01) NEEDED: A PEOPLE'S ALTERNATIVE TO TAR SANDS EXPORTS
Statement by the BC Provincial Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada, October 4, 2012
On October 22, thousands of people will gather at the Legislature in Victoria for a powerful protest against the corporate drive for more tar sands exports and tankers on the west coast. The Communist Party extends full solidarity to this courageous action, which will include members and supporters of our party.
Earlier this year, the Communist Party submitted our views to the Joint Review Panel hearings into the Enbridge Northern Gateway (ENG) pipeline. At the time, we called the hearings "a historic clash between two different visions for the future of Canada."
Subsequent events have validated this prediction. The broad coalition against the ENG proposal brings together growing numbers of Aboriginal peoples, environmentalists, working people, and even business people who understand the grave environmental, economic and social dangers posed by this project.
Public opposition has even compelled Premier Christy Clark to pose as a critic of the ENG proposal. But this phony public relations battle is not between the working people of B.C. and Alberta. In fact, both British Columbians and growing numbers of Albertans fear the threats posed by tar sands expansion, new pipelines and expanded tanker traffic.
Submissions to the panel hearings have shown that the Northern Gateway project does not meet the criteria of being "required" and "in the public interest." Rather, it is intended to generate huge new profits for the oil and gas monopolies.
Aboriginal peoples along the pipeline corridors, many of whom have never ceded inherent indigenous title to their traditional lands and waters, call the ENG project a direct attack on their national rights. Instead of meeting legal and constitutional obligations to engage in meaningful consultations with First Nations, the pipeline proponents and its political backers set up phony pro-pipeline groups and pay so-called aboriginal leaders to issue supportive statements. These corrupt tactics have only strengthened opposition by First Nations across B.C.
The potential for catastrophic environmental damage was seen again by revelations about Enbridge's failure to prevent and respond to its catastrophic oil spill in Michigan. The Northern Gateway pipeline would be constructed across 1177 kilometres, crossing some 1,000 rivers, streams and bodies of water, bringing bitumen to load onto supertankers in the narrow Douglas Channel, one of the most environmentally fragile areas of the west coast. Despite its expensive greenwash propaganda, Enbridge's record of more than 800 leaks over the past decade proves that the only real question is the frequency and scale of more such disasters.
But the transnational energy monopolies and the federal and Alberta governments have not given up. These forces remain determined to proceed despite negative public opinion and scientific warnings. Last spring, the Harper Tories used their parliamentary majority to remove key legal barriers to the rubber-stamping of controversial energy projects. The Tories demonize critics as "foreign radicals" and "billionaire socialists", but this smear tactic has only strengthened popular determination to block this dangerous project.
Bitter struggles over energy and resource policy go back decades in Canada. Natural resources such as fossil fuels, lumber, water and minerals could provide the material base for a publicly-owned "value-added" economic structure, focused on creating good jobs and meeting people's needs, without destroying the natural environment. Instead, starting with the colonial seizure of Aboriginal lands, and the "Abbott Plan" adopted by the post‑war Liberal government, vast resources within the borders of the Canadian state have been grabbed by transnational (especially U.S.) capital. Canada has become mainly a supplier of raw materials for the U.S. military-industrial war machine. "Free trade" sellouts ensure that the First Nations and the peoples of Quebec and the rest of Canada are still denied any genuine sovereignty over our economic future. The Enbridge project is another nail in the coffin of Canada's declining domestic manufacturing base.
The ENG project, the twinning of the Kinder-Morgan pipeline to Burnaby, and massive natural gas fracking in northern BC, all feed into the global imperialist pattern of fossil fuel dependence and domination. This relentless capitalist expansion not only threatens British Columbia's coastline, it has grave health consequences for the people of Alberta, and contributes to the deadly spiral of global warming and climate change.
The Communist Party opposes the policy of exporting unprocessed raw materials. Instead, we call for a People's Energy Plan, based on a sustainable, conservation‑based economy; full respect for the inherent rights of First Nations over their traditional territories and resources; and public ownership of the energy industry, as the material basis to rebuild Canada's industrial and manufacturing sector and to create jobs.
Ultimately, blocking the Northern Gateway pipeline and other forms of tar sands expansion will require united, massive, and militant mobilizations, like the Oct. 22 action in Victoria. We urge the labour and democratic movements to build united solidarity with the Aboriginal peoples and environmentalists, both to kill this dangerous project, and to create a genuine people's alternative plan for economic development, based on people's needs, not corporate greed!