The battle to protect the Great Bear Rainforest just kicked into high gear – yet again – with yesterday’s signing ceremony for a memorandum of understanding between the federal government and Alberta, opening the doors for a new oil pipeline to the northwest coast. It was surreal to watch Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith gleefully signing agreements for a pipeline destined for British Columbia, with no representation or support from British Columbia at the table – and in particular, no representation or support from coastal First Nations who would bear the full impact of a catastrophic oil spill.
But big oil has that effect on people. It seems like the ink has barely dried on the legislated oil tanker ban put in place in 2019 for the north coast of B.C., yet here we go again. This time the strategy is to hide behind the newly minted mantra of “projects in the national interest,” a framing that could be used to strip away laws that protect fish and wildlife while also sidestepping public and First Nations consultation and input.
Nothing has changed about why First Nations, coastal communities, and people across Canada stopped the Northern Gateway oil pipeline through the Great Bear Rainforest the first time. In fact, those reasons have only grown more urgent as we face a worsening climate and biodiversity crisis.
This video, Oil in Eden, was made 14 years ago, but the same concerns exist today.
The agreement signed yesterday between the federal government and Alberta reads like a dream come true for foreign-owned oil companies. If they actually get their way and officially designate the pipeline and tanker route a “nation-building” project, the very laws that protect the coast could be bypassed:
- The Fisheries Act, exposing hundreds of salmon-bearing rivers to risk.
- The Species at Risk Act, removing safeguards for mountain caribou, fin and humpback whales, and countless other threatened and endangered species.
- The Impact Assessment Act, gutting public and Indigenous consultation and removing the need to inform Canadians of the environmental and economic costs of such a project.
In short: a perfect scenario for oil companies, and a disaster for the Great Bear Rainforest.
What’s most shocking is the Prime Minister’s justification yesterday:
“We are going to get to our greenhouse-gas objectives only through massive investment, and we need agreements like this to drive that investment.”
So dramatically increasing tar sands production with a new oil pipeline – most likely bought and paid for by Asian state-owned oil companies to ship some of the world’s dirtiest oil across the Pacific – is somehow supposed to buy our way out of the climate crisis decades from now? And this is “nation building”?
To top it off, this deal explicitly contemplates weakening or lifting the legislated oil tanker ban.
What the Prime Minister fails to grasp is what stands to be lost: the irreplaceable ecological and cultural wealth of the Great Bear Rainforest. His background in economics leaves him ill-prepared for the unwavering commitment of British Columbians —and the Nations—who will fully defend their home.
Written by Ian McAllister
