Stop Blocking the Shut Down of Line 5!
In the early summer of 2023, a U.S. judge in Wisconsin ordered the Canadian oil company, Enbridge Inc., to shut down the section of the Line 5 pipeline that runs through the territory of the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa by June 2026. Since 2019, the Band has been fighting a legal battle with Enbridge to have the pipeline removed from its territory and watershed. In the ongoing legal battle, Enbridge has been found guilty of trespass on tribal territory since 2013.
In response to the court case, Canada filed two briefs seeking to block the shutdown order by invoking and misrepresenting a 1977 pipeline treaty.
When it comes to pipeline spills, the question is not if, but when. Canada has never had a leak-proof pipeline - and Enbridge’s Line 5 is a 71 year old, deteriorating pipeline that poses an imminent and direct threat to the Great Lakes basin. Danger to irreparable loss of drinkable water exists particularly at two high-profile and highly sensitive areas: the Straits of Mackinac, which connect Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, and further upstream at the Bad River (also known as Mishkiiziibii/Medicine River), which flows directly into Lake Superior.
The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues has called for decommissioning Line 5. But on several occasions, the Canadian government has sought to block the shutdown order - as well as to interfere with a separate shutdown order made by the Michigan government - by wrongfully invoking a 1977 pipeline treaty. In fact, that treaty explicitly allows for protection of the environment against pipelines.
More than 5,000 individuals and 300 organizations have called on the Canadian government to stop this diplomatic shenanigans that interfere with tribal, state, and federal actions in the US against Line 5. In October 2023, Mike Morrice, the Green Party MP for Kitchener Centre presented our petition to this effect in the House of Commons. Later that year, Pam Damoff, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Consular Affairs), issued a response on behalf of the government.
The Canadian government's so-called response ignores all the "whereas" clauses in our petition, and offers a litany of easily-refutable falsehoods instead. Failing to even mention the many points of our petition, the government's response instead serves up environmental and economic platitudes that are demonstrably false.
Line 5 must be shut down!