Trudeau government must stand up to U.S. to protect Yukon caribou

VANCOUVER—Yes this tale involves Donald Trump but first we need a short history lesson. The Porcupine caribou herd, ranging between 100,000 and 200,000 animals, migrate annually 2,400 km between their winter range in the boreal forests of Alaska and northwest Canada over the mountains to their calving grounds on the Beaufort Sea coastal plain. That’s the longest migration of any land mammal on earth. There is nothing else like it in the Americas—indeed nothing else like it in the world with the possible exception of the wildebeest migration in the Serengeti Plain of East Africa. Of course, caribou don’t respect international boundaries, but humans do. On the American side of the northern Alaska/Yukon border is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR for short. Since 1977, for 50 years now, there have been attempts by Republicans in the U.S. to allow oil and gas exploration and development in part of ANWR known as the "1002 area," a 1,500,000 acres (6,100 km) tract on the coastal plain. The Porcupine caribou calving grounds extend for hundreds of miles on both sides of the international boundary including this critical “1002 area." In March 1989, a bill allowing drilling in that area was “sailing through the U.S. Senate" only to be derailed, ironically, by the Exxon Valdez oil spill. In 1996, the Republican majority in the House and Senate voted to allow drilling in ANWR but President Bill Clinton vetoed it. Up till 2017 Republicans have attempted to allow drilling in ANWR almost 50 times. They failed until now. Enter U.S. President Donald Trump. Tucked into his recent “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017” is a provision to allow drilling. Just before Christmas, Trump signed it and it’s now the U.S. law. What is the history on the Canadian side of the border? In 1974, a consortium of big oil and gas companies announced a plan to ship arctic gas from the Prudhoe Bay oil field in northern Alaska by pipeline across the north slope of Alaska and Canada’s Yukon Territory to the Mackenzie Delta and from there pick up Canadian gas and ship both down the Mackenzie Valley through Alberta and finally to the lower 48 United States. It was to be the biggest privately financed project in Canada’s history. The Liberal government of the day led by Pierre Trudeau, Justin’s dad, appointed Justice Thomas Berger of the Supreme Court of British Columbia to conduct a royal commission to study the social, environmental and economic impacts of the proposed project. The “Berger Commission” became famous when the judge took the inquiry via “community hearings’ to Indigenous villages all around the Western Arctic. The Canadian people courtesy of the CBC probably for the first time saw and heard Indigenous people speak in their own languages about their way of life. As the judge famously said, “Canadians are a northern people.” Canadians were fascinated. Before the actual hearings started, as a young lawyer and special counsel to Berger, I travelled with “the Judge” on a jet ranger helicopter. We flew right along a flat strip of land between the ocean and the British Mountains that run parallel to the coast. Below we saw several wolves, three grizzly bears, and migrating caribou, but no humans. No one spoke. Having crossed the mountains, we flew over a land of small lakes and rivers called the Crow Flats, which was never covered by glaciers. This is where the people of Old Crow, the most northerly village in the Yukon, go to hunt muskrat. Finally, we saw the outline of a small village—rows of wooden cabins and a few bigger buildings like the school house and the general store—on the banks of the Peel River. There are no outside roads to this village, even today. The caribou nearby are the primary sustenance of the Gwichʼin, who traditionally built their communities to align with the caribou's migration patterns. The caribou are also routinely hunted by other Indigenous peoples, including the Inupiat, Inuvialuit, Hän, and Northern Tutchone. I recall Berger saying to me the next day. “You know, Ian, do you realize the magnificence of what we saw yesterday? It’s the last of North America, the eighth wonder of the world.” In his report three years later he wrote: "The northern Yukon is an Arctic and sub-Arctic wilderness of incredible beauty, a rich and varied ecosystem inhabited by thriving populations of wildlife. The Porcupine caribou herd, comprising 111,000 animals or more, ranges throughout the Northern Yukon and into Alaska. It is one of the greatest caribou herds in North America. The Yukon coastal plain and the Old Crow Flats provide essential habitat for thousands of migratory waterfowl each summer and fall. This unique ecosystem—the caribou, the birds, other wildlife, and the wilderness itself—has survived until now because of the inaccessibility of the area. But it is vulnerable to the kind of disturbance that industrial development would bring." He recommended that no pipeline should be built along the northern Yukon coast and that the calving grounds of the Porcupine caribou be preserved by establishing a wilderness park. Now this is where the tale of two countries comes in. The Canadian government accepted Berger’s recommendations. In 1992, the government of Brian Mulroney renamed the Northern Yukon National Park (first under a land claim); it became Ivvavik National Park and is jointly managed by Inuit people and Parks Canada. In 1995, adjacent but just south, the Chrétien government created the Vuntut National Park managed by the Vuntut First Nation and Parks Canada. Both are provided for in the Inuvialuit and Gwich’in land claims settlements and thus are constitutionally protected. In plain English, in order to get a pipeline or oil and gas drilling in those parks you would have to get the consent of the Indigenous people or change the Canadian Constitution, the latter, of course, no mean feat. In Canada, the Porcupine caribou herd is protected forever. This tale doesn’t have to have a sad ending. On July 17, 1987, under he Mulroney government, the United States and Canada signed the “Agreement on the Conservation of the Porcupine Caribou Herd” a treaty designed to protect the species from the damage to its habitat and migration routes. We still have this treaty. Let’s use it. Under it, Canada should now argue that the treaty provides us the right to be consulted before a drilling permit is issued in ANWR. Under the treaty, the eight-member board (four from Canada) can look at the potential impacts and if necessary raise hell or at least insist on a proper environmental assessment on any possible effect on the caribou herd. Problem is the board is in limbo at the moment. The Justin Trudeau government, through Foreign Affairs Canada and the embassy in Washington, in the past has been vocal on caribou protection. Now they have to be really vocal. Build on the courage and actions of Pierre Trudeau, Tom Berger, Brian Mulroney, and Jean Chrétien and take up the torch to reinvigorate the treaty provisions. For the future of the Porcupine caribou, let’s hope they do. Ian Waddell is a former special counsel to Judge Thomas Berger, former MP, and former minister of environment and intergovernmental affairs for the province of British Columbia. The Hill Times

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Trudeau government must stand up to U.S. to protect Yukon caribou

The Justin Trudeau government, through Foreign Affairs Canada and the embassy in Washington, in the past has been vocal on caribou protection. Now they have to be really vocal.

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