There have been protests accompanying community hearings of the Joint Review Panel on the Enbridge Northern Gateway project—most recently in Prince George on Monday, July 9th, 300 people gathered in opposition outside the panel hearings. However, there are increasing signs that the panel is trying to avoid exposure to these public demonstrations.

Opponents of the Gitxsan Treaty Society spent Monday preparing themselves for arrest. For much of the day, Gitxsan community members crowded at one end of Omineca Street before the Gitxsan Treaty Society offices while police assembled a block away.

The day had a strange character. A hot, sunny day in the north, people set up lawn chairs, visited friends and family, and wandered down the block to buy ice cream. Children played on the sidewalk, while elders sat and talked. However, beneath the conviviality of community life lay deep-seated tensions.

When I discovered that Enbridge and the University of Calgary have partnered to launch the Enbridge Centre for Corporate Sustainability, I had to glance at my calendar. March 27. Still four days until April Fool's. It would have been a tremendous joke if they were not dreadfully serious.

Enbridge, as most readers are likely aware, is now infamous for their proposed tragedy known as the Northern Gateway pipeline. Designed to transport millions of barrels of tar sands oil to port, it threatens dozens of local watersheds and a fragile coastal ecosystem, as well as the expansion of the environmental catastrophe that is the Alberta tar sands.