Everybody talks about the environmental harm from tar sand development and the pipeline, but few recognize that we are the ones who actually feel it. Our environment is extremely important to us. We depend on it for our culture, our spirituality, and our day-to-day needs as our ancestral people always have. It is our land, our air, our water, and our bodies that bear the brunt of the damage. If the XL Pipeline is approved, mining and development in this region would greatly increase. The clear-cutting and strip mining that is already rapidly destroying our sacred ancestral lands would accelerate to an unprecedented level. Our air and water would be tainted with carcinogens, and farther pressure would be put on endangered species (like the woodland caribou) important to our culture.  Clearly, this cannot be allowed to happen.

Our constitutionally backed human rights have been violated. The first nations were not consulted or given say in decision-making process as required. We were continuously marginalized by both the Canadian government and the global oil corporations who seem to work in concert. We have tried to legally fight, and we have tried to work with them to benefit. Both tactics have had limited success and we are left feeling helpless and violated.  Hundreds of tribes have found themselves in situations like this before. We fear that history may repeat itself here in Canada, one of the last few places where people like us still inhabit our mostly undamaged ancestral territory.

But perhaps the most alarming issue is the threat posed to our health. Increased mining produces toxins and carcinogens that enter the air and water, causing cancer, asthma, and birth defects. These chemicals leech into our water from runoff, tailings, refinery byproducts, and some mining processes directly. They billow from refineries, leaving a stench in the air. While more research is desperately needed, studies alarmingly show that levels of well-known carcinogens like PAH’s (Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) increase downstream of tar sand operations. In the same places, cancer rates jump 30% and more babies are born with developmental problems. These are not just statistics- these are our children, the only future our tribes have.