Despite a US judge in Wisconsin ordering 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, and despite the fact that Enbridge has been found guilty of trespass on tribal territory since 2013, Canada responded by seeking to block the shutdown order by invoking the wrongful use of a 1977 pipeline treaty.
The Canadian Blue Community Water Watchers is calling for action. Tell Minister Joly to retract any and all use of the 1977 ‘pipeline agreement’ to keep the decrepit carbon bomb Enbridge Line 5 going.
Send an email here
Background from the Water Watchers
Today, members of a new Canadian based End Line 5 Coalition are meeting with MP Pam Damoff at her constituency office in Oakville. Several of the people originally scheduled to attend are not being allowed into the meeting, despite traveling to Oakville for that purpose – so we will hold a presence outside with signs. Please help flood her inbox along with the inbox of Minister Joly with emails demanding they stop this diplomatic interference.
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.
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.
