FORT MCMURRAY (660 NEWS) — To build or not to build? Wednesday’s cancelling of the Keystone XL pipeline is a major blow to Canada’s Indigenous community, according to the National Coalition of Chiefs (NCC).
President of the NCC Dale Swampy says the end of the project means a loss of jobs for Indigenous people working on the construction of the pipeline. In addition, the NCC was promoting Indigenous participation on the Keystone XL project as a solution to poverty on Canadian reservations.
The end of the pipeline project also means that Natural Law Energy, which is representative of five First Nations in Alberta and Saskatchewan, won’t have the opportunity to make an equity investment of up to one billion dollars in the pipeline. The investment opportunity was announced by the pipeline builder TC Energy Corporation last November and was also expected to be offered to American Indigenous.
Despite this setback, TC Energy and Natural Law are still working together, with Natural Law making investments in other TC Energy projects. There is concern over how long U.S. President Joe Biden will be in office.
Indigenous groups like NCC worry that the pipeline will not be able to go ahead under Biden’s presidency.
RELATED:
- Kenney issues letter to Trudeau, calling for action on Keystone XL
- Political scientists say Kenney must rethink pugilistic approach on oil, environment
However, some Indigenous leaders say that our ultimate responsibility is to stop the global climate change crisis, and cancelling the pipeline is a step in the right direction.
Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, says he believes the oil industry is going downhill. He also made the suggestion that Indigenous people who work in the oil and gas industry should begin to prepare for work in renewable energy.
“Those jobs are transient in nature … It’s a myth that pipelines represent an economic boom for a particular area,” Phillip said.
A Dec. 2020 report from PetroLMI found that around 14,000 self-identifying Indigenous people in Canada were employed by the oil and gas industry in 2019. Across the province, censuses found that the industry employed 135,800 Albertans in 2016.
Many Albertans were upset by Wednesday’s news.
Premier Jason Kenney had said that the province is at risk of losing around one billion dollars if the pipeline doesn’t go through. Last week he called for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to negotiate this with Biden.
Kenney has also supposed that Ottawa imposed retaliatory economic sanctions.
