Skip to main content

Heads should roll over massive Alberta spill by Imperial Oil

Chief Allan Adam (left) from the Athabasca Fort Chipewyan First Nation chats with Grand Chief Serge Simon from the Mohawks of Kanesatake at a Special Chiefs Assembly in Gatineau, Que., on Dec. 8, 2016. Photo by Mike De Souza

Enough. It is time to do what Canada should have done decades ago and come down like a ton of bricks on oilsands companies that pollute our land and water.

Imperial Oil’s latest spill of toxic tailings water at the Kearl mine north of Fort McMurray is an outrageous breach of trust. The company’s failure to inform neighbouring First Nations about the spill speaks volumes about the disregard oilsands companies have shown Indigenous people living downstream. This has all the signs of a coverup, says Allan Adam, chief of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation. It’s hard not to think he’s right.

Twice, tailings water polluted with chemicals like naphthenic acids, arsenic and leftover bitumen — which, it goes without saying, should never reach human lips — spilled into the forest and wetland. The polluted mess pooled near the Muskeg and Firebag rivers, which in turn flow into the Athabasca River.

Did the company warn residents of Fort Chipewyan about the spill? No. Imperial has apologized but couldn’t come up with a compelling explanation for why the information was not shared with the people who could stand to be harmed by the chemicals. One could imagine any number of reasons Imperial would be happy to keep that information under the dome.

But harder to explain, and frankly more egregious, is why the Alberta Energy Regulator also failed to sound the alarm. The regulator is a government body that we would hope acts in the public interest. But in Alberta, the energy regulator has always been in thrall to industry.

Heads should roll over Imperial Oil's Alberta spill. @AdrienneTanner writes for @NatObserver #abpoli #oilsands #cdnpoli #ableg

Adam is angry as a hornet and demanding answers from the company and regulator who failed in their duty to warn his people of the spill, thought to be one of the largest in the province’s history. “They’re both up against the wall right now. They were caught red-handed,” he told The Guardian.

This is righteous anger.

Fallout from oilsands pollution has for years been the suspected cause of high cancer rates among Fort Chipewyan residents. Proving causation in communities where the population numbers are small is tough.

But people suspect tailings pollution is to blame and have long lived in fear. “It’s like a silent killer,” Adam told Canada’s National Observer in 2019. “You don’t know what it is that’s out there, what’s causing you to get sick.”

Imperial and other oilsands mining companies operating in the area have been making much of their concern for the environment of late. Pathways Alliance, which lobbies on the behalf of the oilsands giants, is asking Canadian governments to bankroll efforts to lower carbon emissions during the production process through carbon capture, utilization and storage.

Despite profits more than doubling last year, the companies want the public to pick up more than half the cost of their planned $16.5-billion carbon capture project.

Governments should only give this kind of cash to people they can trust. If one of the major oilsands players can’t handle the pollution it already creates and keeps residents in the dark when spills happen, how can the government trust that company to make good on carbon capture promises?

Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault says he’s concerned about the handling of the spill. But so far, his main beef seems to be with Alberta, which is obliged to promptly alert Ottawa when accidents happen.

Alberta is shuffling the onus onto Imperial, blaming the company for tardy communications. Someone from Imperial should be losing a job over this, but that is not Premier Danielle Smith’s call to make. She instead has demanded “radical transparency” from energy companies but has so far failed to spell out what that means or laid out a path to get there.

Smith could start with heads rolling at the energy regulator, but that’s not likely this close to a provincial election. Smith is as cosy as one can be with the oil and gas industry, so she’ll probably keep her head down for the next couple months and hope this dies down.

Guilbeault, on the other hand, should push hard for better answers and, if laws were broken in this affair, make sure justice is pursued with full government might. He might also talk to his cabinet colleagues about that niggling issue of trust.

Never mind that the oilsands are huge contributors to the climate change that threatens to kill us all. A company that spills and hides for nine months may not be the best investment bedfellow.

Meanwhile, it’s good to know he is talking to chiefs of the neighbouring First Nations. They deserve that respect and then some.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said it best. When the story broke last week, she told Observer reporter Natasha Bulowski the spill coverup is “an outrageous act of environmental racism.” She’s right.

Comments