SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Over 100 people, including children saying they refused to be poisoned by chemicals, gathered at Somba K'e Civic Plaza on Saturday to join a worldwide protest against fracking.

Lucia Nakehk'o, 10, left, Maslyn Scott, 10 and Alexis Head, 10, hold a quilt made by Emily Lawson to protest fracking. - Candace Thomson/NNSL photo

The protest was one of 200 such events taking place in 20 countries worldwide, but closer to home, protestors mentioned the conflict between First Nations and RCMP in New Brunswick, and the fracking developments in the Sahtu region.

One of the main concerns of fracking is that companies in most jurisdictions don't have to disclose the volume of chemicals they're putting into the ground, said Lorraine Hewlett of the Council of Canadians, who led the protest.

"Some companies will give a list of 700 chemicals that they might use but they're not going to give away their secret recipe," said Hewlett. "So then you don't know which of the 700 they're going to put into the ground."

Hewlett said the council's position is none of the chemicals should be put into the ground.

"There's so much testimony now, so much evidence of the harmful effects these chemicals have on human health, and on the land and wildlife," Hewlett said

Taking part in the march was Dene National Chief Bill Erasmus, who said First Nations people all over Canada are concerned with the harmful effects of fracking on the environment, and that the government is ignoring their treaty rights.

"The difficulty is that Canada thinks they own the resources and they make the provinces think they own it, but we never gave them to anyone," Erasmus said. "The First Nations own the land, but they also own the water and that needs to be understood - that's why we are so upset."

Erasmus said the Canadian government needs to look at how First Nations communities have been maintaining the environment when considering fracking projects.

"We have rules in place on how to work with water that are thousands of years old," he said. "What we've always done has to be maintained, and others have to understand how we've been able to keep everything clean and pristine. It's not by accident."

The march went from Somba K'e Civic Plaza, down 49 Street to the Yellowknife courthouse over to Franklin Avenue and on to Northern United Place. Once there, a documentary was shown about fracking effects in Alberta called "Burning Water."

After the showing, Weledeh MLA Bob Bromley spoke to protestors about the impacts of fracking that he saw first hand on a trip to North Dakota.

Bromley said there are three tiers of impacts on the environment and society - climate change, accumulative impacts and concerns about water.

"The companies are putting so much money into this and there are all these costs, both financially and in the declining quality of life," Bromley said. "If we pushed even with a fraction of this money to renewable energy instead, we'd see restoration of the environment as opposed to its destruction, and other benefits in ways that would support our people and cultures."

Bromley spoke out against fracking procedures in Monday's session of the legislative assembly, while Yellowknife Centre MLA Robert Hawkins and Sahtu MLA Norman Yakeleya expressed concerns whether it could be done safely and with public support.

They are calling for more research into the consequences of fracking, and more public engagement from the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment.

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