A First Nations campaign to raise funds to conduct scientific research on the cumulative impacts of the oilsands has raised more than $27,000, surpassing its original goal of $25,000. The campaign ended yesterday after a short run of two weeks.

The donated funds will go toward the Beaver Lake Cree Nation’s constitutional challenge to the cumulative impacts of oilsands development. The trial is important, says Susan Smitten from the group RAVEN (Respecting Aboriginal Values and Environmental Needs) because it represents the “first time in Canadian history that the Court is allowing this kind of challenge to widespread industrial activity based on the cumulative effects these activities have on the Beaver Lake Cree’s constitutionally protected rights.”

The Tar Sands Trial

The pending trial hinges on the First Nation’s ability to demonstrate the cumulative impacts of oilsands expansion on their treaty rights. This is no small feat.

In an interview RAVEN’s Susan Smitten told DeSmog “this case is about proving the cumulative impact piece by piece. Experts will be needed to show how each individual species — from the ungulates to the fish — will be or already are being affected by the tar sands industries. This means gathering a lot of data — also about the impact on water, land and air.”

This requires putting together data from disparate sources into comprehensive impacts report for a judge to digest, Smitten says. “Science will create a picture that shows definitively how the treaty rights are being infringed.”

An obvious example, Smitten says, rests in the vanishing caribou herds from traditional Beaver Lake Cree territory.

“The woodland caribou report done by University of Alberta expert Stan Boutin showed the woodland caribou in the Beaver Lake Cree’s traditional region have already declined by 70 percent since 1996. That science is a smoking gun that tar sands development is violating the Beaver Lake Cree’s right to hunt and fish in the band’s usual and accustomed places under the treaty with the government of Canada.”

She adds: “What science will help to clearly show is that the expansion of the tar sands project is making it impossible for the band to hunt and fish: they can’t find an animal, and if they do it is often inedible because it has been exposed to toxins. So the promises in the treaty are not being kept.”

The fundraising campaign will in part support the band’s much larger goal of raising $2 million to pursue cumulative impacts research and expert witnesses.

“I’m thrilled that so many people supported this cause,” Smitten says. “I’m surprised that within two weeks the target of $25,000 was not just reached but surpassed. It tells me that there are many concerned global citizens wanting to do something real. They want to find a way to make a difference on an issue that until this legal action came along seemed too huge, to impossible, too overwhelming. But now there is a way to work for a better future.”

RAVEN’s vision, she says, “is a country that embraces the caretaker values of First Nations and their equitable access to the justice system within a thriving natural habitat. This legal action launched by some of our bravest citizens is a way to make that a reality.”

A Problem of Regulation

One of the most popular government refrains about the Alberta oilsands is that the megaproject operates under the calculating eye of one of the most advanced environmental regimes known to the oil and gas industry. Yet, scientists and environmental organizations have said for years that neither provincial nor federal oversight is up to the task of monitoring the world’s largest industrial project. Groups such as the Pembina Institute show that when the provincial government does make specific regulatory recommendations, in some cases it is completely ignored by industry. Other reports have shown that industry violations most often go unpunished.

One thing is clear: government regulation has been incapable of keeping pace with rapid expansion of the project. And despite government and industry claims to the contrary, the impact of that expansion has been significant.

And, according to the approval of the Beaver Lake Cree's legal battle, Canada’s legal courts feel these impacts deserve a fair trial.

Cumulative Impacts

The oilsands have long been known to have a negative impact on many aspects of northern Alberta life. The disappearance of woodland caribou may be one of the most notable measures of the development’s high costs, but so too are the health affects felt by local First Nations, who often live off the land. The Beaver Lake Cree are one of these nations.

Within the traditional territory of Treaty 6, the Beaver Lake Cree live on an expanse of land guaranteed by the Canadian government to support their traditional way of life. In 2008 the Beaver Lake Cree argued in an Alberta court that the government’s ceaseless permitting of new oilsands projects was inhibiting their ability to practice traditional ways of life — the very traditions guaranteed to them by the Canadian government since 1876.

The cumulative impacts, they said, had so fundamentally changed the nature of the landscape that hunting and trapping were becoming obsolete. At issue are the more than 19,000 project authorizations and some 300 individual industrial projects approved by the provincial and federal governments. The cumulative effects of the ever-growing oilsands development on locals species and ecology, including the presence of hydrocarbon contaminants in fish populations and lake sediment, are a direct threat to First Nation ways of life, say the Beaver Lake Cree.

When the government of Canada tried to have the case thrown out of court, the Alberta Court of Appeals responded with a judicious affront. The federal government, the Court of Appeals cautioned in April 2013, would benefit from taking the case seriously and should hasten to prepare for “litigation through trial.”

Industrial Impacts Ongoing

Since then the Beaver Lake Cree have experienced several unprecedented oil spills within their traditional boundaries. The infamous Cold Lake oil spills, discovered on four well pads operated by Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNRL), spilled a total of at least 1.8 million litres of oil into surrounding forest and wetlands. The spills were related to a high-pressure steam injection process called Cyclic Steam Stimulation (CSS). Several fissures in the ground seeped oil into the area for months as the company and energy regulator tried to understand the cause of the release.

A total of two beavers, 51 birds, 106 amphibians and 62 small mammals died as a result of the spills and a portion of a lake was drained to expose an underwater fissure leaking oil into the water body.

According to Crystal Lameman, member of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation, the Cold Lake spills pointed to the often dangerous and experimental technologies used in oilsands extraction. The public knows very little about in-situ or underground extraction methods and yet the vast majority of oilsands deposits will be developed using these methods.

“We’re putting our guards down,” Lameman told DeSmog in July, while industry and government put the First Nation’s water at risk. “When we have spills like the CNRL spill, our aquifers are connected, so we know that the spills all have a connection to the water.” 

Lameman says these kinds of accidents, even if they don't immediately or directly affect human beings, "affect those beings that cannot speak for themselves. And it is those beings that we have a constitutionally protect right to live off of, to hunt, fish and forage for. But if they're drinking toxic water, they're breathing toxic air, then how can they guarantee to us that those animals are in their purest form?" 

Lead Image Credit: Kris Krug via flickr

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According to new figures released by the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) the total amount of bitumen emulsion – a mixture of tar sands heavy crude and water – released on Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.’s (CNRL) Cold Lake Site is now more than 1.5 million litres, or the equivalent to more than 9600 barrels of oil.

The reported amount has grow from an initially estimated 4,450 litres or 28 cubic metres in late June, according the AER’s website.

The figures, made public by the AER, are reported to the regulator from CNRL, prompting onlookers to raise concerns about industry self-reporting.

Bob Curran from the Alberta Energy Regulator says that it is normal for companies to report spill volumes and rates in incidents like these. Although, he adds, “these aren’t numbers that we’re saying we’ve 100 per cent verified but these are numbers that are being reported to us. I think there’s an important caveat on that.”

The seepage, which reportedly began in early 2013, although wasn’t officially reported to the public until late May, is occurring on sites where CNRL uses High Pressure Cyclic Steam Stimulation (HPCSS) to recover bitumen from deep reservoirs. The process uses a combination of high pressures and temperatures to fracture the rock surrounding bitumen deposits. Super hot steam melts and pressurizes the bitumen, allowing it to surface up a wellbore.

Currently, on at least 4 CNRL sites, pressurized bitumen is leaking to the surface through uncontrolled fissures in the ground. Both the AER and CNRL are unable to explain the cause of the spill or say when it might stop.

The AER didn't immediately announce the incidents to the public. The AER's Bob Curran told Postmedia News, “The first three incidents were quite small compared to this last one. There were no public impacts, there were negligible environmental impacts. No real trigger to put out a news release.”

Crystal Lameman, member of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation whose territory includes the Cold Lake spill site, says she's frustrated with the AER's tendency to minimize the incident and its impact.

"The mere fact that they are the ones that determine what is minimal when it doesn’t directly impact them – that concerns me. I’ll be the judge of what is deemed minimal when toxic water is spilling out on the land in our traditional territory. So just because it may at that time have not affected a human being, it affects those beings that cannot speak for themselves and those beings that we have the constitutionally protected right to fish and hunt. But if they’re drinking toxic water and breathing toxic air how can they guarantee to us that those animals are in their purest form?" she said.

"I have a real issue with the way that they determine what is minimal, what is of concern, what is a lot, what it a little. That concerns me because thus far, since they’ve changed their name from the ERCB to the AER, I’ve seen nothing but a bad track record in the way they report, in the way they provide comment, the lack of expediting information to local First Nations people. What I’ve found is that we’re often the last ones to find out about these spills."

The released caused the death of 2 beavers, 49 birds, 105 amphibians, and 46 small mammals, the AER reports. Clean up and containment efforts are still ongoing and the early stages of a subsurface investigation are underway.

The AER and Alberta’s Energy and Sustainable Resource Development have launched provincial investigations and recently Environment Canada announced a federal investigation is also being undertaken.

Image Credit: Emma Pullman/CNRL

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"We don't know what the hell is going on under the ground."

That's what Crystal Lameman, a member of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation recently told me. On June 27, an oil spill occurred at Canadian Natural Resources Limited's (CNRL) Primrose operations 75km east of Lac la Biche. The spill happened on the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range (CLAWR), located in a region The Royal Canadian Airforce calls "the inhospitable wilds of northern Alberta and Saskatchewan." This 'inhospitable' region happens to be in her community's traditional hunting territory where her family traditionally hunted and trapped and where her elders are buried.

DeSmog Canada reported a release of bitumen emulsion, a mixture of heavy tar sands crude and water from in-situ (in ground) oil production.

Lameman told me she only heard about the spill from the press release from the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER). "It was disheartening to open my Facebook and see a link showing me the spill in our traditional hunting territory – that I had to get the information from an outside source as opposed to the information coming directly to the community."

The press release is sparse on details, but confirmed that that neither the company nor the government are certain of the volume of emulsion spilled, that the affected area is near Pad 22 but off lease, and has impacted a nearby slough. According to the release, the company has begun clean-up operations. But Lameman heard from source on site that the damage of the spill it much worse than the company, government or media are reporting.

"I was being told, there's wildlife still drinking from the water." She was also told that the 'slough' in question was actually a lake, but the lake has receded so much that industry and government are calling the lake a slough to minimize the perception of the spill. "That concerned me," she says, "and it made me want to go out there and survey the damage." And so Lameman decided it was time to find some answers. We set off to the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range, about 45 minutes east of her community.

The Journey

We pulled up to the security gate of a military base. Though I'd heard it was a weapons range, it still surprised me to see the high security and tar sands operations right on the base. Lameman was immediately denied entry and told that she needed to seek permission from an Aboriginal Liaison officer to enter the grounds, on her own traditional territory.

"I was told later that I won't be allowed in either way," Crystal tells me. "These are just the channels I have to go through. We pulled away and I just felt this sense of depression. After all this time we are still having to ask permission to utilize our land. How we walk on the land – we're still being told that, where we can and can't go."

Crystal Lameman of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation.

While regulatory bodies like the ERCB, AER, Fish and Wildlife and the federal government are monitoring, surveying, and testing, Crystal confesses, "It's scary that they're doing whatever they can to deny us access. It makes me wonder, what's happening to those beings who can't talk for themselves? How bad is it? What is it? I don't feel good about it."

Unfortunately, this isn't the first time the Beaver Lake Cree have been denied access to their own traditional territory. In 2008, they launched a lawsuit claiming that the cumulative effects of tar sands development interfere with their constitutionally-protected treaty rights to hunt, trap and fish. The nation is fighting for access to the CLAWR. Recently, a decision of the Alberta Court of Appeal rejected Canada and Alberta's attempts to have the case thrown out. 

Legal counsel for BLCN, Drew Mildon, noted: "First Nations have the strongest environmental law tools at their disposal in Canada." He went on to add that "this 'emulsion' spill is a perfect example of local impacts of the tar sands; unfortunately, the rest of us must rely on small, poverty-stricken First Nations to take courageous stands to stem the global impacts that are the debt we will pay for further tar sands development."

"Black Puddles"

According to Lameman's source, the damage was described to her as "black puddles" or "black spots" coming up in different areas. An employee on site confirmed that the tar sands emulsion seeping from the ground is not a pipeline spill. What's more, industry and government do not even know what the spill is. They also know there's a lot of oil seeping, and they don't know what it's coming from.

On site at the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range. Photo by Emma Pullman.

"The ground seepage is off-lease," says Lameman. "And the fact that they're scrambling, trying to figure out what happened, and trying to keep us out of there as much as they can validates the information I was given that this spill is worse than what they're telling us."

According to information obtained from an employee, the contaminated lake in question is likely near Burnt Lake, possibly at Ward Lake.

Site of CNRL Primrose Project via Wikimapia.

Location of emulsion seepage.

Whither CSS?

CNRL's Primrose site uses a kind of tar sands extraction called Cyclic Steam Stimulation, or CSS.

According to CNRL's website CSS is a three stage thermal recovery method where steam is first injected into the well at temperatures over 300°C and pressures of 10-12 Mpa (1450-1740 psi). This heats the bitumen in the reservoir, reducing the viscosity so that it can flow. The steam is then left to 'soak' before production begins for several weeks, mobilizing cold bitumen, and then the flow on the injection well is reversed, producing oil through the same injection well bore.

CSS diagram from Slideshare presentation, CSS Technology for Heavy Oil. 

The CSS process is only able to typically recover approximately 20% of the oil in the ground.

CSS as a process is relatively new, having been developed by Shell by accident in Venezuela after one of its steam injectors blew out. The process is becoming more common in the San Joaquin Valley of California, the Lake Maracaibo area of Venezuela, and in the tar sands.

According to ESG Solutions, a microseismic monitoring company that monitors oil and gas development, the CSS process is:

"environmentally sensitive and many risks exist … Well casings are subject to severe tensile stresses due to the high temperature, high pressure nature of the CSS process. These stresses have the potential to result in mechanical failures such as cement cracks or casing shear leading to well downtime, damaging spills or hazardous blowouts. Shear stresses also develop during the dilation of the reservoir during the steam injection, potentially causing the incursion of fluids into the overlying shales and aquifers above the caprock and causing environmental contamination and costly clean up and regulatory penalties."

Of CSS, Lameman says: "This is a whole new kind of oil mess that no one's really ever heard of in terms of tar sands production. Everyone's heard of pipeline spills and open pit mining. But I don't think the public has been told of the dangers of CSS."

Mining on an active military testing site?

The apparent dangers of CSS and the fact that seismic monitoring is needed to oversee the process are heightened when you consider that CNRL's Primrose facility operates on an active weapons testing facility.

The Cold Lake Air Weapons Range construction began in 1952 and was chosen by the Royal Canadian Air Force to be the country's premier air weapons training base. The base land in Alberta and Saskatchewan covers an area of 11,700 square kilometres. While the federal government worked out an agreement with other First Nations who were systematically pushed out of the area, Lameman's ancestors were banned without consultation or compensation.

CLAWR is said to be the "northern equivalent" of the United States Air Force's Nellis Air Force Range. It hosts over 640 actual targets and 100 realistic target complexes, including 7 simulated aerodromes with runways, tarmac, aircraft, dispersal areas and buildings, as well as mechanized military equipment such as tanks, simulated radar and missile launching sites, mock industrial sites, and command and control centres.

According to the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range website, "the Air Force conducts live fire training exercises on the CLAWR" and it appears that live fire operations are taking place this week.”

In addition to CNRL, Nexen, Husky Energy, Enbridge, Interpipe and Cenovus operate on the CLAWR.

Range activities officer at the CLAWR, Dick Brakele, says "to mix an active oil industry and an active weapons range where weapons are dropped takes a lot of imagination sometimes to ensure that the needs of both are met."

Imagination is one way to look at it.

I met up with Naomi Klein who was also reporting in the area. She told me: "Canadians should be shocked that our government is dropping test bombs in the same geographic area as massive tar sands operations. This is already the most dangerous form of fossil fuel extraction on the planet from an ecological perspective. Combining that mining with weapons testing – no matter how careful the players claim to be – is so reckless it verges on the surreal."

"This is something that everybody needs to know about."

Lameman still has a lot of questions she needs answered. To the oil companies and government she asks, "What is the magnitude of this spill? What is it? How much of the water has been affected? Did you stop it yet?"

For now, she has few answers. But the single mother of two isn't going to give up.

"This is something that everybody needs to know about because though it happens to fall within our traditional hunting territory, there's just as many non-native people as Indigenous people in this area. All of the water systems are connected. If you drink water, this is about you."

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Sure they’re bad for the environment, for human health, and for wildlife, but we rarely stop to wonder if the Alberta tar sands are in fact unconstitutional.

But the constitutional standing of the tar sands — one of the world’s largest and most carbon-intensive energy projects — is just what’s at stake in a treaty rights claim the Beaver Lake Cree Nation (BLCN) is bringing against the Governments of Alberta and Canada in a case that promises to be one of the most significant legal and constitutional challenges to the megaproject seen in Canada to date.

Signalling the high-stakes of the whole dispute, it has taken five years of beleaguered fighting just to have the case go to trial. Canada and Alberta — the defendants — fought tooth and nail during those five years to have the claim dismissed outright, saying the case put forward by the BLCN was “frivolous, improper and an abuse of process.”

The BLCN is challenging these governments on the grounds of the cumulative impacts of the tar sands and has indicated some 19,000 ‘individual authorizations’ and 300 individual industrial projects in their claim. The governments of Alberta and Canada tried to have the case dismissed under Rule 3.68, a measure meant to protect defendants from cases that are…well…“frivolous, improper, and an abuse of process.”

But this case isn’t one of those.

Canada claimed the claim was “unmanageable” and “overwhelming,” suggesting the 19,000 authorizations were likely to have fallen within the relevant regulatory framework at the time of their approval and needn’t be bothered with. But, as one judge stated, a claim cannot be dismissed based merely on its scope. The courts agreed, telling Canada that no further “delaying tactics” should be permitted in this litigation lest the entire claim be “stonewalled at an early stage through excessive particularization.”

What is more, the court said Canada’s complaint “flies in the face of the Supreme Court of Canada” and its previous decisions, indicating Canada’s counsel was unsuccessful in its attempts to squeeze out of a tight legal position. Canada even sought to have its portion of the claim whittled down to “limit its exposure” in the case, a position the court said Canada’s “counsel candidly admitted to advancing…for strategic reasons.”

On April 30th, 2013, the courts told Canada and Alberta they’d had enough of the bickering. “The parties will be well-served by returning to their case management judge for the implication plan to advance this litigation through trial,” they wrote.

In other words: get your act together, you’re going to court.

The Rights

The Alberta Court of Appeal’s decision to uphold the claim against the crown, grants the BLCN the opportunity to argue the cumulative negative impacts of tar sands expansion may constitute a legal breach of the band’s historic Treaty 6 with the Canadian government, signed back in 1876.

And the significance of this judgment cannot be overstated. The BLCN’s claim now stands as the first opportunity for legal consideration of the cumulative impacts of the tar sands on First Nation’s traditional territory and the implications of those impacts on the ability to uphold Treaty Rights.

And First Nation’s Rights — enshrined as Aboriginal Rights in section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 — are arguably some of the most important emerging rights on the Canadian legal landscape and certainly the most powerful environmental rights in the country.

This, in part, has to do with the fact that what section 35 rights actually legally entail, is still being developed through case law. Dozens of important cases — like the precedent-setting R v. Gladstone and Mikisew v. Canada — have been decided by courts over the last 30 years, since the patriation of the Constitution, finding Canada in serious violation of the Constitution when it comes to treaty rights.

Despite the emerging nature of these rights, one thing is clear — First Nations have the inalienable right to hunt, trap and fish in their preferred manner, throughout their traditional territories and the province.

And there’s the rub. If you’ve got a megaproject that is destroying what you might otherwise be hunting, trapping or fishing, you’ve got a serious constitutional gaffe on your hands. The Constitution is the highest law in the land, and cannot simply be ignored.

The Cumulative Impacts

This puts Canada and Alberta in a tough spot. Over the last decade, as they’ve been welcoming a veritable cascade of new projects in the tar sands area, scientists and conservation groups have been raising the alarm as the consequent research began to show devastating effects on caribou populations and fish species especially hard done by the escalating development.

The BLCN’s traditional territories blanket an area about the size of Switzerland. Thirty per cent of tar sands production, or about 560,000 barrels of oil, are produced on BLCN every day. The oil industry has plans to grow this number to 1.6 million barrels a day.

The once-pristine forest and hunting grounds are now covered with 35,000 oil and gas sites, 21,700 kilometres of seismic lines, 4,028 kilometres of pipeline and 948 kilometres of road.

Perhaps it has taken Canada and Alberta by surprise that the cumulative impacts might be considered at a constitutional level. After all, neither the province nor the federal government have been particularly proactive in studying the cumulative effects of development in the area.

True, scientists have been fretting about loss of caribou herds and habitat for decades, even citing the Species At Risk Act as a potential legal cause to slow the pace and scale of tar sands development. But Canada ignored those pleas for caution as long at it could — until another legal action forced them to release the recent Federal Caribou Recovery Act last fall.

And it was only a few months ago that Environment Canada scientists announced tar sands pollution was present in bodies of water up to 100 kilometres from the centre of development. The accumulating toxins, they discovered, disrupt fish embryos at the developmental stage. The federal government worked overtime to downplay the significance of the research last fall, even preventing lead researchers from discussing their findings with the media.

Overall, the federal government has been just as culpable as provincial leaders in keeping these growing environmental effects under-reported, or under wraps. The BLCN’s upcoming litigation may be the change in tide that brings the cumulative impact discussion to centre-stage.

The Cause for Hope

5 years ago Crystal Lameman’s uncle Chief Al Lameman filed the original claim on behalf of the Nation.

“In 2008 I don’t think my uncle knew the attention this litigation would gain,” Crystal said. “His intent and purpose was to protect what little we have left but it has created this movement, this mobilization of a people and it’s a great feeling seeing people mobilize beyond the confines of race, color, and creed. This recent win means our judicial system is clearly standing strong in the law of Canada and it gives me hope.”

And Crystal has much cause for hope, according to Jack Woodward, renowned Native Law expert and lawyer on the case.

“The Beaver Lake case will define the point where industrial development must be curtailed to preserve treaty rights,” he said.

“At issue is the cumulative impact of industry, not each individual project. The court will be asked to say if the level of industrial activity in the hunting grounds has now crossed the line to make it impossible to reasonably exercise the harvesting rights. If the Beaver Lake are successful there will be constitutional controls on development to allow the land to recover and to prevent any further encroachments that might disturb wildlife populations.”

A precedent-setting ruling of that sort would have significance for any other First Nation making similar claims regarding the overall impacts of industrial development. This could have serious ramifications for other First Nation groups living near the tar sands or newly-industrialized zones like British Columbia’s northeast.

“This would be the most powerful ecological precedent ever set in a Canadian court,” says Woodward, “because it protects the entire biological system with a view to preserving its sustainable productivity.”

Other legal protections like the Fisheries Act or the Species at Risk Act, he says, amount to a “piece by piece approach.” The Beaver Lake Cree litigation “is based on protection of the entire ecosystem,” he adds, and determining that crucial point when that system “can’t take it anymore.”

“So the precedent that will be set by the Beaver Lake case is that it will be the first time a court is asked to draw the line defining too much industrial development in the face of constitutionally protected treaty rights.”

The Battle Ensues

Susan Smitten of Respecting Aboriginal Values and Environmental Needs (RAVEN), a non-profit group supporting the BLCN action since 2009, says just getting the case to trial has been tremendously difficult and expensive.

But the very importance of the case has brought help from all directions.

“We have raised something like $850,000 for the BLCN to cover costs,” she said, “plus we found pro bono lawyers from the UK to assist with the first round on the motion to strike.” People donated, lawyers worked at half-rate, and volunteers gave their time, all to keep the possibility of reaching trial alive.

“Canada and Alberta have done absolutely everything they can to delay and outspend” the BLCN, says Smitten. “This is particularly disappointing with respect to our federal government, which one would hope might support First Nations rights, and honour the promises made.”

However, she says, the tactics of perpetual delay are common practice when it comes to First Nations’ disputes. The government hopes the problem will fade away “because the band can’t keep up with the costs,” she adds.

Smitten estimates the costs could skyrocket up to $15 million once all is said and done.

“With this win, I hope everyone sees the value in assisting this band — morally, financially, emotionally, physically. This is doable. It’s going to trial.”

“I’m always so impressed and astounded that [the BLCN] stay with it,” Smitten said. “The energy it takes to keep this moving forward is incredible.”

The trail represent more than the preservation of First Nation rights and territory, to Smitten. The threat of climate change, she says, is something we all face collectively. Yet, average Canadians don’t have the special constitutional status of First Nations.

“Our Aboriginal peoples will be the ones that rescue Canada from the worst effects of the tar sands,” says Smitten.

“But it’s not fair to rely on the poorest people in our nation to stand alone and be the voice of reason in this effort. They have the power of their treaties to protect the planet, and we have the power of a nation to support them. I just encourage people to get behind the line they’ve figuratively and literally drawn in the tar sand.”

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