First Nations chiefs are demanding answers from Ottawa because the federal government’s pipeline memorandum of understanding with Alberta — which opens the door to a bitumen pipeline to the B.C. coast — makes no mention of the oilsands’ heavy water consumption or of the threat tailings ponds pose to fresh water sources downstream.
A deal silent on water
The memorandum of understanding does not touch on the high level of water consumption required to pull bitumen out of the oilsands. It also doesn’t mention the threat to fresh water sources posed by the tailings ponds that oilsands operations leave behind — vast reservoirs of contaminated water, sand and residual bitumen.
The only mention of water in the agreement concerns a prospective pipeline’s path to the Pacific coast: it says exporting bitumen through a deepwater port in B.C. to Asian markets could require ending the oil tanker moratorium that has been law since 2019.
The Privy Council Office did not respond directly when asked why water was not part of the agreement with Alberta, or whether the federal major projects office will require water quality standards and treatment of effluent in Alberta’s proposal. It restated that the major projects office will work with Indigenous communities and that the federal government commits to upholding the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Coastal First Nations president Marilyn Slett said she called on Prime Minister Mark Carney in a meeting last week to maintain and protect the tanker moratorium, warning that “it would take just one spill to destroy our way of life.”
Tailings ponds keep growing
One Indigenous water watchdog group projects in a new report that tailings ponds in Alberta could cover an area larger than neighbouring First Nations by 2070.
“For the Nations that have long cared for these waters and whose treaty rights affirm their continued relationship to the land, this comparison makes clear the magnitude of the encroachment and the risks carried forward into the future,” said the report, released last month by Keepers of the Water.
Chiefs in Alberta are particularly concerned about the ponds, which have a history of leaking into their water sources; one tailings pond leak went unreported for nine months in 2022.
Trevor Mercredi, grand chief of Treaty 8 First Nations in Alberta, said he doesn’t think environmental protections and water safety are top priorities for government and industry right now. “I don’t know if they’ll ever deal with it,” said Mercredi, who also serves on the Indigenous advisory council in the federal government’s major projects office, which will review the eventual pipeline proposal. He said the federal government just wants “to get through these projects” and deal with the fallout later.
Keepers of the Water executive director Jesse Cardinal said Ottawa’s energy ambitions run up against a hard limit on available water. “The tailings ponds are biggest they’ve ever been. They’re twice the size of the city of Vancouver … We don’t have the water for these pipe dreams that the Alberta government has,” Cardinal said. She added that farmers who depend on irrigation, and Albertans who want their kids to grow up in a safe environment, are also threatened by excessive water consumption. “We’re not saying we want (Canadians) to be unemployed and destitute. But we’re all going to be destitute if we don’t work together. It’s inevitable.”
A drinking water bill in limbo
The agreement was signed just weeks before Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty, in an interview with The Canadian Press, declined to commit to including source water protections in a long-promised First Nations clean drinking water bill. Source water protection was included in a previous version of the legislation introduced under former prime minister Justin Trudeau, but that bill failed to pass before Parliament was prorogued last year. Alberta and Ontario objected to that legislation, saying it could affect their ability to pursue development, while First Nations leaders demanded Gull-Masty not bow to provincial demands.
In 2021, the federal government launched the Crown-Indigenous Working Group to develop options with affected First Nations and Métis communities to manage and remediate the tailings ponds. A discussion paper on managing the ponds was published last February by Environment and Climate Change Canada, which says any impacts to treaty and Aboriginal rights from releasing oilsands effluent must be “thoroughly assessed, understood and avoided.”
Ottawa has also committed $12 million over 10 years for the Fort Chipewyan Health Study to examine the oilsands’ impacts on community members’ health, including whether there are heightened risks of cancer in communities downstream along the Athabasca River. Mikisew Cree First Nation and Keepers of the Water, which have raised the alarm over the ponds for years, are holding a conference in March to discuss the issue and have invited Carney to attend.
