First Nations establish an 'unbreakable' wall to protect the earth and their connections to life
Northern Gateway pipeline faces ‘unbreakable' wall
By Thomas Walkom - National Affairs Columnist - May 09 2012
Protesters opposing the planned Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline assemble outside the King Edward Hotel in Toronto on Wednesday. Enbridge was holding its annual general meeting at the hotel.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper may have the legislative muscle to ram his controversial oilsands pipeline through Parliament.
But Jackie Thomas and a host of equally stubborn British Columbia Indian chiefs are here to tell him that the proposed Northern Gateway conduit is far from a done deal.
"We will be the unbreakable wall," Thomas tells me in a Toronto coffee shop. "No, we are the unbreakable wall."
Two other B.C. chiefs sitting at the table nod silently.
Thomas is head of the Saik'uz first nation near Prince George. She and about 50 other B.C. Indians opposing the planned Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline are in Toronto.
On Wednesday, they led a noisy demonstration on King Street outside the hotel hosting Enbridge's annual general meeting.
It is the endpoint of what the chiefs describe as an exhilarating but exhausting cross-country railway trip aimed at publicizing native opposition to the pipeline - a pipeline that has become the central symbol of Harper's majority Conservative government.
Technically, the Enbridge pipeline is roaring ahead. The Harper government has introduced legislation that will give it the right to approve the pipeline - regardless of what a National Energy Board environmental assessment panel studying the proposal decides.
Calling the pipeline an economic necessity, the prime minister is using his majority to ram the bill through Parliament with a minimum of debate.
His government has also made it clear that it regards anyone who opposes the pipeline as un-Canadian.
Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver dismisses critics of the plan to ship oil from the Alberta tar sands to China via B.C. as "radicals" funded by foreign "socialist billionaires."
So Thomas is here to make the point that she and the roughly 6,000 members of the Yinka Dene Alliance are not enemy aliens.
They are real people living real lives in the pathway of a project they fear will ruin those lives.
"It's about the water," says Martin Louie, chief of the Nadleh Whut'en.
And so it is. There are two great river systems in B.C., the Fraser and the Skeena. The province's ecology, and to a large extent its economy, are built around them.
The Yinka Dene, an alliance of five first nations in central B.C. whose lands sit along the proposed pipeline route, fear the project will foul those great water systems. Breaks in the line, Louie says, are inevitable.
Yes, he says, there is already a natural gas pipeline through Yinka Dene land. It was built before the courts ruled that aboriginals must be involved in decisions that affect their land.
"Besides," says Thomas, "gas is different." It doesn't spill.
So what will these first nations do to stop the pipeline? First, says Louie, they will say no. The Yinka Dene are not taking part in what he describes as bogus pipeline hearings.
Second, they are warning those who would finance the Enbridge pipeline that the project is doomed.
"We've talked to the five major Canadian banks," says Thomas "and warned of the financial risks."
As my colleague Vanessa Lu has reported, one significant Enbridge stockholder - NEI Investments - is already worried.
Third, they are contemplating court challenges. "We want to exhaust all other options before we go to court," says Louie. But if, in the end, nothing else works, to court the Yinka Dene will go.
That could delay matters for years.
In the end, they are sure they can wait out both Enbridge and the ruling Conservatives. They are used to waiting. They are very patient.
"It's not going to happen," says Thomas. "Enbridge should just accept it and save themselves some money."