Canada’s Enbridge made an announcement this week equivalent to so much of the snide puffery I’ve been reading in the comments section of articles on the Keystone pipeline: “The US doesn’t want the XL? Fine! We’ve got plenty of other pipelines (ie, the Northern Gateway) and buyers ready to go.” I was heartened when mere hours later, the First Nations Yinka Dene Alliance fired off a tenacious and inspiring “Not So Fast” press release in response:
Enbridge's pipeline isn't happening, period. It doesn't matter who they get a deal with. They plan to come through our territories and we've already said no, and we'll use every legal means we have to stop them. Their proposed pipeline is against our laws because we refuse to put our communities at the risk of oil spills.
Getting industry to support their plan is not going to help them. These lands belong to First Nations and they will never get our permission because our lands and rivers are not for sale.
As anyone who’s been closely following the Tar Sands Action sit-in this week can attest, once one begins tugging on one piece of the tar sands issue (the Keystone XL in this case), the whole ball of yarn begins to unravel. Some Daily Kos readers have compared it to a many-headed hydra. Stopping the Keystone XL would strike a significant blow to tar sands development but it probably wouldn't be a knock-out punch. A truly epic battle has been taking place for years in Canada where constitutional treaty rights are pretty much the only things standing between corporations and the complete destruction of the boreal forest and a livable world for future (and current!) generations.
As part of the Tar Sands Action training, all participants are briefed on the effects that tar sands development has had on First Nations communities in Canada. This theme can’t be overstated. Native tribes face not only toxic pollution and and a loss of fishing/hunting opportunities, but a constant barrage of permit requests from insatiable corporations. In these two videos, local residents talk about impacts on their communities:
Impacting Indigenous Culture - The Tar Sands of Northern Alberta from Robert van Waarden on Vimeo.
Keepers of the Water (2010) from Wandering Eye on Vimeo.
First Nations tribes have become the punching bags of oil companies because they're the first line of defense against tar sands development. Canada is constitutionally required to provide native people with not just land, but healthy land, capable of sustaining traditional livelihoods. This constitutional right has kept the wolves at bay somewhat but the fighting is fierce, as aboriginal lawyer Jack Woodward explains in this longish but informative clip:
Truth, Trials and Tar Sands: The Beaver Lake Cree Nation Battle Big Oil to Save the Boreal from Susan Smitten on Vimeo.
The alarm over the tar sands seems to be growing domestically. Vancouver held a Tar Sands Action solidarity rally yesterday and another large civil disobedience action is planned for Ottawa on September 26th. First Nations communities and organizations like The Council of Canadians, Greenpeace Canada, Wilderness Committee and Indigenous Environmental Network are going to need all the support they can get. Let's dismantle the stereotype of the "nice Canadian" - it's time to get mean, Canada.