
Oil pipelines are about linking oil-well to terminal, linked from junction to junction along the way, spread out across vast expanses of the Canadian landscape. In Quebec, for example, two pipelines will be covering at least 700 kilomteres, from Kanehsatake, west of Montreal, to Cacouna, a port town on the Gulf of St-Lawrence.How do you push back against a major infrastructure project that crosses dozens of municipalities, let alone provincial jurisdiction and, importantly, Indigenous territory? For one group of some two dozen environmental activists it has been to walk the 700 kilometre path of those pipelines, so that the links in those towns and municipalities isn't just between cold, metallic pipes, but between the people who are concerned about the oil flowing through them.
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But they are also concerned by the fact that a growing pipeline infrastructure will allow the Alberta tar sands to continue to grow, a fact they find unacceptable, both because of what it says about our continued reliance on oil (and the carbon emissions that it entails), as well as the impacts of the oil extraction on the communities, especially Indigenous communities, who live in the area and bear the brunt of this massive industrial development."It's important to show our solidarity," said Nicholas Ouellet, one of the march organizers who spoke at a press conference marking the end of the walk. "It's already begun. We can never accept things that are as senseless as the projects [the government and these companies] are proposing. Projects like expanding the tar sands, which is already a disaster."Marchers and their supporters recognized that while a 700-kilometre walk was a momentous undertaking, it's still a small start in fighting back against these pipelines. But it was clear from those assembled for the closing press conference, including community organizers from across the province and representatives of both the Quebec and national sections of Idle No More, that they saw it as part of a strong start and growing movement.
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