By Ronnie Safarov
The Mohawk Council of Kanesatake and several other Indigenous groups continue to oppose the controversial TransCanada Energy East pipeline project.
In the letter he addressed to Québec Premier Phillipe Couillard, published in the Montreal Gazette on March 14, Grand Chief Serge Simon from the Mohawk Council of Kanesatake referred to the decision of many Indigenous nations from all over Canada to join together to oppose the Energy East project.
“An alliance of indigenous nations, from coast to coast, is being formed against all the pipeline,” wrote Simon.
As a part of the Iroquois Caucus, the Mohawk Council’s opposition to the pipeline was a part of a collective decision by the rest of its members to stand against the project. The Assembly of First Nations of Québec and Labrador, representing 43 Québec chiefs, and the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) have joined as well.
Energy East, the 4,600-kilometre pipeline, is projected to carry 1.1 million barrels of crude oil per day from Alberta and Saskatchewan to refineries in Eastern Canada. The majority of the route will consist of a converted natural gas pipeline. However, a large amount of new pipeline segments are proposed to be built in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Eastern Ontario, Québec and New Brunswick to connect to the converted pipe.
Simon, in his strongly-worded letter, specifically denounced Couillard’s failure to consult with Indigenous communities in Québec prior to issuing the permit for TransCanada’s seismic exploration in the Ottawa River, which will precede the proposed construction of Energy East in the region. As this pipeline is going to cut through the territories of 180 different First Nations communities, each of these nations must be consulted and their interests accommodated prior to commencing any further development of the project.
The concerns of Indigenous communities are of course not limited merely to their current lack of participation in the decision-making process. One of the main worries of many First Nations is the potential environmental hazard. Simon expressed great concern for the Ottawa River, which remains a vital aspect of the Mohawks’ constitutionally protected way of life. Aside from the Mohawks’ use of the river for fishing, hunting, harvesting and serving as an area of tremendous spiritual and cultural importance, it may be further endangered due to increased risk of oil spillage. The Grand Chief invokes the memory of troubling cases where oil spills have caused extensive environmental damage, such as the Enbridge pipeline oil spill in the Kalamazoo River or the Nexen pipeline rupture near Long Lake in the Athabasca oil sands region in the summer of 2015.
The Grand Chief’s concern is understandable: undetected oil leaks will continue until someone discovers them, and by that time the spillage may have already done irreversible damage. According to Simon’s figures, several sections of TransCanada’s Keystone Pipeline Phase 1 (that delivers oil all the way from Hardisty, Alberta through Saskatchewan and Manitoba to a refinery and a tank farm in Illinois) are 95 per cent corroded after only two years of operation. Among other highly probable environmental impacts that were addressed, there is the pipeline’s CO2 emissions being between 30 and 32 million tons per year, according to Pembina Institute research in 2014.
In the past, Indigenous communities had already pointed out that there seemed to be a direct link between oil pollution and environmental harm in their region: in 2010, the First Nations of B.C. voiced their concern about contamination from 1,400 abandoned oil and gas sites, which contributed to the killing of caribou.
All of this inevitably raises a question: is the pipeline’s contribution to Canada’s economy going to be so significant that we will turn a blind eye on the possible risk of irreversible environmental damage? TransCanada feasts our ears with promises to create “14,000 direct and indirect full-time jobs across Canada during project’s development and construction alone” and add $55 billion to Canada’s GDP over the next 20 years. However, not everyone is so optimistic. Based on a 2014 report by Environmental Defence, the Energy East pipeline will not provide work for Canadian refineries, as almost all of the Energy East’s crude oil will be exported unrefined from Canada.
According to a 2014 Natural Resources Canada estimation, Canada has 825,000 kilometers of pipeline infrastructure. For the sake of comparison, the National Highway System’s length is only 38,021 kilometres.
Each second, this intricate cobweb of steel arteries, running beneath the soil and cutting through the heart of the boreal forest tirelessly pumps thousands of gallons of hydrocarbons, the organic remains of prehistoric flora and fauna. What once walked and grew upon the Earth has now turned into a source of great wealth – most of which the owners of petroleum companies are poised to reap.
There is no time for sentimental reflections, however. As this monstrous pipeline is about to grow even larger, further action is required to preserve the lives that will be negatively affected by the pipeline’s presence.
According to Simon, “We will not be brushed aside any longer and we wish to press upon you that we reserve the right to take legal action if necessary to prevent the abuse of our inherent rights.”
This article first appeared in the Leveller Vol. 8 No. 6 (March 2016).
