmental review hearings on Enbridge Inc.’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline to remain fair and free from political pressure.
“There’s some concern that the decision’s already been made and that the review process is just a rubber stamp,” said Bishop Michael Ingham, of the Diocese of New Westminster. “I think what we’re trying to do is call upon the panel itself to resist pressure – political pressure, industry pressure – and to come to a fair, balanced and thorough set of recommendations.”
Ingham signed the statement, which he said was prompted by bishops being inundated with concern for the process from members of their dioceses.
“We’re not directing this at any one group – except the panel itself,” Ingham said. “We hope they might receive it as a supportive thing, to maintain their independence and, therefore, credibility.”
“Recent public statements by various officials of the federal government, including the announcement last week of the streamlining of environmental assessment reviews, have raised concerns that NEB (National Energy Board) hearings may become subject to improper time constrictions and industry influence,” said the bishops’ statement.
http://www.terracestandard.com/opinion/letters/145402195.html
The Skeena Angling Guides Association (SAGA) wish to convey its dismay at the stance the Terrace and District Chamber of Commerce has taken over the Northern Gateway Pipeline.
The chamber claims to be “the voice of businessâ€, however the content of your letter and press release concerning the issue is wholly incompatible with our organization and the tourism businesses our members survive upon.
Referring to BC Stats’ British Columbia’s Fisheries and Aquaculture Sector, 2007 edition:
* Revenues reported from angling in BC in 2005 were estimated at $867 million
* Saltwater angling generated $467 million
* Freshwater angling generated $398 million
* Sport fishing related activities provided employment for 7700 British Columbians
The sports fishing industry is key to the future success of the northern region. The proposed pipeline project would require around 225 super oil tankers per year travelling thorough incredibly treacherous waters off our pristine northwest coast.
This represents a “titanic†risk to the region’s environment. A large marine oil spill on our coast would devastate a marine ecosystem that supports not only thousands of humans but more importantly one of the world’s most sensitive and endangered wildlife habitats.
An Environment Canada report in 1990 analyzed the likelihood of tanker accidents occurring in Canadian waters.
The report states that “based on current [1990] levels of tanker traffic, Canada can expect over 100 small oil spills, about 10 moderate spills and at least one major spill offshore each year. A catastrophic spill (over 10,000 tonnes) may occur once every 15 years.â€
We do not believe it takes an environmental review to understand the huge risks Alberta-based Enbridge will take to transport its dirty crude oil from “Beautiful BC†to Asia.
The Northern Gateway Project involves huge environmental risks with minimal economic benefit.
As a result of your stance, our members voted unanimously at the latest Skeena Angling Guides Association (SAGA) meeting not to renew our membership to the Terrace and District Chamber of Commerce.
Pioneer Fishing Lodge will also not be renewing its membership.
Jeremy Crosby,
Chairman SAGA and Owner of Pioneer Fishing Lodge,
Terrace, BC
STORM THE RIDING! Photos from the day.
Video from Storm The Riding: Thank you to all our Canvassers!
Yinka Dene Delegation to Ottawa: Enbridge Pipeline and Tanker Opposition Mounts as Risks Multiply
OTTAWA– Groups opposed to the construction of the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline from Alberta to the West Coast met with MPs Tuesday.
“The proposed Gate-way project is a gateway all right: A gateway to a future where we destroy our coast with oil supertankers, radically increase the pollution coming from the tar sands and double down on a path toward dangerous levels of climate change,” said Rick Smith, executive director of Environmental Defence. Environmental Defence encouraged speakers from B.C. who opposed the pipeline construction to travel to Ottawa to meet MPs.
The group admits, however, that even if the proposed route was switched to the Port of Vancouver, following the path of pre-existing pipelines and if only double-hulled tankers were used, accompanied by tug boats, they would still oppose it because it’s all product from the oilsands.
“The whole project is premised on a tripling of oil of tar sands production and export, and while oil is going to be part of our economy for some time, we need to start investing in transitioning to clean energy sources,” said Gillian McEachern, spokeswoman with Environmental Defence.
The not-for-profit environmental group gets donations from many sources, including the U.S. based Tides Foundation.
“Oil extraction from the tar sands is the dirtiest project on Earth,” reads an excerpt of support from Tides on the Environmental Defence website.
If the U.S. market shrinks, Asia beckons. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has highlighted the importance of getting bitumen oil to Asia. Getting oil (and other commodities) to that region seems to be his government’s highest priority.
How? The Northern Gateway pipeline to Kitimat, B.C., even if approved (as it certainly will be) by the National Energy Board, faces fierce aboriginal opposition that will tie up the pipeline for years in litigation, to say nothing of political action.
Kinder Morgan, a Houston-based company, proposes to triple the size of its rather small (300,000 barrels a day) Trans Mountain pipeline to Vancouver. The announcement that it will seek regulatory approval for the increase fired opposition from mayors throughout B.C., including those in the Lower Mainland. And, of course, aboriginals along the route will object.
The threats, therefore, to the expansion of Alberta’s bitumen resources come not from environmentalists receiving money from friends in the U.S. but from the shrinking demand for imported oil in that country, and communities, aboriginal and non-aboriginal, along all the proposed B.C. pipeline routes.
Chief’s new federal post raises eyebrows
The northern B.C. first nation chief who signed a controversial deal to support Enbridge’s $5.5-billion oil pipe-line has been appointed by the federal government to the Prince Rupert Port Authority.
As a director of the board, Gitxsan hereditary chief Elmer Derrick will receive payment, although it is not clear exactly how much.
“It’s a strange appointment. It raises the possibility it’s a quid pro quo for supporting the pipeline,” said NDP Skeena-Bulk-ley Valley MP Nathan Cullen, whose riding includes a large stretch of the Northern Gateway pipeline route.
Cullen noted that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government is a supporter of the pipeline, meant to open up new markets in Asia for crude from the Alberta oilsands.
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New rules may hinder Enbridge pipeline, ex-official says
CALGARY – A government move to limit regulatory review of Enbridge Inc‘s Northern Gateway oil pipeline to Canada’s West Coast will only add to the company’s own missteps in dealing with aboriginal communities on the pipeline route and may raise more legal obstacles, a former Northern Gateway executive says.
Roger Harris, who was vice-president of aboriginal and community partnerships for Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines in 2008 and 2009, said the company has been inconsistent in its strategy as it tries to win over British Columbia native groups whose land the pipeline would cross. He said that has helped fuel some of the fierce opposition to the $5.5-billion project that has arisen.
Pipelines can be considered as the energy lifelines of human daily activities.Pipeline’s role is not only concentrated to our daily life’s but also,they are used to the nation’s industry standards.The pipeline companies are assigned the task of construction, operation, and maintenance of its pipeline systems in a safe, environmentally sound manner.
alberta pipeline companies
Carol,
The science of climate change is increasingly revealing how dangerous a phenomenon it is, and how necessary it is for the world to be moving beyond fossil fuels.
Rather than investing in pipelines that will make our problems worse, we need to be investing in energy sources that do not harm the climate, while working simultaneously to decrease our total energy use.
AFN Chief Atleo blasts Ottawa’s environmental review plans in letter to Oliver
OTTAWA–The head of Canada’s largest and most influential First Nations organization is demanding Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver meet with chiefs before implementing the Conservative government’s “unlawful and unconstitutional†planned changes to the environmental reviews of industrial projects.
In a strongly worded letter to Oliver, Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo says Ottawa’s plan to streamline environmental reviews runs afoul of Canada’s duty to consult First Nations on projects and legislative changes that impact Aboriginal and Treaty rights.
Atleo’s letter comes mere months after January’s Crown-First Nations gathering in Ottawa where Prime Minister Stephen Harper proclaimed ushered in a “new day†in Canada’s relationship with Indigenous people.
Gateway Designed to Pump Far More Crude than Advertised
Pipes could carry 60 per cent more than now proposed. Result: hundreds more tankers off BC’s coast.
British Columbians are becoming more aware of two major oil pipeline proposals — Enbridge’s Northern Gateway and Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline. These pipelines have been advanced by the government of Canada on behalf of large, multinational oil companies as well as the Chinese government’s mega national oil companies, Sinopec, PetroChina and China National Offshore Oil Company.
These are huge companies with a huge appetite for getting crude oil to Asia as quickly as possible. To make sure the pipelines go ahead, the Harper government has introduced a new Canadian Environmental Assessment Act allowing cabinet to overrule a National Energy Board no-go decision on both the Northern Gateway and Kinder Morgan’s proposals. The new federal rules speed up the process and limit the participation of many individuals and organizations in public hearings.
But Prime Minister Stephen Harper may need to do more than rush these projects through under cover of legislative shelter. Particularly when British Columbians learn the true magnitude of what these projects mean for tanker traffic.
So far, Kinder Morgan has told us their twinned pipeline proposal would expand capacity from 300,000 barrels per day and 71 tankers a year to 850,000 barrels per day and more than five times the tankers.
That’s an oil tanker a day transiting Burrard Inlet.
Yinka Dene Freedom Train – Toronto
On Wednesday May 9th, 2012 in Toronto, the Yinka Dene Alliance completed their Freedom Train project across Canada to enforce their legal ban on the Enbridge Northern Gateway oil pipelines and tankers project, and to stand up for their freedom to choose their own future.
Visit http://www.freedomtrain2012.com for more info.
Some opponents of the proposed C$5.5 billion ($5.5 billion) Northern Gateway oil pipeline to Canada’s Pacific Coast may not get a chance to be heard as scheduled by the regulatory panel looking at the plan because of federal government moves to streamline the country’s environmental review process.
As part a series of changes to environmental reviews that are packed into a sweeping budget bill, the pro-development Conservative government seeks to restrict who can appear before regulatory panels to those deemed directly affected by the proposals and those with relevant expertise.
The new rules come after more than 4,000 people registered to comment at hearings into Enbridge Inc’s controversial Northern Gateway pipeline. The project, which would move crude from the Alberta oil sands to the Pacific Coast for shipment to lucrative markets in Asia, is opposed by environmentalists and by many aboriginal groups along the mountainous route in British Columbia.
Partly due to the large number of people wanting to have their say, the regulators said in late 2011 they were extending the process by a year to late 2013. It started in January.
The “directly affected” provision would not force the three-member panel to strike any evidence already presented, but it would give it “additional flexibility to manage the remainder of the review process within timelines that will be established following passage of the bill,” according to a government source.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/11/us-environment-enbridge-idUSBRE84A0KL20120511
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Enbridge ad campaign intensifies pipeline battle
The battle for the hearts and minds of British Columbians over a proposed oil pipeline has ramped up after Enbridge Inc. launched a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign – and Greenpeace Canada responded by unfurling a giant, eye-catching banner on Lions Gate Bridge.
The tactics revealed on Tuesday by the opposing sides in the debate are dramatically different.
Enbridge is going with a finely crafted print and television campaign created by Kbs+p Canada, with media relations directed by Hill and Knowlton, a leading communications company that claims to have “invented the concept of public relations.â€
On the other hand, Greenpeace and others opposed to the Northern Gateway Pipeline proposal to link Alberta’s oil sands to a West Coast tanker port are going with low-budget drama, petitions and social networking.
On April 30, the BC New Democrat Official Opposition registered its opposition to Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Project.
The pipeline would bring oil from the Alberta oilsands to BC’s north coast, to be transported to Asia via supertankers. This would require lifting the longstanding oil tanker moratorium and Tanker Exclusion Zone. The pipeline would cross 800 streams and rivers, as well as other sensitive ecosystems and numerous First Nations communities. The risk of major oil spills, whether on the pipeline route or on the coast, is potentially catastrophic and could take decades to recover from.
Add your name to the Official Opposition to the Enbridge pipeline right now
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Activist Artist vs. Pipeline
An illustrated article that takes a leaf from “Alice in Wonderland†has gained something of an online following, prompting thousands of people to urge the Canadian government to halt development of the Northern Gateway oil pipeline.
In this “visual essay,†posted by the Canadian activist Franke James at her Web site, Alice poses a series of questions about the pipeline’s environmental risks to the Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper, and his minister of natural resources, Joe Oliver, in brightly illustrated cartoon-like frames.
Nathan Cullen presents at the Enbridge JRP Hearings in Prince Rupert
You report that B.C. Premier Christy Clark says British Columbians want our “fair share†of the pipeline spoils (Pipeline Feud In Spotlight As Oil-sands Prospects Dim – July 26).
Many, many of us simply do not want to risk our coastline or inland environment. We do not want the pipeline under any circumstances or at any price. The proposed tanker route for the Northern Gateway Pipeline is too dangerous a route for any large vessel, let alone 200 to 250 large tankers annually.
Frederick Botting, Penticton, B.C.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/letters/july-27-at-sea-on-a-pipeline-deal-and-other-letters-to-the-editor/article4443286/
Excerpts from testimony to the federal Joint Review Panel holding hearings on the feasibility of the Northern Gateway pipeline proposed for northern B.C.:
“Just the construction of this pipeline and the greenhouse gas created by the construction would more than offset any value ever created by the pipeline itself. The damage done to our medicine and food plants and the effect on the animals during construction far outweigh any benefits our territory and our people will ever get from this project.â€
— Peter Erickson, hereditary chief of Nak’azdli First Nation.
“I’m not overly religious but I do believe this beautiful earth is a gift. I also believe that we are abusing this gift. We are taking it for granted each day and we are poor stewards of the earth. I feel this project is a perfect example of that. I teach my children to pick up trash as we walk to the farmers market, and we try to model with them sustainable transportation, but it again seems futile in the face of huge pipelines’ massive destruction of land and water and burning petroleum products.â€
— Nurse Amy Klepetar.
“So in conclusion, I would like the Review Panel to think; think about building a pipeline that is guaranteed to spill . . . (that ships a product) that is proven to be doing irreversible damage to our planet, putting our province’s growing tourism industry under threat and discrediting Canada worldwide. We know better, so let’s do better. Do better so you can look at yourself in the mirror in 20 years and know you did the right thing for the generations that follow you. I know I am. I say no tankers, and no thanks.â€
— Jana Gainor of Fort St. James, B.C.
“There have been some who have said that this issue is dividing people in our communities, that it’s pitting neighbour against neighbour. I don’t see it that way. On the contrary, I believe that this issue has brought people together in the northwest like never before. And in no instance is this more significant than the relationships and the bonds that have developed between First Nations and non-First Nations communities in our region.â€
— Smithers Mayor Taylor Bachrach.
“The Pacific Ocean and the northwest coast must be protected. The element of life cannot be destroyed. How much more abuse can we take? Everyone involved in this whole business should be accountable for a crime against life, against next generations to come for destroying and polluting their environment, our environment. That is an unreasonable rush to pass this controversial project that carries a great risk of destruction and a great gain for greed.â€
— Sofia Eberman in Smithers, B.C.
“I’m here today as I cannot rely on either my current elected officials or my current provincial or federal governments to represent or even consider my views and opinions on this matter. I oppose the development of this pipeline. I am deeply concerned about the irreversible negative impacts it will have on northern B.C.’s economy, environment, lifestyles and cultures, as well as on Canada’s international reputation and credibility.â€
— Kelly Giesbrecht of Prince George, B.C.
Full transcripts of the hearings can be found at the National Energy Board Website: https://www.neb-one.gc.ca
Re: Redford deserves sympathy for having to deal with B.C., Opinion, Aug. 14
Barry Cooper’s op-ed resorts to sexist insults in defence of Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline.
Living in our “backwater play-ground,” British Columbians apparently oppose the pipeline because we “drink lattes in the rain,” “believe in spirit bears and water sprites and require grief counselling when trees blow down in Stanley Park,” rather than developing our resources like “normal, productive, hard-working Albertans.”
Cooper likens us to Nietzsche’s “last men,” weak and unwilling to take risks.
He describes the disagreement between the female premiers of Alberta and British Columbia as a “hissing match.”
Barry: I am a female British Columbian. I drink lattes but do not believe in water sprites. I don’t need “a shrink.” I don’t “hiss.” I am not a “scatterbrain.” Like you, I am a pencil-pushing academic, though I have worked in the Alberta oilfields as a technician and engineer.
I oppose the Northern Gateway pipeline not out of greed or weakness, but because I have concluded that it poses unacceptable risks of spills on land and water and, most importantly, because the combustion of the bitumen that does not spill will contribute significantly to irreversible global warming. And that will harm women, children, and even manly men.
Kathryn Harrison Professor of Political Science, University of British Columbia
http://www.vancouversun.com/touch/life/story.html?id=7115143
Pipeline plan relies on cut federal oil spill staff; Enbridge 2011 blueprint predates millions in job, funding cuts at Environment Canada
Alberta-based Enbridge can’t say what impact millions of dollars in cuts to federal environmental emergency staff would have on its oil-spill response plan for the Northern Gateway pipeline project, even though the plan relies partly on federal help if a spill were to occur.
Enbridge identified the Environment Canada unit as part of its emergency response plan in March 2011, before the Conservative government’s 2012 budget eliminated regional jobs and funding for the team that responds to environment-al accidents and disasters.
“Environment Canada is recognized as the federal authority for environmental advice during a pollution incident,” said Enbridge in the oil spill response plan. “Environment Canada and appropriate provincial representatives (i.e., British Columbia Ministry of Environment or Alberta Environment) co-chair the regional environmental emergencies team (REET).”
Enbridge highlighted its 2011 document last week in response to questions from Postmedia News about internal federal records that revealed various government departments had raised safety concerns about the proposed pipeline project in 2010 and warned it had an “insufficient” oil spill response plan along sensitive areas on its 1,200-kilometre route from Edmonton to Kitimat, on the British Columbia coast. Enbridge has told Postmedia News that it continues to provide new information requested by the government on its efforts to protect the environment and respond to potential emergencies.
But a company spokesman declined to elaborate on the potential effects of nearly $4 million in annual cuts to the government’s environ-mental emergencies program as Environment Canada shuts down six regional offices, reducing the federal disaster response program to two offices that are expected to be in Montreal and Gatineau.
“Northern Gateway is not in a position to comment on Environment Canada’s level of service regarding emergency response and their role as co-chair of the Pacific regional environmental emergencies team,” said Todd Nogier, a manager of corporate and western access communications for En-bridge.
The cuts to the environmental emergencies team are among mil-lions of dollars in cuts to scientific research and monitoring of Canada’s air, water and land announced through the 2012 federal budget.
Thomas Mulcair’s Dutch Disease warning supported by OECD report
A new OECD report seems to support controversial claims by NDP leader Thomas Mulcair that Canada is suffering from an economic condition known as Dutch Disease.
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development warns in a report released Wednesday that the run-up in commodity prices is leading to an uneven economy in Canada.
As well, it says the country needs to do more to develop non-resource aspects of the economy so as to maintain high levels of employment and an equitable distribution of wealth across regions.
In British Columbia, 134 chiefs have signed the Fraser Declaration against the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline which would bring raw bitumen from the Alberta oilsands through British Columbia to the Pacific ocean for export to Asian markets.
“Since Enbridge said they were coming through our territory, our nations have never been more unified,†said Geraldine Thomas-Flurer, 48, an organizer from the Yinka-Dene Alliance, which has crossed the country raising awareness about the pipeline that she says would poison drinking water, and destroy fish and animal habitats.
“We’ve got to stop this. We’re going to do anything we can to make sure this doesn’t go through. If my grandchildren are still fighting – what’s the point?â€
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/07/19/first-nations-should-be-full-partners-in-resource-development-says-chief-atleo/
British Columbia Premier Christy Clark’s belated but necessary assertion of B.C.’s bottom lines on the preposterously irresponsible $5.6-billion Enbridge Inc. pipeline-and-tanker scheme has caused a great deal of windy indignation to erupt from Ottawa. Clark is hijacking the prospects for a national energy strategy, we’re told. Even worse, what’s at stake is the delicate balance of Confederation itself.
The thing to notice is that what the federal Conservatives share with the Opposition New Democrats and Liberals is a comical inability to open their mouths on these subjects without insulting the intelligence of nine out of 10 Canadians. That’s the proportion of us who showed up in a February Harris Decima survey to affirm the obvious, which is that encouraging Beijing’s police-state racketeers to take over Canadian oil-sands corporations – this is the core of the “national energy strategy” on offer, by the way – is unpardonably stupid and reckless.
Beijing’s blood money is the only reason why the Enbridge pipeline idiocy is a serious prospect in the first place, but we’re expected to believe that’s beside the point.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/petro+dictators+among/7013214/story.html
Tribes in the north of British Columbia are threatening court action to block Northern Gateway, a planned oil pipeline. Since the principle of “aboriginal title†over traditional territories is affirmed in the constitution and in case law, they might well win.
Defend Our Coast
On October 22, 2012 join Canadians from all across the nation in BC’s capital
B.C. Premier Christy Clark is talking about putting a price on the west coast. The view is that for enough money we should ignore the voices of over 100 First Nations and put communities throughout B.C. and our environment at risk to the on-going threats tar sands tankers and pipelines would pose.
Prime Minister Harper has spent the last year silencing the voices of opposition by gutting environmental protection, cancelling more than 3,000 safety assessments of industrial projects and attacking Canadians who care about environmental values. Together we must tell the B.C. and Federal government that the protection of the west coast is not up for discussion and Canada’s coast is not for sale!
Last year, thousands of people risked arrest in Washington D.C. to stand up against the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline. Here in Canada, hundreds more took action in Ottawa on Parliament Hill. Now it’s time to speak for the coast.
This October, we are asking you to come to Victoria to participate in the largest act of peaceful civil disobedience on the climate issue that Canada has ever seen.
Be a part of protecting the beautiful West Coast and steering the Canadian economy away from the toxic tar sands industry. Together we will forge the future we all want and need to live in.
If a record number of us participate in this historic act of peaceful civil disobedience we can make a difference.
VANCOUVER – Opponents of the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline are organizing what they’re calling the largest act of peaceful civil disobedience on the oil sands issue in Canada.
Greenpeace Canada says a mass sit-in planned for the front lawn of the B.C. legislature in Victoria on Oct. 22 is backed by more than 80 leaders from the business, First Nations, environmental, labour and academic communities across Canada.
The group says those supporters include environmentalist David Suzuki, former Canadian UN ambassador Stephen Lewis, Council of Canadians chair Maude Barlow, lawyer Clayton Ruby, author Naomi Klein and economist Mark Jaccard.
We Can’t Afford Massive New Fossil Fuel Infrastructure: Oral Statement to Northern Gateway Joint Review Panel
Gateway can’t go ahead without full safety plan, Enbridge told
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/gateway-cant-go-ahead-without-full-safety-plan-enbridge-told/article11143741/
Enbridge Inc. must put in place all of its of voluntary spill and tanker safety plan, fund heavy oil spill research and hold nearly $1-billion in liability coverage if it builds its controversial Northern Gateway project, a federal panel has determined.
On Friday morning, the National Energy Board released a lengthy list of potential conditions for Gateway. The list does not constitute approval of the project – that decision is not expected until later this year. But the board said Friday “the publication of potential conditions is a standard step in the hearing process that is mandated by the courts.â€
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Harper cabinet readies major B.C. pipelines push
B.C. First Nations leaders to meet with key federal officials Sept. 23 in Vancouver
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Among those objecting to the Northern Gateway pipeline project as proposed are:
1. The official Opposition in the House of Commons; 2. The province of British Columbia; 3. The Union of B.C. Municipalities; 4. First Nations governments through whose territories the pipeline and tankers will pass; 5. Major trade unions, including Canada’s largest; 6. The municipal governments of Terrace, Prince Rupert, Victoria and the Regional District of Queen Charlotte; 7. The B.C. Wilderness Tourism Association; 8. Various non-governmental environmental organizations — they range from those who will employ direct action to those who reject it.
This opposition does not look like radical green eco-terrorists out to destroy business or the Canadian way of life. It looks like a broad cross-section of serious citizens with concerns to express. And have the democratic right to do so.
http://www.vancouversun.com/touch/story.html?id=9328815
Environmental groups ask court to block feds from approving Northern Gateway
VANCOUVER — The Northern Gateway pipeline project is headed to court, after several environmental groups and at least two First Nations filed lawsuits in the Federal Court of Appeal.
Four separate applications were filed seeking judicial review of a federal review panel decision recommending approval of the project. And one of those asks for a court order barring the federal cabinet from giving the project final approval until the review is complete.
The groups say the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency panel made legal errors.
Natural gas or oil pipelines built in the area would threaten bear, moose and salmon populations, says Freda Huson, a leader of the Unist’ot’en – a “resistance camp†established by members of her clan – a small part of northern B.C.’s Wet’suwet’en people. To clearly stake their claim on the land, her group has built and occupied a camp and pit homes on the proposed route of Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline south of Houston, B.C.
Canada’s federal cabinet is set to rule on the controversial project some time in June. If the government gives its blessing, as many expect it will, Ms. Huson’s response will be clear.
“We’ll just say ‘you don’t have jurisdiction. We never ceded or surrendered our land,’†she said. “We don’t need permission to be out there. It’s ours and we’ve never given it up.â€
The Northern Gateway pipeline, on which the industry and the governments of Canada and Alberta had reposed so much hope to get bitumen oil to Asia, will soon be dead.
It’s too early for the requiem for the project to move oil from northern Alberta through B.C. to Asia, because Northern Gateway has not been officially pronounced without life. But it’s just a matter of time before the onset of rigor mortis, a condition created by generalized opposition in British Columbia and, of greater consequence, opposition from some aboriginal groups whose legal power just soared courtesy of the Supreme Court of Canada.
Allowing Enbridge’s Northern Gateway oil pipeline project to proceed in Kitimat, or through a re-routed Prince Rupert location would be akin to political suicide for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, said Skeena-Bulkley Valley MP Nathan Cullen last week.
Thanks to his campaign promises on implementing a North and Central Coast crude oil tanker ban, reneging on that promise after a three-year extension application by Enbridge for its project, would have “devastating political consequences far beyond the northwest,†said Cullen in late May, mentioning that he has heard the extension compared to a ‘stay of execution’.
“The project is sitting on death row and it has been for a long time and it just keeps trudging along, pretending it’s still alive when I think legally and politically, this thing was dead a long time ago,†the MP stated.
“I don’t know why you would want to invest more time and energy into something that has so obviously been rejected by British Columbians. Many people thought the last election in October did kill the project, when 65 per cent of the people in the House of Commons campaigned on a tanker ban that would kill it.â€