No oil pipeline here: Enbridge Northern Gateway joint review panel in Burns Lake finds more opposition

The Enbridge Northern Gateway Joint Review Panel moved south to Burns Lake on Tuesday and began with drumming and songs by the Wet’suwet’en and Lake Babine Nations. Despite a request by the panel that they not sing, the Wet’suwet’en repeated the song written for the occasion of the Smithers hearing:

Our territory is our livelihood.

 We live off our land.

We survive on the wildlife of our land.

Law language land.

Connection of the land and the animals.

Enbridge, don’t step on our land.

Our territory is our livelihood.

Enbridge, do not step on our land. 

Shiela Leggett, chair of the JRP, clarified that the JRP was there to receive oral traditional knowledge, and not to hear the intervener’s position on the pipeline.

“The arguments and opinions will be the last step before the JRP makes its decision,” she said. “I would like to address that word respect, the importance of being able to listen to each other. We must give respect to everyone in this room, all the parties. I ask that all parties be fully respected.”

The Wet'suwet'en and Lake Babine interveners spoke of respect as well, but in a broader sense:

Chief Jeff Brown: “First Nations teach respect for people, land, animals, water, and air. To have a successful hunt we have to give to mother earth a gift and ask for a successful hunt....I don’t see how the pipeline is going to ever give back to mother earth the way we do it. Nothing Enbridge or the government can do to give us back our territory once it is contaminated.”

When Chief Brown said “No to the Enbridge pipeline,” Leggett cut him off with a reminder that the panel can only receive oral evidence.

Still, Brown concluded: “We respect the land, so no industry such as a pipeline can ever set foot on our territory."



Chief Henry Alfred addded, “There’ a legend to show Wet’suwet’en respect for the land and its creatures. Two children were playing outside when a spider wandered by. The kids laughed at the spider and kicked it aside.

One of the kids asked, “What’s the good of this little creature? Why has the creator put such a little creature on this earth that is not good for anything?”

As he spoke a swarm of ants came down the path killing everything. The boys ran down the path until they couldn’t run anymore and so they resigned themselves to being killed. They heard a spider calling from a big knothole in an old tree.

The boys jumped in the knothole and the spider wove a web over the hole. When the ants arrived they looked around and the spider said, “I don’t think the boys would be in the hole because it has a spider web over it.”

"The moral is that even little creatures like ants, spiders and microorganisms have a purpose here on earth and sometimes they can even save your life. Which brings us to the right-of-ways of some projects. The right-of-ways are usually maintained by insecticides because it is cheaper than hiring people. But there are small things there that need respect, like mycelium. That is not the Wet’suwet’en way. How we maintain our lands is part of our title and rights.”