The Financial Impact of the Coastal GasLink Pipeline on the Wet’suwet’en Nation

For quite a long time, the Wet’suwet’en Nation, with a special focus on the hereditary chiefs, has been battling in court to protect their territories against a pipeline construction project. Those court battles not only play out over a very long period but also require an extremely high level of money to properly defend. So fighting off a colonization effort that would radically transform the Wet’suwet’en way of life has meant divesting from anything else the nation might have otherwise spent money on.

The Coastal GasLink pipeline is problematic for the Indigenous communities because it muddies their traditional economic systems and activities. These communities rely on traditional pathways to make a living, and these pathways are linked to the services provided by the land. As is clear from an examination of many of the written statements, the people of the Wet'suwet'en nation are not engaged in a single "feudal" type of wage slavery; instead, they are engaged in a number of free pathways to create value, pathways that involve fishing, energy harvesting, and local forms of ecology.

The long-term health impacts of constructing pipelines are not limited to the individuals harmed during buildout; they extend to the host communities as well. For instance, a 2008 EPA study found that industries related to energy development, of which pipeline construction is a significant part, were responsible for more than 90 percent of hazardous air pollutant emissions in the American West—what the researchers labeled an "onsite to community lens for understanding hazards." The same report found that the healthcare costs associated with these emissions range from $40 billion to $60 billion annually (Gao et al. 2008).

Extractive industries are too often accompanied by damages to spiritual places and disturbance to the rituals of cultures; the former reconfigures the geography of the sacred, while the latter undermines what gave (and gives) cultures at risk community cohesion. The loss of cultural identity does not amount to the disappearance of a vital piece of a community—something defensible on its own, worth preserving for what it affords that community in the way of life.

To overcome these problems, many organizations and legal groups provide pro bono services to assist Indigenous communities in dealing with legal disputes. This is clearly a necessary and wonderful resource for Indigenous peoples. It is also a necessary way of life for countless lawyers and law students who dedicate themselves to helping those who need it most.

Indigenous values must be the foundation of all sustainable; so, too, should they be the starting point for economic development. What sorts of initiatives might the Indian nations and Indian people undertake that would strengthen their economies and, by implication, the economies of this state? Clearly, initiatives that reflect our own projections of the world we collectively, and as individuals, want to live in are good to go. These are the ones that have the prospects for real quality; quality that is sustainable because it is life- and environmentally-friendly.

The conflict surrounding the Coastal GasLink pipeline illustrates the manifold legal, environmental, and financial difficulties confronted by Indigenous communities. These are formidable problems incorporating cumbersome sets of interlocking conditions. In recent years, Indigenous communities have sought to confront them head-on. One could hardly say that the project lacks precedents or that the Premier, BC, and Canada are somehow standing in courageous opposition. This is a long, sad, and current story that many communities across the nation have experienced. Addressing these issues in one place means tackling them in all places if we are to have a hope for real and lasting solutionaries.

This issue relates to the connection of finance, law, and Indigenous rights. It exposes how harmful practices and policies in these areas negatively affect Indigenous peoples. We all need to address this issue to start a serious conversation about the needed path forward that can bring about financial sovereignty for Indigenous peoples.