December 5 , 2006 - Hearing Summary

Yellowknife

This edition of the blog written by Eric Swanson.

General Hearing

The transcript of this hearing is a one-stop shop for all the big-picture reasons not to allow the Mackenzie Gas Project to proceed as proposed. There is a penetrating sense however, that despite the logic and wisdom behind this opposition, the decision to allow or refuse the MGP has already been made. For those unaware as to the rationale for this...

“I always believed that if the rest of the world wants our gas, our diamonds, our gold, they’ll find a way of getting here to get it. Don’t ever believe that you can stop a big multinational. If they want to be here, they are bigger than we are. The best we can do is, find a way of buying into that.”
Premier of the NWT, 2004

“The Mackenzie Project has the potential to transform the North into what some call the next Alberta…It won’t happen unless you make sure projects like the Mackenzie Pipeline come to fruition because without them no amount of transfer payments will give the North the future it deserves.”
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, at a recent speech in Yellowknife

“There is a window to make good on a pipeline project but that window won’t stay open forever. There is an urgency and I think we need to seize that opportunity. He who hesitates is lost.”
Brendan Bell, Minister of Industry for the GNWT

Despite this optic, or perhaps in part because of it, members from the public came out to the hearing on Dec 5th in Yellowknife to shower the JRP with a stunning amount of articulated dissent – the substance of which contained penetrating reason and intuitive wisdom capable of painting the MGP as a poor vehicle to deliver positive change in the north.

Sorry Mr. Harper, but “[we] do not share [your] vision that the NWT should become the next Alberta” (Kevin O’Reilly). All were opposed to the project as presently proposed; many explicitly provided sound reason against allowing any project of its kind. I will attempt to convey the essence of their arguments, though I recommend to those with time to read the transcript, as it is an inspiring experience.

The hearing begins with a short presentation by the proponent, which includes a project summary and a description of the process by which the proponents reach their conclusion of: “…no significant adverse biophysical effects…no significant adverse socio-economic effects in Yellowknife, the NWT or beyond…positive economic effects are expected during construction and operations.” Here you have the official mantra of the proponent.

The remainder of the hearing is presentations by members of the public, including organizational representation for the North Slave Métis Alliance and the Arctic Indigenous Youth Alliance (AIYA). 

Kevin Kennedy sums up the prevalent tone of the presentations from the public: “the proposed Mackenzie Gas Project is the wrong project, at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons.” There were common fundamental concerns at the heart of this statement tying several of the individual presentations together.

Shelagh Montgomery puts it best:“where is the government research to truly substantiate the position that the Mackenzie Gas Project is the cornerstone to economic development and future social and cultural wellbeing in the Northwest Territories?” What assumptions and premises underlie the fervent belief of the territorial and federal governments in the MGP? If these were made public, they could be challenged publicly. Instead, the governments “seem to have helped design a process that was really meant to fast-track approval and disempower the public” (Kevin O’Reilly) – as a result, the public is forced to watch the process dance around the foundational questions – this is unacceptable, and the JRP is made to know this. 
                                           
(1) The current royalty and tax regime is archaic and does not maximize monetary compensation to northerners. This is indicative of the inability of government to take control.

Kevin O’Reilly: “governments are not ready. They are not ready to exert control over the pace and timing of development or to collect a fair share of revenues.” Just as the Alberta government was not, and is still not ready. Kevin goes on to recommend that “the federal government should hold any federal revenues in trust from the MGP pending the conclusion of a devolution and revenue sharing agreement [and that] the Government of the NWT should establish a permanent fund, using all or a significant portion of any revenues from the MGP to build fiscal stability and a more sustainable and diversified economy” (Kevin O’Reilly). Alaska and Norway come up a number of times as examples of places where citizens receive better compensation for access to their resources.

(2) There is a warranted lack of trust in both the proponents and the government to make good on their commitments to mitigate and manage environmental effects to truly ‘insignificant’ levels.

Kevin O’Reilly: “[there should be] independent environmental oversight that builds on the existing capacity and co-management bodies and ensures that the proponents and the aboriginal and public governments adhere to their environmental commitments.” Similar to a Nature Canada recommendation made on Nov 16th, Kevin suggests that the proponent should be required to provide financial security to cover the full cost of reclamation and closure to agreed-upon standards.

(3) The NWT has experience with resource development, and its tendency to lead to more crime, alcohol and drug addiction, teen pregnancies and single mothers, more poverty, sexually-transmitted infections, violence against women and reduced childcare services.

The temporary and permanent demographic changes (large increases in working-age non-aboriginal males) in northern communities that result from resource extraction exacerbate these social afflictions. The MGP will be no different. In addition, the major touted benefit of the MGP to communities (increased employment) may not be much of a benefit at all. Aggie Brockman: “industrial non-renewable resource development does not always offer jobs and it doesn’t always offer the right jobs, nor does it, in itself, remove the great barriers to wage employment, which are low education and skills.” The effect of this, Shelagh Montgomery argues, is that “despite significant large scale industrial development [Australia case study used as evidence]…little has been achieved [there] over the past four decades in terms of enhancing Indigenous socioeconomic status.” The proponents and gov’t have not demonstrated that the MGP will be any different.

(4) The MGP will especially impact women in the north; the proponents and government have no real plan to deal with this.

Lois Little: “I wonder why the proponent refuses to conclude that gender differentiated impacts [described in their ‘Gender Analysis Report’] require gender differentiated responses, so that inequities…aren’t created and existing inequities aren’t aggravated…The proponent has committed no strategy specific to women.” The proponents are keen to emphasize that the responsibility for dealing with these sorts of socio-economic impacts is shared between government, industry, etc. But, “the term shared responsibility is code for everyone standing in a circle and pointing left. No one is responsible and no one takes responsibility…The error of basing impact mitigations and management strategies on the principle of shared responsibility is illuminated by [the NWT’s] recent experiences with diamond mines”(Lois Little). These concerns over ‘shared responsibility’ are relevant for all effects.

(5) The proponent’s use of, and the government’s acceptance of the universal phrase: ‘no significant impact’ discredits both of them and their ability to honestly assess the impact of allowing much of the north to be industrialized.

Tasha Stephenson articulates well the absurdity of this phrase and its universal application: “as an example of our determination of significance, I’d like to point out that a certain number of suicides are expected to result as an impact from this project. Can anyone talk to the families of these suicide victims and tell them that this is an insignificant impact?” The soundness of this argument holds for each and every type of impact. Wouldn’t it be better for the proponent and government to acknowledge that there will be significant impacts – and to then provide detailed plans to deal with them? At least then we could honestly debate whether the project is worth the associated effort and risks.

Mary McCreadie: “both the proponents and the territorial government offer this type of message: that we can have the MGP and not hurt the land, the people and our communities. How can they possibly reach this conclusion?” Tasha Stephenson takes it further: “all projects that are approved have to have been found to have no significant adverse environmental [and] social impact. Why is it then that our environment and social fabric is constantly deteriorating? Obviously, the assessment of adverse or significant is faulty and the cumulative total of all these supposedly insignificant impacts belies our ability to protect the environment and the people.”

Karley Ziegler sums it up: “every project has significant impacts even if sometimes the results do not show until later… So while CEOs and shareholders are getting rich off of no significant impact, the planet is left to deal with the runaway freight train of environmental damage.”

(6) The project is grotesquely inconsistent with the need to rapidly and drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. If the MGP were to proceed, it must be carbon neutral.

Aggie Brockman: “it’s ironic that one of the geographic areas feeling the climate change effects earliest could be poised to drastically increase carbon emissions.” Indeed,

Chris O’Brien reminds the JRP that “[we are sending the wrong signal if] we, who will see greater climate change induced temperature increases than anywhere else on the planet, are not willing to take responsibility for our own greenhouse gas emissions.” He says ‘boohoo’ to the proponents who whine that “implementing

Ecology North’s recommendation [to make the project carbon-neutral], would impose a significant cost burden which goes well above and beyond any requirement for any project in Canada.”

(7)  The MGP will be profitable for companies because there is such a large demand for fossil fuels, especially relatively clean natural gas. But why should northerners be required to feed the superfluous consumption of the world market? Perhaps instead we should focus our energies on reducing demand, and saving this precious resource for future generations, who will likely need it more.

Anke Tuininga argues implicitly that if we feed this demand, we also “become dependent on the revenues and employment generated by the extraction of the natural resources in much the same way that addicts become dependent on drugs.” You don’t have to look far to become convinced of the truth of this.

(8) There is a pronounced absence of balanced information in northern communities, such that many people are unaware that there are real alternative means to bettering their situation besides allowing industrialization. Thus, these alternative means, which may in fact be far superior to the MGP, are given virtually no consideration. 

Mary McCreadie: “governments lead us to believe we have only two choices, the MGP or the status quo. I suggest we can choose from many other more creative alternatives, alternatives that people freely choose and that truly contribute to sustainability.” For example, “NWT residents need jobs…but we might consider what kinds of jobs NWT people find most creative and fulfilling…[and] consider what training and jobs contribute most to safe and stable families, communities, cultures and local economies.” Or perhaps “we might choose to focus on effective literacy and training programs so people can develop skills for local, independent, long-term initiatives” that “promote self-sufficiency and independence [from industrial economies].” Many share Chris O’Brien’s opinion that the NWT would be better off if the “energy, creativity, ingenuity and imagination that has gone into the project [were] applied instead to developing a more ecologically, socially and economically sustainable future for the NWT.”

Jessica Simpson from the AIYA: “youth and Elders and other people in our communities are not educated on the alternatives to industrial development….which is one of the reasons why people are for the pipeline, because they feel powerless because they think that building a pipeline is the only option that we have.” It isn’t!

(9) This is a ‘basin-opening’ project. The JRP needs to require a complete analysis of cumulative (including induced) effects. It makes no sense to consider the MGP in isolation of the inevitable further industrialization that it will catalyze.

Tasha Stephenson: “if [the JRP] approves this project, [they] are approving the entire associated cumulative expansion of the basin. Where does this leave our options for the future, for land-based culture, for alternative development?” It severely restricts, if not eliminates these options. Mary McCreadie wisely calls into question the use of present day conditions as the baseline for the MGP cumulative effects assessment – i.e. does doing this give an accurate or a truthful picture of potential cumulative effects? Past experience around the world indicates that no, it does not. Altogether, there has been an absence of ‘full-cost accounting’ for this project. The conclusions of ‘no significant impact’ accepted by government bosses and touted by the proponents seem to ignore historical evidence (either willingly or in ignorance).

[Itai Katz, a day later at the Dec 6th NEB hearing made the point that the proponents are happy to talk about induced development in terms of economic benefits, but shy away from discussing the environmental effects of said expansion]
             
(10) The Aboriginal Pipeline Group represents business interests, not the best interests of aboriginals.

Chris O’Brien: “while the Inuit Circumpolar Conference warns the world about the devastation that climate change will bring to the traditional Inuit way of life, one of ICC’s own land claims regions is heavily involved in the APG and is pushing hard for the project without any comments about making it carbon neutral or ensuring that northern gas is used only in ways that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Suzette Montreuil: “the Aboriginal Pipelines Groups' profits are tied to the expansion of the gas project. This will make it difficult for Aboriginal groups to control or oppose any expansion, should their experience with the project be negative.”

(11) Many people in the north intuitively recognize that allowing this kind of industrialization will mean losing something of infinite immeasurable value in an increasingly ravaged world – i.e. much of the ‘wildness’ and pristine nature of the NWT that inspires and defines the peoples and cultures who call this place home. The MGP will initialize the transformation from wild to managed, from intact to fragmented.

Kevin Kennedy: “we’re among the last people on earth who have a pristine natural area in our care.”

Tasha Stephenson: “a sanctuary is supposed to be inviolable. We know it is wrong to violate a sanctuary, whether it be a temple or a nursery or a breeding ground for birds. Yet, here we are quibbling over which prediction is right, about what percentage of the Kendall Island Bird Sanctuary can be laid to waste.”

Jamie Bastedo: “many who do live here see it as the source…of the highest knowledge, the best food, the greatest strength, the most important stories and songs and that special joy and immeasurable wealth we can't find anywhere, but on the land.” Jamie then aptly quotes Albert Einstein: “not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts.” This is the problem with technical assessments – and their inability to predict and account for fundamental consequences that limit the types of relationships that we can have with our world.

Anke Tuininga reminds the JRP that everything is connected in dynamic, sometimes unknowable relationships, such that “our actions ripple through the entire landscape, affecting everything. We must remember and not forget or wilfully ignore our human innate, inseparable interdependence on the living land that sustains us.”

I’ll finish this rather long summary by including an extensive quote of Andrea Saldanha.

“There's a myth, a myth that with enough knowledge and technology we can manage the impact of the Mackenzie Gas Project.

The terms "minimize environmental impact" have a really nice ring, but the complexity of earth and life systems can never be safely managed. What we can manage, however, is human desires.We can manage economies, we can manage politics and we can manage communities. Our attention is currently focused on developing a pipeline that will deliver natural gas and natural gas liquids to markets in Canada and to the United States. However, it makes far more sense to me to try and re-shape ourselves to fit a finite planet than to re-shape a finite planet to fit our infinite wants.

There's a myth; a myth that our knowledge of the impact of this project is increasing.

Lately, there's been a flurry of activity: this presentation, environmental assessments, community consultations, forecasts of impacts on the workforce. There's been an increase in paper and an increase in data and this flurry of activity should not be mistaken as an increase in knowledge or wisdom.

While we gain information, we should acknowledge that, if the pipeline proposed is successful, knowledge will be lost. For example, the traditional knowledge held by the distinct communities across this territory cannot be catalogued in its entirety. Every person in the Northwest Territories will not record his or her relationship to surrounding land, including oral history, knowledge of cultural rituals, heritage sites, traditional lifestyles, hunting and harvesting methods. Knowledge will be lost.

There is a myth that we will be able to adequately restore what we will dismantle.”

If we have learned anything, it should be that this is the most dangerous myth we can hold.

Eric Swanson is a volunteer with the Sierra Legal Defence Fund.

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