By Kayah George, Indigenous Divestment Lead

(A shorter version first published with the Toronto Star)

My people are descended from the sea. That is the meaning of our name: Tsleil-Waututh, “people of the inlet.” Our creation story tells that we were created from the sediment in the Burrard Inlet in Vancouver, Canada. The inlet is our grandmother, our oldest relative. The lands along this inlet have been my peoples’ home since time immemorial.   

At 22 years old, I have spent over half my life fighting alongside my family for our home and our grandmother, and for all of your homes. The Trans Mountain tar sands oil pipeline has threatened our land, our livelihoods, and our very lives since it was built in 1953, with 85 reported spills and leaks. Now, the federal government not only approved the twinning of this pipeline project, but used public dollars to buy the project to increase the shipping capacity from 300,000 barrels per day to 890,000 barrels of tar sands oil per day, tripling the threat to our lands, our waterways and our ancestors.

It’s hard to believe that the Canadian government would want to own a tar sands oil pipeline in an era of extreme climate change but here we are. The recent IPCC report released earlier this week paints a grim future for all life on this planet and an even worse future if we don’t take aggressive action right now. Expanding the tar sands and increasing the capacity of the Trans Mountain pipeline is not only a step in the wrong direction, it’s climate suicide. 

Global trends influenced by the climate crisis and growing divestment campaigns, are seeing investors move away from oil and gas projects like the TMX pipeline. There are now increasing environmental, human and Indigenous rights legal cases, including from my own nation, that make projects like TMX not only morally questionable, they are becoming legally risky. This poses serious challenges for projects like TMX because like all commercial projects they need insurance to begin construction and operation. This is a major problem for Canada and their newly acquired tar sands pipeline. So much so that Canada recently decided to hide the names of the insurance companies backing the pipeline, but we know who they are from last year’s certificate of insurance: insurance giants Liberty Mutual, AIG, Chubb, and Lloyd’s of London, among others. We call on these companies to publicly drop Trans Mountain. A project that can only be insured in secret should not exist. 

 

Other insurers have already cut ties with this environmental and human rights travesty: Argo recently announced it would not renew its coverage. Zurich, Minch Re, and Talanx dropped out last year, following engagement from the Tsleil-Waututh Nation. In total, 14 insurers have ruled out the pipeline. 

It is time for all our insurers to drop this pipeline – and to adopt polices that commit them not to insure any projects that do not have the free, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples who are affected.

 

When insurers take a stand, it makes a difference. Twenty-six insurers globally have reduced or ended coverage for coal, and as a result coal companies face steep rate increases and even struggle to secure the coverage they need to operate.

 

Trans Mountain resorted to hiding the names of its insurers because our pressure is working. But hiding their names will do nothing to address the very real problems this pipeline faces: lack of consent from Indigenous communities, decaying infrastructure, and a massive environmental footprint. 

 

The pipeline has already had 85 spills, poisoning our lands and waters. When construction comes to our communities, so does an increase in violence against Indigenous women. 

Where the pipeline comes to an end in our inlet, there is an oil refinery and tanker terminal directly across my peoples’ home. I wonder why of all places it always seems to be Indigenous lands that are chosen. But maybe that is no coincidence—after all, we have preserved the world’s forests and waterways for generations. 

 

Those who back the pipeline do not see the sea as a living being. But we do, and we fear for the endangered orcas, the fish, the sea itself.

 

We have a saying: when the tide is out, the table is set. The sea provides us with oysters, clams, and fish. When the water became so polluted that we could not eat from the sea anymore, we worked hard to restore our inlet. Not long ago my people celebrated our first clam harvest since before I was born. At one point there were only 6,000 salmon in the river--now there are millions. We also reintroduced elk, which brought back wolves and grizzly bears. We protect and enhance what we love.

The Tsleil-Waututh Nation commissioned a detailed examination of how Trans Mountain and its expansion would impact our beloved territory, in consultation with world-renowned scientists and economists and rooted in our traditional laws. We found that the expansion would bring a seven-fold increase in tanker traffic, and there is a 79-87% chance of a spill in the inlet over the next 50 years. This would devastate the inlet’s already fragile wildlife and could expose over 1 million people to toxic chemicals.

 

This pipeline is nothing short of genocide against my people. That is why every single member of the nation has opposed Trans Mountain since the beginning. We stand in solidarity on both sides of the border: my mother’s tribe, Tulalip, in the United States, and my father’s, the Tsleil-Waututh, in Canada.

 

Where we uphold our Indigenous laws and oppose this pipeline, we are met with violence and treated as criminals, as are Indigenous Peoples who defend their homelands around the world. Indigenous youth have been protesting outside the Vancouver offices of the insurance companies backing this project, including AIG, Liberty Mutual, and Chubb. Some were violently arrested.

 

And as a youth activist, I am so moved to see so many other young people from our nation and many others standing up for our land and our future. 

With COVID preventing large gatherings, we are finding other ways to fight. Vancouver youth launched a pledge against the banks who are among the top funders of fossil fuels, including Trans Mountain. The Tiny House Warriors built houses along the pipeline’s route to assert their land rights. Activists even managed to temporarily halt work on the pipeline to protect hummingbirds. That something so small can stop a huge pipeline is inspiring. For us, the hummingbird is a sign of good things to come.

And I think what is coming is a defeat of this pipeline. Every year more people join us. Every year my people fight harder. We are part of a growing movement calling for divestment from all fossil fuels that harm the planet and its people. 

So we ask insurance companies: which side of history do you want to be on?

Kayah George invites you to explore the importance of divesting from fossil fuels in her upcoming Divestment from an Indigenous leadership perspective webinar September 16, 2021, at 11 AM, PDT.

Sign up for her Divestment webinar here