UN advisory body calls for Line 5 pipeline to be shut down
UN advisory body calls for Line 5 pipeline to be shut down
On Friday, April 28, the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues called on Canada and the U.S. to decommission Enbridge's Line 5 oil pipeline, which runs underneath the Straits of Mackinac.
In the final report of its annual session, the UNPFII stated that Line 5 “jeopardize[s] the Great Lakes” and “represents a real and credible threat to the treaty-protected fishing rights of Indigenous Peoples in the United States and Canada.”
"The Permanent Forum recommends that Canada and the United States decommission Line 5," a spokesperson for the UNPFII said.
The UNPFII was established in 2000 to provide advice and recommendations on Indigenous issues to the UN Economic and Social Council.
The April 28 meeting of the UNPFII can be viewed by using this link.
“The Anishinabek are the people of the Great Lakes and never before has there been such a unified call for action for both the United States and Canada to abandon failing fossil fuel infrastructure to protect our land and water,” said Bay Mills Indian Community Ogimaakwe President Whitney Gravelle in a statement.
Members of a coalition of Anishinaabe leaders and environmental advocates attended the forum to advocate the highlighting of Line 5 as an Indigenous and human rights concern.
“Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline has already leaked at least 29 times, spilling over 4.5 million [liters] of oil. It isn’t a matter of if, but when another rupture will occur,” said Michelle Woodhouse, Water Program Manager for Environmental Defense Canada in a statement.
“At a time when the world is facing a biodiversity, freshwater, and climate crises, it’s unconscionable for the Canadian government to gamble with the Great Lakes," Woodhouse said.
"The Government of Canada must withdraw its use of the 1977 pipeline treaty, and work with U.S. governments and the Anishinaabeg Nations of the Great Lakes to shut down Line 5," Woodhouse said.
Several representatives of Indigenous communities within the Great Lakes region recently submitted a report to the United Nations Human Rights Council voicing concerns over Canada's support for Line 5.
That report (which can be read here) was submitted for consideration under Canada's fourth Universal Periodic Review, in which Canada's human rights record will be reviewed and scrutinized by other U.N. member states.
Canada's upcoming Universal Periodic Review is scheduled to take place from Nov. 6 - 17, 2023, at the U.N. Human Rights Council.