WILL
THE NORTHERN GATEWAY PIPELINE PUSH THROUGH UNSURRENDERED FIRST
NATIONS LAND IN BC?
VICE,
23 January, 2014
A
few weeks ago the National Energy Board of Canada conditionally approved Enbridge’s
plan to build twin pipelines called the Northern Gateway in northern
Alberta and British Columbia. It was a grotesquely unpopular
decision, with environmental concerns so ubiquitous among residents
of BC that even pro-tar
sands political
parties are
against it. The pipelines would carry diluent chemicals and bitumen
between coastal tankers and Alberta’s tar sands, increasing export
opportunities while introducing the risk of a spill to the coast, the
Rocky Mountains, the Great Bear rainforest, and some of the
leastcontaminated fresh-water rivers in the world. But the plan’s
final approval, seemingly inevitable under Canada’s oil-drunk
federal government, could result in unprecedented conflict: A broad
coalition of politicians, citizens, environmental groups and
indigenous nations are prepared to block the project with their
bodies as it inches towards the coast.
At
the Unist’ot’en
encampment in
Wet’suwet’en territory, people are already living in cabins that
were built to blockade the Northern Gateway. Along with most other
indigenous nations in BC, who have never given up their lands to the
Canadian state, those at Unist’ot’en camp believe that this
project escalates a conflict that is centuries old—they equate the
Northern Gateway with a violation of their sovereignty and the
extension of colonial law into their unsurrendered territories.
It’s
appropriate then that Northern Gateway’s most enthusiastic
cheerleader, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, told
the G20 in 2009 that
Canada “has no history of colonialism.” In
thishistoricidal remark,
Harper denied the often horrific strategies used
by settlers and corporations to force indigenous people from their
lands over hundreds of years, policies which are the veryfoundation
of our country.
But these acts of violence and dispossession, which Harper seeks to
erase from history, will only intensify if Enbridge’s Northern
Gateway is approved. This is because Enbridge plans to build the
Northern Gateway predominantly across unsurrendered indigenous lands.
“There
are creative, subtle, and sometimes not-so-subtle ways that the
practices of colonialism are still carried out. And this is
absolutely one of them,” Jess Housty argued. She is an elected
councillor of Heiltsuk Nation in BC who gained support through her
anti-Enbridge activism. Speaking on behalf of her nation, Housty told
me that the Northern Gateway is “an issue of sovereignty. It’s
the point where we’re saying enough is enough, too much has been
taken away. This is our place, this is our territory, these are our
resources. We have a responsibility to steward them and we’re
saying no. It’s about asserting our right to govern ourselves and
to act as a sovereign nation.” Fighting the Northern Gateway is a
matter of getting “the authority of tribal law recognized” and
seeing “how it can be enforced and honoured and respected as a law
of the land and a law of this place that has never been ceded by its
original owners,” Housty said.
This
sovereignty that many indigenous nations claim along the pipeline
route is established in BC’s history of land disputes, which is
unique among the Canadian provinces in that it is largely unresolved.
Hayden King, director of Ryerson University’s Centre for Indigenous
Governance, explained: “In the history of the BC treaty process
very few agreements have been made. The vast majority of territory in
British Columbia is unceded, unsurrendered indigenous territory.”
But according to King, there are “two competing and contrasting
perspectives on what unceded land, unceded territory means when it
comes to consultation, development, rights, and so on.”
At
one pole are the original inhabitants of these territories who have
never signed away their lands and believe that they have the right to
self-govern. This perspective is promoted by broad alliances of
indigenous nations in BC, such as the Yinka-Dene alliance
of 130 nations who have banned the transportation of oil through
their territories and waterways under tribal law. Speaking on behalf
of the alliance, Chief Martin Louie of Nadleh Whut’en First Nation
was confident that this indigenous law is enforceable, particularly
because most people in BC are also opposed to Enbridge’s project.
He explained that there are “a lot of people that stand to help us
fight this fight, whether it’s going to be in court or on the land…
All these years I grew up with people calling British Columbia
beautiful. It’s not going to be that way with all these projects
going through it, and a lot of people are behind us on this.”
Unist’ot’en
spokesperson Freda Huson explained that in Wet’suwet’en territory
the traditional, consensus-based system of governance is “still
alive and well here, even though a lot of other First Nations have
lost their system.” Under this system they have banned all
pipelines and established a rule that those looking to pass through
the territory must answer a series of questions: “Who are you?
Where are you from? How long do you plan to stay if we let you in? Do
you work for the industry or government that’s destroying our
lands? How will your visit benefit my people?” The last question,
Huson said, is the one that “industry has trouble answering.”
“We’ve
written them several letters saying no to this project. Nothing they
say or do will change our mind. Because the environmental concerns
come before any money, and we’re not holding out just so we can get
money from them. We don’t want their money. We want to keep our
land for future generations,” Huson said.
But
despite all this, Huson’s clan has repeatedly found that corporate
surveyors are sneaking onto their land. In November of 2012
they issued
a feather to
a group of pipeline surveyors, which is “the last warning in our
tradition that you’re trespassing when you haven’t even spoke to
us and asked permission to be there. None of these companies have
ever approached us.” Underhistorical
Wet’suwet’en law,
ignoring this warning and continuing to trespass is punishable by
death.
“Does
Canadian law respect that perspective? Not really,” Hayden King
said.
Proponents
of this pipeline, like Enbridge and the Canadian state, hold a
radically different understanding of what it means for indigenous
land to be unceded. Under Canadian law, King explained, these parties
“have a duty to consult and accommodate” indigenous peoples when
proposing new projects. However “Canadian law is still very fuzzy
about what consultation entails” and this could involve anything
from writing a letter to actually giving indigenous groups veto power
over proposals. But ultimately, King explained, consultation “doesn’t
mean that native people can say no to development if they oppose it…
Canada assumes that it has ultimate jurisdiction over this
territory.”
Sentries
guard Unist'ot'en land from trespassers.
“We’re
always going to have this disparity between the jurisdiction
indigenous peoples believe they have when it comes to unsurrendered
land and the jurisdiction that Canada believes it has over those
unsurrendered lands… they’re just two separate ways of looking at
the world. They’re incompatible,” King said.
I
asked Jess Housty of Heiltsuk Nation if she fears that the government
will turn to violence to build the Northern Gateway when people along
its route refuse to be moved. “I do not fear it but I anticipate
it,” she said. But Housty would prefer a peaceful solution. “I
have a firm belief that we need to resolve this by peaceful, logical
means in any way we can. I believe that because that is what my
elders have told me and that is what is consistent with my teachings
as a Heiltsuk person. Having said that, if this continues to be
escalated by the federal government, by the National Energy Board, by
Enbridge and the proponents, there’s nothing that I won’t do to
stop this pipeline and I know I won’t be alone in that. I say that
with the spirit of my community behind me,” she explained.
At
Unist’ot’en camp, where a much more militant strategy of land
defence is already in place, Freda Huson believes the RCMP’s use of
force is inevitable. “I believe they’ve been preparing for it
because they opened a base for training in Prince George and they
upped their training and security with the RCMP,” she said.
Nonetheless, Huson remains confident that the pipeline will never be
built. “If any of government or industry is listening, you don’t
know what you’re up against.” Accordingly, the camp is currently
investing in security equipment after several arsons occurred and a
homemade bomb was set off in territory. The perpetuators of these
acts are unknown, but Huson speculates that they could potentially be
part of an RCMP
dirty trickscampaign
or that these acts may have been undertaken by corporate goons.
Enbridge’s
spokesperson, Graham White, declined to comment on whether or not the
company had consulted with the many indigenous communities that will
be impacted by their project, or what they will do if communities
along the route do not consent to its construction. “I really don’t
see the point in me taking the time to provide any further comments,”
he told me in an email. Mr. White might have been annoyed that
I caught
him in a lie the
last time we spoke.
But
in the case of the Northern Gateway, this process of consultation was
undertaken by the National Energy Board’s Joint Review Panel. It
was a process that may have fulfilled the government’s duty to
consult, even though many nations refused to participate on the basis
that they had no input into designing the process itself. “It’s a
process that was not of our making as a community. It’s of course a
process being imposed on us,” Jess Housty explained.
There
was also a pervasive sense that the panel’s outcome was
pre-determined and the hearings were just a public spectacle. “It’s
not a meaningful consultation process if ‘no’ is not an
acceptable end result. There was no way that this process was going
to end in the Joint Review Panel recommending that cabinet reject
this project and then cabinet rejects this project,” Housty said.
This sentiment seems to be confirmed in the NEB’s final conclusion
– after hearing 1,159 testimonies against the project and only two
for it, from indigenous and non-indigenous groups alike, the NEB’s
three person panel determined that “Canada and Canadians would be
better off with the Enbridge Northern Gateway project than without
it.”
But
despite these criticisms, Housty’s nation decided that they would
participate in this process and voice their concerns. For the arrival
of the National Energy Board, Heiltsuk studentsorganized
a peaceful protest at
the airport that included children, elders, and hereditary chiefs in
traditional regalia. When the NEB panel arrived, Housty recalls, they
“walked off the plane, bee lined to a waiting taxi, took a water
taxi across to the next island where they were staying at a resort,
and then issued a letter saying that they were cancelling our
hearings because they felt that their security was being threatened.
It took a day and a half of negotiations to get the hearings back on
track and that was time that was never adequately made up.”
When
the hearings finally went forward, many speakers were unable to
deliver their prepared testimonies due to time constraints. Those
elders who spoke, according to Housty, “were antagonized by the
panel. We had elders who walked off the stand in protest because they
refused to suffer being disrespected that way by people who had come
into our territory and who were supposed to be unbiased.” She
recalls “the atmosphere in the room… was of three very distracted
people who were doing a duty but doing it in a very perfunctory way.”
Ultimately, she feels that her community was denied “their right to
express themselves. And that’s a lot of hurt and anger and
disrespect that’s still stirring in this community.”
Yet,
with so much anger growing throughout Canada’s northwest, the NEB’s
decision can in no way be final.
“This
pipeline will not be built,” Housty asserted. “I very firmly
believe that the proponents of this pipeline underestimate the
opposition to it. This is not just a First Nations issue; it’s not
just an environmental issue. There is a huge and diverse constituency
around this work, this advocacy work, this activism. The networks
that have been built, the communities that have been built, are
incredible and powerful and strong. These are people that are
unlikely and often unlooked for allies that have never banded
together as strongly as I’ve seen them band together here. It’s
an incredible thing to watch.”
Posts
