Fort Chipewyan, Alta., leaders call for honesty and remediation, in testimony before federal committee

Indigenous leaders in Fort Chipewyan, Alta., are calling on the federal government to remediate a contaminated area in the First Nation's community and to apologize for keeping the contamination a years-long secret. 

Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) Chief Allan Adam testified Tuesday before a federal standing committee on transport, infrastructure and communities, along with Mikisew Cree Band Councillor Tammie Tuccaro and Fort Chipewyan Métis President Kendrick Cardinal. 

The leaders spoke about contamination at a Transport Canada wharf, known to the community as "big dock." The dock is used for commercial purposes, but it's also an area where residents swim, fish and launch their boats in the summer. 

The leaders learned over the summer that the area is contaminated with arsenic, nickel, hydrocarbons and other chemicals. They learned that the federal Department of Transportation had commissioned a report in 2017 that revealed "heavy contaminants," but that the government failed to tell the community about them despite ongoing meetings and correspondence about selling the dock to the community. 

"This move is seen as an attempt to transfer liability of the site, and it feels like the federal Crown was trying to wash its hands of this," Tuccaro said to the committee. 

Adam called the lack of notification "environmental racism" and said his community is on a path to becoming environmental refugees forced to leave their land. 

"These things have to be fixed. If not, we will continue to embarrass you all," he said.

The leaders are calling on the federal government to remediate the site and address the mental health effects from the stress of residents exposing themselves and their children to the waters and surrounding contamination.  

Mandy Olsgard, an environmental toxicologist, told the committee that exposure to the chemicals found in Transport Canada's report are linked to types of blood cancers, cancer of the lymphatic system and digestive tract, as well as skin rashes.

In a letter to Fort Chipewyan leaders, Canada's transport minister said the studies have not identified any risk to human health, but Olsgard said that's because they conducted a risk assessment with commercial use of the dock in mind, and not the recreational use the community actually enjoys. If they would have consulted the community on how they use the site, she said the assessment would have looked fundamentally different. 

"They almost would have had to actively ignore that Indigenous people live in Fort Chipewyan to designate it 'commercial,'" she said.

Tuccaro said the anxiety from discovering the contamination is compounded by decades of spills and possible health effects from living downstream from the oil sands.

Adam pointed to elevated rates of rare cancers, autoimmune diseases and skin rashes in Fort Chipewyan.  

Tuccaro said the community needs to be in control of undoing the damage. She says it'll need funding, resources, and streamlined processes — and she expects that will all be provided.

"We're not just asking for justice, we're demanding it," she said.

Show us the letters

Tuesday morning, hours before the Fort Chipewyan leaders were set to appear before the federal committee, the minister of transportation sent a letter to ACFN saying the department had previously notified the Mikisew Cree First Nation and Fort Chipewyan Métis of the contamination. Leaders from both groups, however, say they have no recollection of receiving that information.

Committee member Xavier Barsalou-Duval, a Bloc Québecois MP, moved a motion for the minister to provide evidence of that notification. The motion orders the minister to produce communications that notify the leaders of the contamination.  

That motion passed and the minister is ordered to provide that evidence by 8 a.m. MT on Thursday. Transportation Minister Anita Anand will then appear before the committee Thursday afternoon. 

The Fort Chipewyan leaders are calling on the federal government to replace the dock in the next four months, before the spring. During the summer, Fort Chipewyan is a fly-in community and they say they need the dock as a possible point of evacuation for the wildfire season.