Stay strong

The following note was sent out to members of Friends of Morice-Bulkley this evening  - thanks to them for keeping us focused.

Dear Friends of Morice-Bulkley,

It is the eve of the Joint Review Panel’s recommendation to Cabinet regarding Enbridge Northern Gateway. They are set to release their report at 1:30 pm tomorrow, December 19. This is an important moment in our work to stop this pipeline but it is not the end. 

No matter what the JRP says, Enbridge does not have social license or First Nations approval. For the people of BC, nothing changes: we have clearly expressed our opposition to the pipeline, tankers on the coast and the threat of bitumen spills. First Nations have formally banned pipelines from their territories and tankers from their seas.

 

A yes recommendation, with conditions, wouldn’t be a surprise. The NEB has a record of approving almost every project brought before it and it is clear that industry lobbyists have undermined this review process. 

You have all done incredible work to give this movement the strength that it has. From marching in the streets, to writing letters, to testifying in front of the JRP, it is your stories and your passion for this place that has created a province-wide movement of opposition. 

In Smithers, 119 residents opened their hearts to the JRP and shared their love for their homes and their passion for protecting it. To revisit those moments, or if you weren’t there and want to be inspired by the powerful testimony of your friends and neighbours, here are a few links to the transcripts: 

 April 23, 2012 transcript 

 April 24, 2012  transcript

 April 25, 2012  transcript

 April 26, 2012  transcript

 April 27, 2012  transcript

 

We will be paying close attention to the release of the report tomorrow and following up with you. Until then...

Best,

FOMB Steering Committee

Ah, those beautiful names...

Thanks to Norma Kerby for her poem - a welcome response to the recent reports
of the Harper government's extensive spying on anti-oilsands groups. It's from a Terrace Art Gallery poetry anthology, The Rivers Speak, due to be launched this Friday, Nov. 22. It is a collaboration of eight visual artists and 22 poets, edited by Joan Conway and Katherine Bell. The book is being used to raise funding for the Terrace Art Gallery.

Lists of lovers

There are lists of lovers    river lovers    dangerous people

who murmur  in foreign tongues

Kitimat   Zymoetz   Kitsumkalum

They stand in front of hearings   speak to newspapers     sighing for

lovers they can never own

Babine   Bulkley   Kwinageese   Bear

Emotional people      careless dreamers of river waters rushing free

Exstew   Kasiks    Kispiox   Clore

Greedy people      they think that lovers are forever

but lovers only pass in the night

Kinskush   Kitsault   Kwinamuck   Dak

We have lists         lists of lovers     river lovers

writers of poems to angry waters

Stikine  Skeena  Spatsizi  Nass

good citizens come and go

they know that rivers    cold northern rivers   are not forever

money can buy warm embraces in

tropical seas

hotel pools gentle and soothing

whispering comforts

whispering   forget   forget   forget

But these lovers   these river lovers  northern river lovers  they cry out   they
will not be quiet   they shout  slogans   meet in rallies

never confess that rivers are lovers for moments not lifetimes

Lists of lovers   river lovers    Jim and Wade and Cheryl and Shannon       
Walter   Dennis   even Ali

We have their names.  We watch.  We listen.

Lists of lovers     who speak of rivers    northern rivers

We're all in this together - join the National Day of Action

I had a wonderful few days on Gabriola Island this past week as a guest of Save Our Shores Gabriola (SOS) and the Gabriola Friends of the Library. Thanks very much to Kristin Miller for taking such good care of me. (Thanks also to The Writers Union of Canada for funding.)

Six creative souls came to the poetry workshop in the poetry yurt, run by Poetry Gabriola,  set in the trees beside The Commons. 

Photo: Viviann Kuehl

  

The workshop was meant to inspire people to express their anger, frustration, distress about events taking place in the world. We explored some darker themes and then lightened things up by writing limericks – it’s hard to write a limerick without laughing. There won’t be any Nobel Prizes forthcoming (whoopee, Alice Munro) but it was fun.

Photo: Viviann Kuehl

Photo: Viviann Kuehl

I also gave a reading at the library from my novel, The Taste of Ashes, with a focus on the ways in which activism propels and informs my writing. Over time it has become clear that an interest in, concern about and a sense of wanting to bear witness to people’s courage are fundamental issues in the work I admire most. It’s little wonder that those same values and concerns for social justice show up in my writing. 

Photo by Liz Ciocea

And what an audience! The collective knowledge and wisdom in the room was awe-inspiring. One woman had been to Afghanistan with Global Exchange – the amazing group that facilitated my trip to Guatemala when I was researching The Taste of Ashes. 

 

 

The visit ended with an SOS Gabriola dinner meeting – a group of Gabriolans committed to preventing oil pipelines and tankers in BC lands and waters. It was an honor to be a part of their month-long celebration of Art and Activism around the island. All around us hung quilts made for the Clayoquot Sound protests twenty years ago now. 

Bravo to SOS for calling it a celebration – all too often we are taught to think of this work as negative because we’re against what industry likes to call development. Exploitation is a more accurate term. 

As well as sharing a delicious meal, we talked about the ways in which people respond to the dangers posed by our ever-increasing use of fossil fuels. How do we motivate people to act? How do we support and value people who don’t feel able to stand up and speak up? How do we support all the differing ways community members contribute on the ground (creating and maintaining a place like the Commons, for example) and in the oh-so-impure corridors of power (MLAs, MPs, larger environmental organizations, for example)?  As Bill McGibben writes in Oil and Honey, the story of the rise of the 350.org movement, environmental activism is long-term – it’s not something that’s going to get done, like that deer fence you need to build around your garden. Jean McLaren was one of the first Raging Grannies, was arrested at Clayoquot Sound and is still taking part in events in her eighties. She and Heidi Brown shared dinner with us last week; twenty years ago they edited the Raging Granny Songbook.

I was happy to tell the folks from Gabriola that in the north we, too, have people with that long-term commitment. We have young people who are being mentored by those who have been doing this work for over thirty years (with many successes) and those same young people are bringing their amazing talents to the table. 

Eight community groups in eight communities across the north are working with First Nations to stop the Enbridge Gateway pipeline; others are springing up to try to unravel the “plate of spaghetti” of proposed LNG pipeline routes; all are committed to resisting the free-for-all that is both provincial and federal government policy around tar sands, fracking and coal. 

And artists – musicians, visual artists, poets, and dancers – are standing beside scientists, farmers, fisherpeople, and others who are beginning to understand the price tag attached to fossil fuels, tar sands expansion and climate change. Artists are reading scientific reports, carvers are putting up blockades, biologists are making quilts, and poets are running for city council. And fishermen like Guy Johnston will be joining thousands of people across the country on tomorrow's National Day of Action against fossil fuels expansion. 

Find an event and get there if you can. 

Arts & Activism

Kudos to Save our Shores on Gabriola island for organizing events throughout the month of November to celebrate  Arts and Activism. I'm thrilled to have been invited to be part of that and will be doing a workshop and reading there on Friday Nov. 8 & 9.


I'll also be showing slides and reading poems from my trip to the Artists Camp in the Muskwa-Kechika (The Muskwa Kechika Fire Poems) at the Island Exposure Gallery in Parksville on Wednesday, Nov. 6 at 7 pm.

Nobel Women's Initiative speaks out on oil sands expansion

The Nobel Women's Initiative uses the prestige of the Nobel Peace Prize and courageous women Peace Laureates to increase the power and visibility of women's groups working globally for peace, justice and equality. The Initiative is led by Nobel Peace Laureates Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Leymah Gbowee, Tawakkol Karman and Mairead Maguire. Last fall a delegation came through the north and met with women to discuss the proposed Northern Gateway project. Today they released their report and the following press release.

 

 

Industry & gov't not listening to those most impacted by oil sands expansionReport documents resistance of women living along proposed pipeline route

(Ottawa)—28 October 2013

A new report released today shows that despite efforts to muzzle the voices of communities resisting oil sands expansion in Alberta and the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, resistance is alive and well—and being led, in many cases, by women. Breaking Ground: Women, Oil and Climate Change in Alberta and British Columbia delivers findings from a delegation organized by the Nobel Women's Initiative to the region.

The high-level group of women, that included Nobel Peace laureate Jody Williams as well as a University of Alberta scientist and an energy efficiency expert from the US, met with over 200 women in 13 communities last October.

The women in Alberta and British Columbia included indigenous leaders, community outreach workers and grassroots activists. They voiced their concerns about a range of economic, health, and social impacts of oil sands expansion—from homelessness, spiraling inflation, breathing problems, undrinkable water and increased cancer rates to domestic violence and unequal access to jobs.

"What we heard in western Canada echoes very much what I have heard from communities throughout North America," said Williams. "Women are frustrated that very real concerns about potential oil spills, their families health and well-being—as well as climate change—are being ignored.  So they are organizing, and demanding to be heard."

Some women in western Canada say they are under high levels of pressure from government, industry and even other community members to not speak publicly against the oil sands. The report notes that recently introduced restrictions limit public participation in National Energy Board hearings on pipeline expansion—and raises concern that by "reducing debate and decision-making around oil sands industry expansion" there will not be "honest and open discussion of the cumulative effects of the development".

The oil sands industry is the fastest-growing single source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada.  Oil sands production is projected to expand from 1.4 billion barrels per day to 5 billion by 2035.  Mining has damaged over 680 square kilometres of land in the region—and pipeline construction has cut through thousands of kilometres of pristine forest and polluted streams and lakes.

"While people look at the environment and climate change, very few look at it from the perspective of women," said Williams. "And as with many crises the world over, it's the women and children who suffer the most when their environment is destroyed. I am so inspired by the strength and courage of women who are standing up for their communities in Alberta and British Columbia."

Williams, who is in Ottawa this week for a series of events, is calling on the city of Ottawa to become a global leader on climate change. Her visit coincides with rising debate in Ottawa over TransCanada's proposed plans to build the Energy East pipeline. That pipeline would carry over a million barrels a day of tar sands oil from Alberta to New Brunswick, making its way through Ottawa and across the Rideau River.

Read the full report online: http://bit.ly/breaking-ground-report

A folk storm coming...

Here's a letter Murray Minchin of  Douglas Channel Watch has had published in many BC newpapers - thanks, Murray for sharing it here.

"Despite our best efforts to prevent spills, incidents occur".

The less than reassuring quote above is from Enbridge's own corporate social responsibility reports, where they have to document all their pipeline spills from the previous year. Interestingly, it disappeared from Enbridge's reports after their 3.8 million litre diluted bitumen spill into Michigan's Kalamazoo River.

As scary as that shoulder shrugging admission of guaranteed pipeline spills may be, it pales compared to how Enbridge answered the following question during the JRP hearings; "It’s my understanding that there is an operational life expectancy of this pipeline for 50 years. Do you foresee running it for any time longer than that, and how long would that be?"

Enbridge's Ray Doering answered, "Really, the...each pipeline that an operator manages has a unique internal corrosion management program, integrity management program associated with the operation of that pipeline, and a very valuable asset that’s proactively managed with that inspection management program really will have an indefinite life. In 30 years or 50 years, or beyond, the condition of that pipeline really will be the same as the condition when it was first put into service."

     

It is said the first casualty in war is truth, and so it must be with Enbridge while in post Kalamazoo damage control, because Mr. Doering's answer was given while under oath.

Joint Review Panels used to have the authority to deny proposals, but that power was taken away (after Enbridge's proposal was submitted) by one of Prime Minister Harper's omnibus bills. The Panel can now only make a recommendation. Harper has manipulated the system so that he alone will make the final decision early in January, 2014, unless he allows Conservative MP's a free vote to vote as they wish, or as their constituents wish. 

Since the 1960's, British Columbia has had a voluntary moratorium on oil and gas exploration on BC's coast. Even though we're sitting on our own pot of gold, British Columbian's aren't willing to risk their coastline, salmon, or increasing whale populations. Why should we shoulder all that risk for Alberta? Besides, if the Tar Sands are the answer to Canada's economic wellbeing, why is Alberta in debt?

It is for these reasons, and more, that I believe it will be Canadians standing shoulder to shoulder who will stop Enbridge's Northern Gateway project if Harper decides to try and ram it through. First Nations, individual Cities and Towns, the Union of BC Municipalities, Alberta Unions, The United Church, and more, have taken official positions against the Northern Gateway proposal.

Kitamaat's Gerald Amos has been saying for years that there will be a 'Folk Storm' if Harper tries to force this project through against the wishes of British Columbians, and with such broad spectrum opposition in BC and across Canada, we may all be surprised at how large the protests will be.    

You can bet there will be rallies across Canada as Harper's decision day gets closer. If you oppose Enbridge's plans and haven't gotten involved yet, this is the time to contact your local environmental watchdog group to get on their email list. This will ensure you are notified where and when protests in your community will be held. Make this a priority before November. 

We need to send loud and clear messages that no bitumen will be shipped from the north coast of British Columbia. This is especially important as plans are being investigated to have 7 trains a day carrying diluted bitumen to BC's north coast, and natural gas pipelines can be converted to carry diluted bitumen as is being proposed in eastern Canada. 

Silence or non-participation will be interpreted as acceptance by Enbridge, their foreign investors, and Prime Minister Harper.

Murray Minchin

Kitimat, BC

Canada

Enbridge's charm offensive...

A long time Fort St. James' resident has responded to Enbridge's bizarre series of ads with a perceptive essay: Go to Brenda Gouglas's Vancouver Observer op ed piece to see what she has to say.