Anti-pipeline tour hits Saskatchewan

The Council of Canadians was in Saskatchewan mid-April as part of a speaking tour in opposition to the multi-billion-dollar Energy East pipeline project. TransCanada proposes repurposing a 43-year-old existing pipeline across the southern Prairies and Ontario to carry oil, rather than natural gas, to the Irving Oil refinery at Saint John, N.B. “The purpose of the tour is to provide some information about the project, specifically about the risk that we see of a pipeline spill,” said Andrea Harden -Donahue, an energy and climate justice campaigner with the Ottawa-based council. The council says the proposed development would encourage expansion of northern Alberta`s tarsands and threaten waterways in its path. Speakers on the tour included Maude Barlow, national chairperson of the Council of Canadians, Ben Gotschall, energy director for Bold Nebraska, a ranchers’ group that has opposed the Keystone XL pipeline in the Midwestern U.S., and Melissa Daniels, Dene lawyer and a representative from the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, who will speak on tarsands expansion, plus First Nations treaty and Indigenous rights. The tour stopped in Regina, Swift Current and Moose Jaw.