I’m not entirely sure I understand much about this subject even though it is right in my own back yard (figuratively speaking, meaning British Columbia).
The Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan indigenous people and their supporters want to block the already-approved construction of the Coastal Gaslink natural gas pipeline, but I’m not sure a lot of anti-pipeline supporters know why they’re blockading.
In protest, supporters have blocked commuter rail travel inconveniencing thousands who are just trying to get to and from work, and have also blocked major intersections throughout the city, and have closed several government offices throughout British Columbia and the rest of Canada. Their goal is to shut down the entire Canadian government.
On the other hand, wouldn’t building the pipeline make it easier for natural gas to get from one place to the other, in a much safer method than by truck, rail or ship? And wouldn’t it create lots of jobs and be beneficial to the rest of the country?
One of my colleagues said the media asked a demonstrator why she was demonstrating and she couldn’t give a firm answer other than her support for indigenous people. As it turns out, she was demonstrating construction of an oil pipeline instead!
How can we satisfy everyone and get the pipeline built? It’s becoming especially onerous having to listen to this kind of behaviour going on every day. This is not who Canadians are.
I’m in support of the pipeline, but the support of one man doesn’t equal the non-support of thousands of others.
The pipeline was approved by the elected council of these bands. It’s the non-elected elders who are against it. They don’t want a scary, burried, natural gas pipeline running through their lands, even though the building of it will create many well-paying jobs for plenty of first Nations people, which is definitely one of the major reasons for the elected officials to approve it in the first place.
It’s not just commuter rail travel either. This is affecting all goods transported by rail. Small businesses are hurting and soon people who heat with propane will be shivering around an electrical space heater. Should be fun if one of those burns down a house with a family trapped inside.
This can be laid at the feet of Trudeau, who has greatly empowered native bands and leaders to have veto power over infrastructure projects, and who has backed away from confrontations with protestors repeatedly. He also removed transparency requirements for federal funds going to native bands, which has increased the incentives for shakedown operations and other corruption.
Our rail system is now crippled, some eastern provinces are running out of goods, western alienation is rising rapidly, the economy is in trouble… And Trudeau, having set up the prerequisites for this mess, is on an international tour to drum up support for a temporary Canadian seat on the UN Security Council - something no one other than Justin Trudeau cares much about.
You make this sound really simple, that one group is legitimate and another isn’t. But the elected leaders are elected through a system imposed by Canada, where as the hereditary leaders continue the pre-colonial system of government. You may not like the fact that their indigenous system of government is not democratic, but I think you ought to respect it.
So there’s a conflict within one group between two systems of government. I would guess, since people are people, that this particular conflict is a proxy for a whole lot of other things in this particular nation. But I don’t know.
What Canada should be doing, at this stage, is fostering a resolution of that conflict, not claiming one side is irrelevant and one side, coincidentally the side created by Canada and equally coincidentally the one that agrees with Canada’s agenda, is right.
I don’t have an opinion about the pipeline—I don’t like it, but I suspect, as you say, that it’s better than moving the product by truck or rail. “Not at all” would be better still, but that’s not currently on the table. But certainly sending in the RCMP to enforce one side in an intra-tribal political dispute is bad optics, and the opposite of Reconciliation. So people are rightly pissed.
Then add in the rest of us, who have pro- or anti-pipeline opinions, to muddy the waters.
Well, you did refer to the “elected council” and the “non-elected elders,” though you didn’t call these elders Hereditary Chiefs, which is what they seem to be called.
I do apologize for the “as you say”—I thought you had said that, but I didn’t double-check and should have.
And as for facts—“They don’t want a scary, burried, natural gas pipeline running through their lands…” Cite for “scary”?
Is it necessarily known that the pipelines are safer than rail? IIRC from the last time pipeline protests came up here, a very large quantity of oil or gas can leak from these pipelines before it meets the threshold of the leak detectors.
Per the thread on anarchi-syndicalism, if a handful of people can bring a country to the brink of collapse by slowing rail traffic for a few days, perhaps it’s time to rethink how we do things and why we do them and why those who benefit the most from the current setup never pay the price for it all.
If Toronto city council approved a big pipeline going through Rosedale, I’m pretty sure there would be some rich white folks fighting pretty hard against it.
It’s not just the pipeline, the end point will require a huge new deep water port be built. On what is currently pristine undisturbed coastline. There was talk of Haida Guai, currently a protected area.
In the case of Natural Gas (which the OP is about) pipelines are the preferred route than any other transport modes. Since Natural Gas (methane) diffuses very quickly, leak detectors respond quickly.
I have no clue about the political / social aspects here. Only commenting on the technical aspect of the issue.
A lot of oil wells will simply flare (burn off) the natural gas which is co-produced when oil is produced , if there are no pipelines available to transport.
Cleaning the gas, compressing it and putting it in transport cylinders requires too much capital and operating expenses with very poor returns. Pipelines reduce the carbon footprint of oil production.
Why should anyone respect it? What makes that legitimate?
I’m not saying it’s not, but the fact elected band councils were a creation of the Indian Act doesn’t axiomatically make them illegitimate. They ARE an expression of the democratic opinion of the people who live on those lands, and I do not think it is hard to construct an argument that the desires of many people, as expressed by their votes, should outweight the desires of a few unelected people.
I do note that try as I might I cannot find any media source anywhere providing any information as to the opinions of the Wet’suwet’en people. Almost no one involved in these protests is from that nation.
The manner in which the Wet’suwet’en nation is governed isn’t as simple as one or the other; it’s a complicated and only partially documented constitution. That said, the idea that any degree of dissatisfaction should result in nationwide disruption and ordinary people not getting groceries is just not a workable thing.
Boy, you said it. At its root, all this is the result of years of neglect and evil.
I agree with you—I’m not saying that the elected leaders are illegitimate, just that there are two systems in place. That’s an internal conflict, fostered by our outside interference. I think we were way too quick to mobilize the RCMP, and now it’s become a huge issue, with all of the left-wing climate-change types jumping in. So now it’s about:
The pipeline
Reconciliation
Climate Change
Left vs Right
The Horgan government / BC NDP
The Trudeau government
and much, much, much more difficult to solve than when it was just about “who makes decisions for the Wet’suwet’en.”
The right to protest is important. People have a right to demonstrate peacefully against greatly objectionable policies. Ideally, once their point is made and publicized they would limit how much inconvenience they cause.
The police have an obligation to uphold the law. There has been some previous overzealousness and criticism. So there is likely some difference of opinion in how quickly and how forcefully they should act. A political solution would be better but is not likely to be quick if it is even possible.
Some time ago, a major highway around Toronto were blocked by an ethnic group protesting events far removed from Canada. Since there will always be issues, these types of protests should not be encouraged. There is a difference between a few hours of disruption to call attention to an issue, and hamstringing an important industry for weeks on end. This should trigger liability or have consequences.
Although sympathetic to several of the concerns of Ontario teachers, whom I respect, I don’t love cancelling school days forcing millions of parents to find alternatives. There need to be more productive ways of addressing disputes without punishing innocents and less posturing and hypocrisy. This also applies to provinces.
Canada ultimately needs to be a place where decisions get made and business can be done. This should not mean stakeholders are shut out of the process, but ultimately there will be differences of opinion on any issue. It sets a terrible precedent not to deal with these issues. Absolutely there need to be fair discussions but these should commence after disruptions have ended.
Many of the protests in cities across Canada were non-natives sympathetic to Indigenous issues and environmental concerns. I support intelligent law to address climate change and reconciliation. There are limits to new technologies and I believe fossil fuels will be around longer than anyone wants. So I think pipelines to be likely necessary for now. Reasonable consultation does not mean the right to cause any degree of disruption or make boundless claims. It does mean doing better, investing and educating more, avoiding similar mistakes and supporting Indigenous business.
If Toronto City Council rejected gas lines into residential areas I’m pretty sure there would be some poor folks of all ethnicities fighting pretty hard against it.
but I guess the protestors could import their natural gas from Russian and transport it by truck, rail. Assuming they aren’t blocked by protestors.
If I were President Trudeau I’d focus on getting supplies to those outside of the area in question so as not to disturb sacred indigenous land until they get it worked out.
