The NEB hearings on the Enbridge Gateway pipeline are in Edmonton today and will be greeted by a
rally sending the message: don’t tar our future or BC’s coast.
Stationed outside of the hotel where the hearings are taking place, people are gathering to hear from a number of speakers and a drum circle. The point is to send a clear message both inside and outside of the hearings that the pipeline is not in our interests.
For more information about the rally and the film screening of Pipe Dreams this Sunday, visit this wordpress.
As described by local organizers,
Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline is 1,170 km of potential destruction, proposed to go from just outside of Bruderheim, AB to Kitimat, BC. It would carry approximately 525,000 barrels/day of tar sands oil and 193,000 barrels/day of toxic condensate back along the same route to Alberta. The pipeline would cross the traditional and unceded territory of dozens of BC First Nations, over 1,000 streams and rivers – many of them salmon bearing – would go through the Great Bear Rainforest – the last remaining intact temperate rainforests on the planet – and would bring over 200 super-sized oil tankers through one of the narrowest and most dangerous straights in Canada. Every step on this path is a disaster waiting to happen. Each one would be tragic even before there is a spill. And each one can be prevented.
In addition to these issues Enbridge’s pipeline would also lead to a dramatic expansion of the tar sands epicenter posing a causing a whole host of other environmental, health, and human and Indigenous rights issues.
Over 100 BC and Alberta First Nations oppose the project because of the ongoing threats it would pose to the environment, the coast, the salmon, tourism industry and First Nations’ traditional way of life.
The Council of Canadians opposes the Enbridge Gateway pipeline project. We are lauching a campaign challenging this pipeline along with the Kinder Morgan and Pacific Trails pipelines, with a website and call to action coming very soon.
We are opposed to these pipelines because they:
