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NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
Dene Nation Chief Bill Erasmus is happy with a decision to delay the Keystone XL Pipeline extension until at least 2013, believing it will give his government more time to make its case against further oil sands expansion.

Francois Paulette: Americans don't understand the North.

"The reason we are pleased is that the tar sands will not expand and our concern there is the huge amount of water being used, which affects our water tables up north because the water flows north," said Erasmus, who travelled to Washington, D.C., last month to participate in U.S. congressional hearings on the proposed project.

Erasmus said more than 700 square miles of tailings ponds exist in Alberta and, as chemicals leach into the environment, they find their way north.

The Keystone XL Pipeline would carry bitumen from Alberta's oil sands - alternatively labelled "tar sands" by critics - to refineries on Texas' Gulf Coast. The pipeline's extension would result in increased and expanded oil sands production. Currently, more than one million barrels of oil are produced from Alberta's oil sands each day.

With public pressure mounting, the U.S. State Department released a statement on Nov. 10 to announce it would delay its decision on the project until "as early as the first quarter of 2013" to allow for further independent study into alternative routes and to solicit comments from affected parties.

In response, the company in charge of the Keystone project, Calgary-based TransCanada, said it would alter the route of the proposed pipeline to steer it away from a massive underground water system in Nebraska - an area that had become the focus of much of the public outcry. The Nebraska legislature is mulling the new route, but the U.S. State Department has the final say on approval.

Erasmus will also use the extra time to lobby for the implementation of sustainable energy strategies in Canada and the U.S., adding he is setting up meetings with the Alberta government to discuss water issues relating to the oil sands.

"We are going to tell them that we are concerned and that they have a responsibility for people downstream," he said. "The (water) standards, when it meets the NWT border, are high and that they are going to remain high."

The Dene Nation opposes the expansion of the oil sands, Erasmus said. However, it is not calling for the shutdown of the oil sands necessarily. Erasmus said more money could be dedicated toward techniques that would use less water during the extraction and separation processes involved with processing and transporting the bitumen.

Proponents of the pipeline argue the oil delivered by this project would help wean Americans off so-called conflict oil in the Middle East. The Canadian government is also touting the economic benefits, in the form of increased trade and jobs, inherent with expanded oil sands production.

Francois Paulette, an elder with the Salt River First Nations, has recently travelled through many American states to spread awareness about Northern First Nations concerns over the proposed expansion.

Paulette was asked in Kentucky whether he'd personally prefer to use oil from Saudi Arabia or Alberta.

"I simply told them I would prefer to buy the oil from Saudi Arabia that comes directly from the ground," he said.

"They pump it out and ship it out. For me, that is the difference: the tar sands are polluting not only the water, but polluting people."

Paulette said his message was to show how the Keystone decision would not only affect Nebraska and the American states along the pipeline, but also Canada's North and Dene land.

"Most of the American people don't have a view of what is in our territory and where we live," he said.

"I gave them a bigger picture - that there are tribal groups up here and 30 or so First Nations that live around the area and are affected by the tar sands."

"When they go back to Washington, D.C., they now have a sense that there is not just an immediate impact on the aquifers of Nebraska, but also something huge around Northern Canada. In effect, here is something much greater than what they are just doing in the States."

Paulette said he believed the U.S. State Department's decision to review the project was the right thing to do.

"I think they are serious about it, or else they wouldn't have done what they did," he said of U.S. President Barack Obama's administration's actions.

However, TransCanada appears poised to move ahead with its project. On Nov. 16, it was reported that they would seek approval to build a less controversial segment of the proposed pipeline, from Oklahoma to Texas.

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