J21 - Infrastracture Projects, Pipelines and Protests
Date: Jun 4 | Time: 03:15pm to 04:45pm | Location:
Infrastructure Politics and Newfoundland’s Fixed Link: Mario Levesque (Mount Allison University), Andrew Klain (University of Calgary), Peter Clancy (St. Francis Xavier University)
Abstract: This paper examines the case surrounding Newfoundland and Labrador’s proposal for a fixed link across the Strait of Belle Isle connecting Labrador with the isle of Newfoundland. While long desired, the economics of the case remain questionable. Historically, arguments in support of its construction have taken different forms as issues of either national unity, tourism or economic development, framed as a luxury rather than a necessity. Recently, the narrative surrounds issues of food security. As the 2019 Liberal Party of Canada’s election platform stated, only when completed will Newfoundland truly be part of mainland Canada but also have a reliable supply of food, no longer having to depend on ferry services. Are these arguments enough to overcome fiscal challenges to enable its construction? To address this question, we examine infrastructure politics surrounding the Confederation Bridge, linking New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, and the Deh Cho Bridge in the Northwest Territories across the Mackenzie River ensuring year-round highway access to Yellowknife and other northern communities. Each of these bridges were framed in similar ways—enhanced economic prosperity, reduced food insecurity and greater national unity—and were both constructed despite the questionable economics of the projects and significant environmental concerns. What lessons can we draw from these projects to inform Newfoundland’s fixed link proposal? We find Newfoundland and Labrador’s proposal for a fixed link has not been consistently defined as in comparison to our case studies, coupled with the fact that political leaders have long understood solutions as unfeasible and politically unpalatable.
Embodying Insecurity: Pipelines, Protests, and Indigenous Survival in Western Canada: Wilfrid Greaves (University of Victoria)
Abstract: This paper uses constructivist and postcolonial theoretical tools to examine protests and other forms of direct political action by Indigenous peoples and their allies within Canada as efforts to construct alternative meanings of security/insecurity within popular discourse and public policy. Drawing on critical methodologies that emphasize non-verbal and unwritten ways of expressing insecurity, I argue that protests against non-renewable resource extraction, climate change, and settler colonialism are examples of ‘bodily enacted’ security claims undertaken by non-state actors when they are unable to have their spoken or written security claims accepted by the state. In this respect, protests are not merely an expression of dissenting views within a society; they can also function as a way to identify existential threats and dangers facing non-dominant societal groups that states or other powerful actors refuse to acknowledge or effectively respond to. This argument is supported with original evidence from the ongoing protest campaigns against the TransMountain and Coastal Gaslink pipeline projects in Alberta and British Columbia. This paper contributes to better understanding: different meanings of security and insecurity held by Indigenous peoples and their allies within Canada, the social processes through which meanings of security are produced, and the strategic behaviour of non-state actors challenging state policies and the state itself.
Continental Divides: The Trans Mountain Expansion and the Crisis of the Canadian State: George Hoberg (University of British Columbia)
Abstract: In many ways the 2010s in Canada was the decade of pipeline conflicts, with Keystone XL, Northern Gateway, Energy East, and the Trans Mountain Expansion Project all taking their turns as the crisis du jour. The Trans Mountain project has been the most enduring, high level controversy, and has created profound challenges both to Canadian federalism and to reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. The pipeline controversy created a bitter conflict between British Columbia and Alberta and between Alberta and the federal government. The Trudeau government’s approval, purchase, and reapproval of the pipeline has done nothing to alleviate the vitriolic anger of Alberta and its oil sector towards the federal government. In the wake of the 2019 federal election, prairie discontent has gone as far as prompting calls for Western separatism. While Alberta’s anger has been focused on British Columbia and the federal government, it was actually the Federal Court of Canada’s enforcement of Section 35 of the Constitution that has stymied the construction of the project. Despite the Trudeau government’s rhetoric around reconciliation and implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, its actions on Trans Mountain appear to directly contradict the free, prior, and informed consent standard of the declaration. This paper will apply an actor-centred theoretical framework to the analysis of these conflicts to explore what this pipeline conflict reveals about the federalism and Indigenous divides in Canada.