Bay du Nord is Newfoundland’s next offshore oil megaproject. For environmentalists who’ve been fighting the project for years, it’s a nightmare. For many Newfoundlanders, it’s a promise of prosperity:
to the Flemish Pass will take a traveller nearly 500 kilometres into the North Atlantic—one-sixth of the way to the shores of Ireland. Along the way they’ll pass through ruthless storms, towering waves and the paths of massive icebergs drifting from the Arctic Circle. Plunge below the surface, however, and there’s a bounty to be found.
For Bay du Nord’s opponents, including environmental activists and Indigenous communities who’ve spent years fighting the project, the future is exactly the point. Ian Miron is a lawyer with the environmental group Ecojustice, which has lobbied against Bay du Nord. “Our federal government says that it understands climate science,” he says. “So it should understand that Canada can’t be a climate leader and approve fossil-fuel infrastructure projects like this one.
In the next decade, the province experienced a net loss of nearly 60,000 people to other provinces—more than 10 per cent of the total population, which was then fewer than 600,000 people. Young’s father was nearly one of them. He even bought a plane ticket to Alberta, before getting hired at the last minute onto a boat fishing for herring and mackerel.
She knew working offshore had its risks. In 2009, she witnessed a co-worker’s grief after a family member was one of 18 And she was flabbergasted by the money. “It changed my life, drastically,” she says. She got her own apartment, paid off her student loans and then bought her own house in St. John’s, without a partner or family help. “The offshore provided me a great sense of independence.”
“You do what you’ve got to do,” he says. “I went back to the platforms because I needed the money. Oil has been an inextricable part of my life.” In 2012, when Amanda Young first ventured offshore, oil royalties accounted for nearly 40 per cent of the province’s $8.6-billion revenues. By last year, in which the province posted a $400-million deficit, oil accounted for a still-considerable 10 per cent.
Bay du Nord is part of a tradition older than Canada itself, one the country was built on: step far into nature, fell this timber, fish these waters, extract this oil and there will be prosperity Amanda Young spoke next. “We’re asking our government for a hand up, to work with us, listen to us,” she said. “Sit down with the companies and negotiate a deal. Most importantly, figure out a solution that keeps the people of Newfoundland and Labrador working in this province.”
As it turns out, he was. When Guilbeault took office, his official biography dubbed him “a pragmatist who works to make a difference by building bridges” The review ultimately concluded that Equinor’s submission wasn’t a credible source of information. Though the report for the DFO was responding to Equinor’s 2019 environmental impact statement, not the revised 2020 version, Curtis and other critics say Equinor’s revisions still didn’t come close to addressing the concerns outlined.
That reality was thrown into relief last fall, when Hurricane Fiona hit Atlantic Canada. The storm caused more than $800 million in damage, washing away buildings and killing a woman from the town of Port aux Basques, who was swept out to sea along with the contents of her home. The damage, of course, was to be repaired with money from the same provincial coffers to which Bay du Nord is to contribute.
A month after approval, the group Ecojustice, on behalf of Équiterre and Sierra Club Canada, filed a lawsuit against the federal government, arguing it had failed to consider how downstream emissions will contribute to Bay du Nord’s environmental impact. If it had, the suit alleges, the project would contravene Canada’s international obligations to fight climate change. Eight Atlantic Canadian Mi’kmaw communities later joined the suit.
Work on Bay du Nord hasn’t started yet; the province is still negotiating the project’s benefits agreement with Equinor, including parameters around how much manufacturing and construction will take place in Newfoundland. But the industry has begun to pick up again.
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