In May of this year, following the revelation that 215 Indigenous children are buried in a mass grave at the former Kamloops residential school, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked that flags at all federal buildings be flown at half-staff.
Export Development Canada (EDC), an Ottawa-based public financing/credit agency wholly-owned by the Government of Canada, complied.
While it engaged in this performative action, EDC finances Enbridge, Inc., the Calgary-based company building a pipeline that Ojibwe water protector Tara Houska has described as “a perpetuation of cultural genocide.”
Oil Change International has noted: “EDC currently provides oil and gas companies with an average of over CAD 13 billion in support each year. As a result, Canada ranks second highest among G20 countries in total public financing for fossil fuels, and highest on a per-capita basis.”
Now, the Toronto Star reports: “EDC, the government’s export credit agency, says it provided financing and insurance that helped facilitate $62 billion in business for Canadian oil and gas companies from 2015 to 2020.”
Trans Mountain and Coastal GasLink pipelines
The article highlights: “EDC is funding the construction of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, which is estimated to cost at least $12.7 billion. The agency also made up to $500 million in loans available to the Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline project.”
The Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline is being built on Secwepemc territory without free, prior and informed consent. The pipeline is being built just north of Kamloops where the residential school and mass grave is situated. The Coastal GasLink is being built on Wet’suwet’en territory also without free, prior and informed consent.
The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has called on Canada to cease construction on both these pipelines.
The Committee has also indicated that it expects to provide an update on this resolution in its periodic review due on November 15, just days after COP26 concludes.
Line 3 pipeline
Above Ground has noted that Export Development Canada has also provided up to $5.78 billion to Enbridge between January 2010 and April 2020. It further notes: “The firm aims to increase volumes of oil sands crude piped to the U.S. through its Line 3 pipeline replacement project.” That replacement project was first announced in 2014.
Over the past year, more than 800 water protectors were arrested in Minnesota resisting this pipeline. Enbridge provided $2.4 million to the police who brutalized and arrested these protectors.
Canada Pension Plan
The Toronto Star also notes: “And the board that invests the Canada Pension Plan’s $500-billion pool of money says it had about $17.6 billion invested with fossil fuel producers around the world as of March 2021.”
Subsidies must end
The issue of public financing for oil and gas companies is expected to be on the agenda of the UN COP26 climate summit starting on October 31.
The Toronto Star notes: “For Julia Levin, senior program manager of climate and energy for the advocacy organization Environmental Defence, Canada must eliminate public financing of fossil fuel projects by the end of this year.”
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has commented: “We call on leaders and governments to recognize that climate change and environmental degradation severely undermine the human rights of their people.”
By continuing to subsidize the fossil fuel industry with billions of dollars a year, and enabling the criminalization of Indigenous land defenders, Canada is failing to recognize that climate change undermines human rights.
