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<\/p>\nThe chief of a First Nation downstream of the Alberta oilsands wants Canada to address the toxic contaminants in his waters and take seriously his community\u2019s concerns about cancer rates before he\u2019ll consent to new fast-tracked fossil fuel projects.<\/p>\n
Mikisew Cree First Nation Chief Billy-Joe Tuccaro said he delivered this message personally to Prime Minister Mark Carney during a summit with First Nations in Canada\u2019s capital region last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m 48 years old. I lived in the bush off the land when I was a kid. I remember drinking water from the rivers and the lakes. There\u2019s no way we do that shit nowadays,\u201d Chief Billy-Joe Tuccaro told The Narwhal in an interview in Ottawa.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy the time my people are actually seen in an adequate hospital, it\u2019s three or four months behind. And if it\u2019s a severe illness like cancer, they\u2019re coming back home as stage three or four, and sometimes they\u2019re even coming home in a box, dead,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what I told Mr. Carney. You want my consent? You improve my people\u2019s health.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\nLeft: a person drives an ATV in Fort Chipewyan, Alta. Right: bottles of water and oil in Fort Chipewyan on display during a community meeting in 2023, related to an oilsands spill. Photos: Amber Bracken \/ The Narwhal<\/p>\n
The ancestral lands of the Treaty 8 Cree nation of over 3,000 people, where the Peace and Athabasca rivers converge in northern Alberta near Fort Chipewyan, lies north of the oilsands\u2019 vast reservoirs of toxic waste<\/a>, called tailings ponds. Peer-reviewed evidence has shown these reservoirs are leaking into the groundwater<\/a>.<\/p>\n The community experiences high rates of some cancers<\/a> it has long suspected are tied to oilsands pollution. A 2014 report<\/a> commissioned by the Mikisew Cree First Nation found the community faces a \u201ccancer crisis,\u201d in which \u201ccancer occurrence increased significantly with participant employment in the oilsands and with the increased consumption of traditional foods and locally caught fish.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2024, the Trudeau government committed $12 million toward the Fort Chipewyan Health Study<\/a> to \u201cexamine the impacts of the oilsands on community members\u2019 health,\u201d in partnership with Mikisew Cree First Nation, as well as Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and Fort Chipewyan M\u00e9tis Nation.<\/p>\n Tuccaro said he met with Carney at the First Nations Major Projects Summit this month in Gatineau, Que., which was held to discuss the government\u2019s Building Canada Act, passed into law in June as part of Bill C-5<\/a>.<\/p>\n The law, which allows projects deemed by the government to be in the national interest to be fast-tracked, was passed before the summit was held.<\/p>\n The chief said he \u201chand delivered\u201d a letter to the prime minister about his community\u2019s cancer rates and toxic water. He said the following day, government officials told him they were open to talking further.<\/p>\n Mikisew Cree First Nation also announced this week it has formally invited Carney to Fort Chipewyan to demonstrate first hand the impacts of oilsands development.<\/p>\n The Narwhal asked Carney\u2019s office for more details about the conversation between the chief and the prime minister, whether there were any followup conversations planned, whether the oilsands health study was still funded and ongoing, and whether Carney would accept the invitation to Fort Chipewyan. A spokesperson acknowledged receipt of questions but did not provide a response by publication.<\/p>\n One reason for the community\u2019s concern about oilsands impacts is its experience with a 2023 leak from the Kearl oilsands facility<\/a>, operated by Imperial Oil, according to a letter Tuccaro wrote to the Senate of Canada this June.<\/p>\n Imperial Oil is one of the members of the Pathways Alliance<\/a>, an industry group of six large oilsands companies, which has proposed a plan to retrofit dozens of facilities to capture carbon pollution created during the process of extracting oil, and pump the emissions through a new pipeline into underground storage areas hundreds of kilometres away.<\/p>\n During the leak, an Imperial Oil tailings area seeped into groundwater and contaminated surface water. But the leak went unreported to the public for nine months<\/a> before the company and the provincial regulator in Alberta notified community members.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the oilsands, human health is usually our health, and we have seen fish have more rights than we do in these processes,\u201d Tuccaro wrote in that letter.<\/p>\n Imperial Oil said in a summer 2025 update<\/a> that \u201call monitoring data continues to demonstrate no indication of adverse impacts to local wildlife or fish populations in nearby river systems, and no risks to drinking water for local communities.\u201d The company said it had expanded a \u201cseepage control system\u201d at the Kearl site and boosted other monitoring efforts.<\/p>\n \u201cWe regret this incident occurred,\u201d the company wrote, adding it was grateful for the efforts of \u201clocal Indigenous communities.\u201d<\/p>\n Ruth Anne Beck, a spokesperson for the company, declined further comment in response to questions from The Narwhal.<\/p>\n Liberal government has had hot-and-cold relationship with oilsands companies in the past<\/p>\n Overall, Tuccaro gave the prime minister credit for meeting with Indigenous representatives in person and answering tough questions.<\/p>\n \u201cHe seems sincere,\u201d Tuccaro said of Carney. But, he added, \u201cI\u2019ll always take their conversations with me with a grain of salt, until I see some good, tangible results.\u201d<\/p>\n Hundreds of chiefs and other representatives gathered in Gatineau this month to discuss potential national-interest projects.<\/p>\n One industrial development the government is considering for national-interest status, according to Tuccaro and reporting by Canada\u2019s National Observer<\/a>, is the proposal by the Pathways Alliance.<\/p>\n Carney and the premiers have vowed to deliver what they call \u201cdecarbonized Canadian oil and gas<\/a>\u201d by pipeline to overseas markets. But oil can\u2019t be fully decarbonized. The alliance\u2019s plan does not address most of the carbon pollution associated with fossil fuels, produced when they\u2019re burned for energy.<\/p>\n This is one of the facts that landed the group in hot water over greenwashing allegations<\/a>. And there have been concerns from First Nations, whose territory would be home to the project, about the potential impacts on health and safety<\/a>.<\/p>\n In his letter to the Senate, Tuccaro warned that continued oilsands development, even if it\u2019s built on carbon-capture technology, risks exposing his people to further harm.<\/p>\n \u201cBuilding pipelines for oil and gas, and even \u2018decarbonized\u2019 oil and gas, i.e. through Pathways Alliance, will only increase production, increase impacts and worsen our health,\u201d he wrote in the letter.<\/p>\n For years, the Pathways Alliance has sought federal funding, regulatory exemptions and political certainty<\/a> for its megaproject, which it has said would cost $16.5 billion to build initially, and $75 billion if fully realized<\/a> over the next 30 years.<\/p>\n A large portion of that funding would be public money: at one point, the oilsands companies asked the government to cover two-thirds<\/a> of its upfront capital costs.<\/p>\n The Trudeau government\u2019s tax credit for carbon capture technology<\/a>, and Alberta\u2019s own carbon capture program<\/a>, already cover up to 50 per cent and 12 per cent of capital costs respectively. <\/p>\n The government also launched an agency that dove into negotiations<\/a> with the group to sign carbon contracts that could help pay for operational costs, too.<\/p>\n At the same time, the Trudeau government did not write a blank cheque. It refused the alliance\u2019s request<\/a> to skip a federal environmental assessment and it proposed an emissions cap on the oil and gas industry that it portrayed as insurance<\/a> the alliance does what it says it can. <\/p>\n At times, the Trudeau government expressed frustration<\/a> that companies were sinking billions of dollars in profits into things like dividends or share buybacks instead of decarbonization efforts.<\/p>\n The Carney government has not formally jettisoned the proposed emissions cap, but its Building Canada Act does shorten the assessment process<\/a> for projects deemed in the national interest.<\/p>\n And federal Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson, a former board member for MEG Energy \u2014 one of the Pathways Alliance members \u2014 endorsed the project<\/a> soon after he was appointed.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of us \u2014 governments and industry \u2014 need to get the Pathways project done,\u201d Hodgson told the Calgary Chamber of Commerce in May. \u201cWe need to demonstrate \u2026 that we are a responsible industry, and this government believes Pathways is critical to that reality.\u201d<\/p>\n If the government dubs the alliance\u2019s project as in the national interest, the shortened federal assessment would occur on top of the fact that Alberta\u2019s regulator has already said it would not carry out a provincial assessment<\/a> that had been requested by landowners, environmental groups and Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation.<\/p>\n Carney\u2019s office did not respond to questions before publication about whether the government plans to deem the oilsands project in the national interest.<\/p>\n The alliance did not respond to questions before publication about its members\u2019 efforts to reduce tailings leaks, the status of its proposal under the Building Canada Act or of the oilsands study, or its reaction to Mikisew Cree First Nation\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n Some chiefs express frustration over Carney\u2019s First Nations summit on Bill C-5<\/p>\n Carney issued a statement<\/a> on July 17 saying the government had heard the \u201cinsights, ideas and priorities\u201d of First Nations during the summit and discussed how to \u201ccontribute to greater prosperity for Indigenous communities.\u201d<\/p>\n But several chiefs came out of the summit disappointed with what they called a \u201cdisrespectful\u201d process that did not equate to the kind of meaningful consultations constitutionally required of the Crown<\/a>.<\/p>\n Eight First Nations from Treaty 6 and Treaty 8, representing territory stretching across the western Prairies, issued a statement saying the summit\u2019s agenda items were changed several times and invitations were sent out at the last minute.<\/p>\n \u201cThe chiefs are denouncing the meeting as a top-down, illegitimate process that excludes Treaty Nations, undermines the Treaty relationship, and manufactures the appearance of Indigenous consent for legislation that threatens their rights and sovereignty,\u201d it reads.<\/p>\n Five of the chiefs also appeared before media on July 17 to express their frustration.<\/p>\n \u201cThis summit is political theatre,\u201d O\u2019Chiese First Nation Chief Phyllis Whitford said. Speakers \u201chave been handpicked,\u201d she added, in a \u201cpredetermined process.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Large](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/AB-oilsands-Ft-McMurray-aerials-Bracken-013-scaled.jpg\"\/)
An oilsands plant next to the Athabasca River, north of Fort McMurray, Alta., in 2023. Photo: Amber Bracken \/ The Narwhal<\/p>\n![\"aerial](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/AB-oilsands-Ft-McMurray-aerials-Bracken-075-scaled.jpg\"\/)
Tailings ponds like this one near Fort McMurray, Alta., are the subject of much concern from First Nations downstream. Photo: Amber Bracken \/ The Narwhal<\/p>\n![\"Two](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/2025-07-17-Sturgeon-Lake-Cree-Nation-Chief-Sheldon-Sunshine-and-Sunchild-First-Nation-Chief-Joey-Pet.jpeg\"\/)
Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation Chief Sheldon Sunshine and Sunchild First Nation Chief Joey Pete speak to media after the First Nations Major Projects Summit in Gatineau, Que., on July 17. Photo: Carl Meyer \/ The Narwhal<\/p>\n