Construction on a multi-million dollar pipeline project has screeched to a halt after a tiny First Nations community placed dozens of statues of Canada’s first Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald directly along the construction route.
The Overland Pipeline is supposed to carry crude from oilfields in northern Alberta to the southern part of the province, but has faced fierce opposition from Indigenous people.
“We tried negotiations, we tried the courts, and nothing was stopping it,” said Milton Awas, chief of the Nedoks First Nation.
“So we figured the only way to stop the construction and truly protect our sacred lands is to put something white Canadians see as sacred too.”
Within hours of the statues being erected, construction had completely stopped and some crews and equipment even left the region altogether.
“This puts us in a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very difficult position,” said Ken Svart Orm, CEO of Synplude–the company behind the pipeline.
“How can we clear this land now? We can’t, that’s how.”
Svart Orm said they’re hoping to convince the First Nations to move the statues in exchange for a couple of land acknowledgements. He’s also grateful it was statues and not truck nuts, otherwise, he says the workers would never return and the project would never recover.
