ManitobaOpinion

Debates around Energy East betray Canada's narrow national imagination

Strong regional opposition has emerged over the past few months to TransCanadas plan to build the Energy East pipeline. But most Canadians aren't familiar with Indigenous groups affected by an oil-hungry economy, Steven Zhou writes.

The tug-of-war is more than protesters pushing back against bulldozers and men in hard-hats

Steven Zhou for CBC News Posted: Sep 18, 2016 10:01 AM EDT | Last Updated: September 18, 2016

Security guards try to restrain a demonstrator from interrupting the National Energy Board public hearing into the proposed $15.7-billion Energy East pipeline project proposed by TransCanada on Aug. 29, 2016 in Montreal. (Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press)

Strong regional opposition has emerged over the past few months to TransCanada's plan to build the Energy East pipeline, which would carry 1.1 million barrels of crude oil per day from Alberta's tar sands to the East Coast.

Environmental organizations and watchdog groups are warning of potential oil spills, and protests have been happening across the country, thus mirroring similar demonstrations in the US, where Indigenous communities and their allies are protesting the building of the Dakota Access pipeline (set to stretch from North Dakota to Illinois).

Chances that the Energy East Pipeline actually gets built dropped significantly in recent days after members of the National Energy Board's Energy East panel quit.

This came after revelations that two of the regulatory panel's three members, who are tasked with assessing the Energy East plan, met with Jean Charest in private last year, when the former Quebec premier was a lobbyist for TransCanada.

Conversely, the Texas-based company in charge of building Dakota Access has now completed about 60 per cent of the pipeline and just announced that it is determined to finish the job despite vocal protests from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota, among other Indigenous groups.

Tug of war between economy and environment

The debates around pipelines aren't new, and the national coverage has always framed these issues as a tug-of-war between the economy and the environment. Meanwhile, imagery of "angry natives" pop up once in a while in a somewhat futile-looking battle against bulldozers and men in hard-hats.

This truncated narrative is a predictable reflection of how most people think of their place in Canada and the U.S. Yes, there's talk and concern over oil spills and contaminated drinking water, but the overarching narrative or story excludes the humanizing presence of those who live apart from the integrated national economy in places like Canada.

The Energy East pipeline proposal includes the building of a pipeline that's even bigger than the Keystone XL pipeline, which was equally controversial.

TransCanada projected that Keystone would leak once every seven years. It ended up leaking 12 times in just one year. Energy East would more than double Keystone in length, and the chances for spills are pretty much sky-high.Yet the way Canada thinks of this issue has less to do with people than with "national interest."

TransCanada's Keystone pipeline facilities are seen in this file photo in Hardisty, Alta., on Friday, Nov. 6, 2015. (Jeff McIntosh/Canadian Press)

Canadians not familiar with tribes affected by oil-hungry economy

Most Canadians aren't terribly familiar with which tribes and groups are affected by an economy (and lifestyle) that feeds on crude oil.

The term "Indigenous" becomes the monolithic shorthand with which to lump these groups together since, well, they all probably face the same problems anyway. This is the irony that underlies Canada's national debates over pipelines and the environment.

Even in its most progressive and sensitive iterations, the "national consciousness" revolves around those who live in about half-a-dozen major cities, mostly along the 49th parallel.

That Canada is a gigantic natural and human presence, which includes independent communities located both physically and economically apart from the "mainstream," is more or less a matter of trivia in comparison to the bigger, more important questions of GDP and money.

This collapsing of national narrative and imagery excuses the presence of those who, in different ways and to varying degrees, live away from the national economy, and for whom billion-dollar pipelines represent nothing but danger.

The abstract way in which their interests are represented in the national or regional media includes warnings over environmental risks, but this hardly encompasses the overall structure of how such communities live on a day-to-day basis.

Without a more comprehensive picture of how the actual human lives in such communities contrast with those who live in middle-class Toronto or Montreal, chances for real understanding and empathy become incredibly low.

A national storyand two 'Canadas'

Reasons for whether or not the pipeline should get built become relative to whether Canada's economy or environment can remain conducive to the lives of those who live in major cities, a mindset that animates the way Canadians think of themselves today.

There's simply no connection between these two separate "Canadas" in the national story, despite the inconvenient fact that several disparate realities are actually locked together in a physical way as parts of the same country.

Meanwhile, those who are aware of this chasm in Canada and the U.S. have taken matters into their own hands to establish bonds of ceremonial solidarity in the form of protest against industrial projects that remain blind to their needs.

For instance, a ceremonial totem pole just made its way from the Lummi Nation in Washington State to Winnipeg earlier this month, travelling a distance of around 2,400 km to protest against pipeline projects in both the U.S. and Canada.

Whether or not the complicated and difficult lives of actual flesh-and-blood human beings, many of whom are members of Indigenous communities across the country, become part of the national imagination will determine not just the nature of the pipeline debate, but the way that Canadians choose to imagine themselves as a nation and as a people.

Steven Zhou is a Toronto writer who has experience in human rights advocacy. He has worked for Human Rights Watch, OXFAM Canada, and other NGOs.

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