Northern Gateway Pipeline: First Nations protesters take to a train to share their protest

Just past dawn in a northern Ontario town, a lone woman held up a sign by the railway tracks.

“I support the Freedom Train.”

Cheers swept through the forty First Nations protesters on board the VIA Rail train as they barrelled past her toward Toronto in their battle against the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline.

The representatives of the Yinka Dene Alliance, made up of B.C. First Nations groups, left Vancouver eight days ago, winding through Saskatoon, Edmonton and Winnipeg to tell Canadians about the damage the pipeline could wreak on their natural resources.

The Freedom Train rolled into Union Station Tuesday morning, a day ahead of their planned protest at the Enbridge annual general meeting.

The company’s proposed $5.5 billion pipeline would transport crude oil from Bruderheim, Alta. to Kitimat on the B.C. coastline. This would open up the Alberta oilsands to China and other oil-hungry Asian markets, as well as the U.S. west coast.

But the 1,172-kilometre pipeline would also cross lands belonging to dozens of First Nations groups, as well as three fault lines, said hereditary Chief Pete Erickson of the Nak’azdli First Nations.

“The technology just isn’t there to make that pipeline safe,” he said, pointing to the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan damaged by an earthquake and tsunami last year.

While waiting for their bags to be unloaded in the station, some of the protesters performed their newly composed “Freedom Train” song.

“Water is life,” sang Meagan Katlo, 19.

And it’s the water that’s most at risk, said Chief Jackie Thomas, of the Saik’uz First Nations.

“The message I left in Edmonton was, are you going to come get my water in B.C. next?” she said, referring to the water pollution caused by the Alberta oilsands.

Any short-term employment benefits from the pipeline construction don’t outweigh the risks, she adds.

“The primary beneficiaries of having a pipeline and expansion of the tarsands are not my province or my community . . . . It’s the federal government,” she said.

“I’m afraid we’re being thrown under the bus as a sacrificial lamb in the interests of Canada, again.”

Thomas got the idea for a donation-funded train journey to spread awareness of the pipeline impact beyond B.C. from the 1980 Constitution Express, which focused on indigenous rights in the Constitution.

“That was an incredible experience, and this one has been the same,” she said.

“We went to a feast and the Mennonite community in Winnipeg sang to us,” she said. “My friend April said, ‘I never thought I’d see that in my lifetime.’ ”

The final stage of their journey is the Wednesday rally outside the Enbridge annual general meeting, similar to one held last year in Calgary.

It is expected to draw hundreds of people, fuelled in part by a controversial decision from the federal minister of Natural Resources, Joe Oliver, to shorten the environmental review process required for major energy infrastructure projects.

Enbridge spokesperson Todd Nogier said the company has reached out “open a dialogue” with the Yinka Dene ahead of the meeting, where the impact of the pipeline on the First Nations will be discussed.

Nogier says that out of the 50 First Nations groups that Enbridge is in talks with, 40 per cent have agreed to the offer of a stake in the pipeline project.

Original Article
Source: Star
Author: Alyshah Hasham