What happens when ordinary people oppose Big Oil and confront the governments who serve corporate interests?
New Brunswick citizens and First Nations in and around Kent County in the central part of the province are finding a new willingness and cooperation from non-native communities as they join in what Mi’kmaq elder Kenneth Francis calls “a struggle for life.”
The bravest among them have been hitting the back roads for the past two summers in an attempt to stop Houston-based oil and gas company SWN Resources Canada from fracking the only home some of them will ever know.
The company, at the centre of months of protests that led to a confrontation between anti-fracking activists and the RCMP last fall, has recently stopped conducting shale gas exploration activities in the area.
More than 40 arrests were made. At the time, RCMP spokesperson Julie Rogers-Marsh gave the police rationale for the sweep: “There have been threats made to employees who were working with a private security firm at the site, as well as firearms offences, incidents of intimidation, mischief and other criminal behavior. For those reasons, and to ensure public safety, police action was required.” Some of the activists are still in jail.
Last Friday, January 10 Ann Pohl, a former Toronto activist now living in New Brunswick, joined fellow fracking opponents from the province in an information event at the University of Toronto. They were here to raise awareness and funds for their ongoing battle, which has taken a legal turn since SWN filed notice recently to sue a dozen protestors. The company is alleging that activists are interfering with profits and caused damage to drilling equipment.
To an audience that included Christian Peacemakers, Quakers, lawyers, and members of a number of environmental organizations, Pohl says legal help is hard to come by in a small province where most jobs are controlled by the government or by Canada’s second-wealthiest family, the Irvings.
She emphasized: “This has been an entirely peaceful struggle, in the spirit of Gandhi and Martin Luther King.”
But most of what those outside New Brunswick know about the protests centres around last October’s confrontation with the RCMP, including images of burning police cruisers that followed online.
Pohl admits that tempers flared but points out that, “In all the pictures on the Web, you don’t see a weapon in anyone’s hands. It was a peaceful protest up to the time that the police invaded the camp.”
Toronto’s Chris Sabas, who was present at the protest camp with a Christian Peacemaker team, says “We only partner with non-violent movements. I saw no weapons, other than hatchets for the campfires.”
Fracking uses vast quantities of water and chemicals to shatter the earth underground to extract gas. The controversial technique has galvanized public opinion against it in the U.S. northeast where gas leakages caused by fracking have caused widespread pollution to water supplies and forced farmers from their land.
In New Brunswick, a broad coalition has sprung up against SWN’s activities. The Mi’kmaq community of Elsibogtog, which claims the Kent County area as First Nations land, is working with non-native citizens, many associated with the New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance
Rick Wallace, author of Merging Fires, a book on peace-building between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples, says activists are pushing for the creation of a nationwide support network around protests in New Brunswick and others that may emerge around the country.
“With all the environmental issues facing Canadians,” he said, “and their outsized impact on Indigenous communities, we are also talking about forging a national solidarity alliance.”
Patrick Macklem, professor of law at the University of Toronto, says the remoteness of SWN’s activities makes it difficult for opponents to get their message out. But their biggest problem may not be geography. The legal challenges facing protestors are daunting, he says.
“Even if solutions can be found in the courts, they will take a long time to achieve,” Macklem says.
Francis, a retired school principal, pointed out that it’s easy to get distracted by SWN’s legal action. Resource companies have used the tactic in the past to divide communities.
But he says that the response to the protests from non-native communities in New Brunswick has been positive. He says native claims to the Kent County area have not gotten in the way. There’s an understanding about the need for cooperation over stewardship of the land.
“Before,” Francis explained, “we didn’t want to cause any friction with people who’ve lived there for a long time… But when I spoke to all the [non-native] allies, they all said with one voice, ‘It’s the only way we’ll be able to save our land.'”
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