Proceeding
The commissioner of the inquiry was Justice Thomas Berger, who heard testimony from diverse groups with an interest in the pipeline. Fourteen groups became full participants in the inquiry, attending all meetings and testifying before the commission. The inquiry was notable for the voice that it gave to the aboriginal people whose traditional territory the pipeline would traverse.
Berger travelled extensively in the North in preparation for the hearings. He took his commission to all 35 communities along the Mackenzie River Valley, as well as in other cities across Canada, to gauge public reaction. In his travels he met with aboriginal (Dene, Inuit, Métis) and non-aboriginal residents. He held formal hearings in Yellowknife to get the views of experts about the proposal. Following this, he held community hearings across the Northwest Territories and the Yukon, and this played an important role in shaping his views.
Findings
The first volume of Berger's report was released on June 9, 1977, and followed with a second volume several months later. Titled Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland, the two-volume report highlighted the fact that while the Mackenzie Valley could be the site of the "biggest project in the history of free enterprise", it was also home to many peoples whose lives would be immeasurably changed by the pipeline.
Environmental impact
The Berger Report concluded that the northern Yukon was too susceptible to environmental harm. Berger cautioned that a gas pipeline would be a precursor to an oil pipeline. The energy transportation corridor thus created would require an immense infrastructure of roads, airports, maintenance bases and new settlements to support it. The impact on the ecosystem (both the natural habitat and its people) would be equivalent to building a railway across Canada. The commission even recommended that no energy corridor be built in the Mackenzie Delta region.
At the same time, the commission saw no significant environmental risk further south through the Mackenzie Valley. Berger suggested that a number of sanctuaries and protected areas be created for threatened and endangered species, particularly Porcupine caribou, white whales, several bird species, and other animals inhabiting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).
Economic impact
The commission found no significant economic benefit from the pipelines. The report concluded that large-scale projects based on non-renewable energy sources rarely provide long-term employment, and that those locals that did find work during construction could only fill low-skill, low-wage positions. In addition, Berger feared that pipeline development would undermine local economies which relied on hunting, fishing, and trapping, possibly even increasing economic hardship in the area. Berger ultimately found that the economy of the region would not be harmed by not building the pipeline.
Social impact
The commission believed that the pipeline process had not taken native culture seriously and that any development needed to conform to the wishes of those who lived there. Berger predicted that the "social consequences of the pipeline will not only be serious—they will be devastating." The commission was particularly concerned about the role of natives in development plans. At the time the report was released, there were several ongoing negotiations over native land claims in the area, and Berger suggested that pipeline construction be delayed until those claims were settled.
The commission found that the local population would not accept development activity without some native control. In addition, land claims were part of a broader native rights issues that needed to be settled between the government and the First Nations. In Berger's view, rapid development in the north would preclude settlement of those important issues because of the influx of non-native populations and growing business interests.
Devolution is the statutory delegation of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to govern at a subnational level, such as a regional or local level. It is a form of administrative decentralization. Devolved territories have the power to make legislation relevant to the area, thus granting them a higher level of autonomy.
The Mackenzie River is a river in the Canadian boreal forest. It forms, along with the Slave, Peace, and Finlay, the longest river system in Canada, and includes the second largest drainage basin of any North American river after the Mississippi.
The minister of Crown–Indigenous relations is a minister of the Crown in the Canadian Cabinet, one of two ministers who administer Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC), the department of the Government of Canada which is responsible for administering the Indian Act and other legislation dealing with "Indians and lands reserved for the Indians" under subsection 91(24) of the Constitution Act, 1867. The minister is also more broadly responsible for overall relations between the federal government and First Nations, Métis, and Inuit.
In Canada, an Indian reserve is defined by the Indian Act as a "tract of land, the legal title to which is vested in Her Majesty, that has been set apart by Her Majesty for the use and benefit of a band." Reserves are areas set aside for First Nations, one of the major groupings of Indigenous peoples in Canada, after a contract with the Canadian state, and are not to be confused with Indigenous peoples' claims to ancestral lands under Aboriginal title.
Patricia Dora Carney was a Canadian politician who served as a member of parliament from 1980 to 1988 and as a Senator from 1990 to 2008.
Stephen Kakfwi is a Canadian politician, who was the ninth premier of the Northwest Territories. His sixteen-year tenure in the cabinet of the Northwest Territories is the longest in the Territories' history.
Thomas Rodney Berger was a Canadian politician and jurist. He was briefly a member of the House of Commons of Canada in the early 1960s, entering provincial politics thereafter. He led the British Columbia New Democratic Party for most of 1969, prior to Dave Barrett. Berger was a justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia from 1971 to 1983. In 1974, Berger became the royal commissioner of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, which released its findings in 1977. After retiring from the bench, Berger continued to practise law and served in various public capacities. He was a member of the Order of Canada and the Order of British Columbia.
Georges Henry Erasmus, OC is a Canadian politician. He was the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations from 1985 to 1991.
The Canol Road was part of the Canol Project and was built to construct a pipeline from Norman Wells, Northwest Territories, to Whitehorse, Yukon, during World War II. The pipeline no longer exists, but the 449 kilometres (279 mi) long Yukon portion of the road is maintained by the Yukon Government during summer months. The portion of the road that still exists in the NWT is called the Canol Heritage Trail. Both road and trail are incorporated into the Trans-Canada Trail.
The Paulette Case refers to the filing of a legal caveat concerning the different interpretations of Treaty 8 and Treaty 11 between the Government of Canada and the Denesoline in the Northwest Territories (NWT).
The Mackenzie Valley Pipeline, also called the Mackenzie River Pipeline, was a proposed project to transport natural gas from the Beaufort Sea through Canada's Northwest Territories to tie into gas pipelines in northern Alberta. The project was first proposed in the early 1970s but was scrapped following an inquiry conducted by Justice Thomas Berger. The project was resurrected in 2004 with a new proposal to transport gas through the sensitive arctic tundra. Probabilistic estimates of hydrocarbons in the Mackenzie Delta and Beaufort Sea regions project that there are natural gas reserves of 1.9 trillion cubic metres. After many delays, the project was officially abandoned in 2017 by the main investment partners citing natural gas prices and the long regulatory process.
Richard Nerysoo is a territorial level politician from the Northwest Territories, Canada. He was a member of the Northwest Territories Legislature from 1979 to 1995 and served as the third premier of the Northwest Territories and Speaker.
The Alaska gas pipeline is a joint project of TransCanada Corp. and ExxonMobil Corp. to develop a natural gas pipeline under the AGIA, a.k.a. the Alaska Gas Inducement Act, adopted by Alaska Legislature in 2007. The project originally proposed two options during its open season offering over a three-month period from April 30 to July 30, 2010. An 'open season' in layman's terms is when a company conducts a non-binding show of interest or poll in the marketplace, they ask potential customers "if we build it, will you come?".
The Sahtu Region is an administrative region in Canada's Northwest Territories. Coterminous with the settlement region described in the 1993 Sahtu Dene and Metis Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement, 41,437 km2 (15,999 sq mi) of the Sahtu is collectively owned by its Indigenous Sahtu (Dene) and Métis inhabitants. Although the region's population is predominantly First Nations, a significant non-Indigenous presence exists in Norman Wells, the regional office, established in 1920 to serve the only producing oilfield in the Canadian Territories. Considered to be of vital strategic importance during World War II in the event of a Japanese invasion of Alaska, the region's petroleum resources were exploited by the United States Army with the Canol pipeline, but the project never became necessary and ultimately operated for less than one year.
Canada's early petroleum discoveries took place near population centres or along lines of penetration into the frontier.
Citizens for Public Justice (CPJ) is an ecumenical, non-profit organization that promotes justice in Canadian public policy through research and analysis focused on poverty reduction, ecological justice, and refugee rights.
The Peel watershed drains 14% of the Yukon Territory Canada and flows into the Beaufort Sea via the Peel and then Mackenzie Rivers. While the lower part of the Peel River and its confluence with the Mackenzie River are in the North West Territories, most of the watershed, 68,000 km2 out of 77,000 km2 is in the Yukon. Six major tributaries and numerous smaller streams feed the Peel. The Yukon portion of the watershed is undergoing land use planning, a process laid out in Chapter 11 of the Yukon Land Claims Agreement and is called the Peel Watershed Planning Region (PWPR). This article is confined to the PWPR.
The Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act is an Act of the Parliament of Canada. This omnibus bill was introduced by Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance under Prime Minister Steven Harper's majority Conservative government as a 2012 Budget Implementation Act. Bill C-38 was given Royal Assent on June 29, 2012. Bill C-38 and Bill C-45 attracted controversy both for their size and for the breadth of provisions contained that were not fiscally related. Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party, claimed that, "[i]n spite of the fact that most Canadians have no idea how seriously Bill C-38 will affect their lives, the Senate is about to begin hearings so that Conservative Senators can vote on it as soon as possible... This railroading version of democracy is tragic for Canada."
Melina Laboucan-Massimo is a climate justice and Indigenous rights advocate from the Lubicon Cree community of Little Buffalo in northern Alberta, Canada. Growing up with firsthand experience of the effects of oil and gas drilling on local communities, she began advocating for an end to resource extraction in Indigenous territories but shifted focus to supporting a renewable energy transition after a ruptured pipeline spilled approximately 4.5 million litres of oil near Little Buffalo in 2011.
The Van der Peet test or the Integral to a Distinctive Culture Test is a legal test used in Canada to determine whether an activity is considered an "Aboriginal right" under section 35 of the Canadian Constitution. The test was established in the landmark Supreme Court of Canada case R. v. Van der Peet (1996). The test has three parts, which must all be satisfied for the activity to be considered an Aboriginal right:
- The practice, custom, or tradition must be an element of a practice, custom, or tradition integral to the distinctive culture of the Aboriginal group claiming the right.
- The practice, custom, or tradition must have existed prior to contact with Europeans.
- The practice, custom, or tradition must have been central to Aboriginal society's way of life.
