It was a very long way to travel to be turned away at the door.
As I noted in an earlier post, a delegation of us journeyed from BC to Enbridge’s Annual General Meeting, on Wednesday, May 8th, to deliver to shareholders and the Board of Directors a message about the financial risk of the Northern Gateway pipelines and tankers project. The Enbridge Northern Gateway proposal has created unprecedented unity amongst BC communities opposed to the project, and our diverse group represented many of those communities: First Nations, farmers, fishers, unions, and environmental organizations. Proxies had been carefully assigned the week before through following the standard online registration process administered by CIBC Mellon. Everyone had thought long and hard about what they wanted to say on the meeting floor.
We gathered early at the non-descript building where the AGM would be held, in the heart of the oil patch’s downtown, near a skyscraper topped with a red neon sign that still says Nexen, not CNOOC. A group of local organizers were setting up to serve coffee in cups that read, “You can’t wash dirty water” in front of a large banner of an oil tanker leaking crude.
When we approached the door, we were greeted by a large gruff man who bore no small resemblance to a nightclub bouncer. Almost before we could ask where to sign in, we were told, “If your names aren’t on the list, you won’t be allowed in.” After a quick explanation that our names should indeed be “on the list,” the bouncer whipped out a white binder. Two other people converged on us, blocking the door. “No,” he said, “you’re not here. Only him.” The bouncer pointed to Don Boucher, the Administrative Vice President of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union.
Intense debate ensued. I had email confirmations on my computer for all the shareholders indicating that their shares had been assigned to the named parties, I explained, which I could show them. More Enbridge people clustered around us. “Not here, outside,” I was told, and, “No good, if your name is not here, you are not going anywhere,” regardless of the proof I could provide. Security was tighter this year, they repeated, over and over again. Procedures were procedures. There would be no exceptions. Only those on Enbridge’s list would be allowed, and according to them, eight of us were not on the list.
I argued. I asked to speak with the third-party transfer agent to verify that this was in fact the case, since I could show confirmation emails. After all, I reasoned with them, it should be the transfer agent impartially verifying if the list was correct, not Enbridge, who clearly did not want us there. “Not possible to allow you to speak with them. We won’t allow that,” they stated. “You should have brought a list showing who the shareholder was and who the proxy holder should be,” I was admonished. “I have that,” I replied, brandishing a sheet of paper.
(In fact, I had tried to provide the list to Enbridge the week before. I had phoned both the Calgary head office and the number Enbridge supplied for its transfer agent, CIBC Mellon, in its shareholder circular. One rang repeatedly, but was not answered, while the other rang and then disconnected. I was also unable to locate a phone number for the Community Relations Director, Morgan Yates, despite an extensive online search. So much for supplying names to them in advance, as I had been advised to do.)
One of the men at the door grabbed my list of proxy assignments and disappeared. I began to retrieve other documents showing proxy assignment confirmation, crouched in the foyer of the building as others entered through the door. “Here,” I pointed. And then the man with my list reappeared, holding a different sheaf of paper. “Wrong list,” he told the bouncer. “This is the right one.”
The “right list” made it possible for seven of us to get in. Two people, however, were denied. Their proxies had been assigned by a lawyer familiar with the proxy procedure, having used it several times to assign shares in the past. That man was in fact former WCEL staff lawyer Josh Paterson, so well-known to Enbridge from past AGMs that he and Morgan Yates, the Community Relations Director, were on a first name basis. When Josh found out that his proxy holders were being turned away, he immediately emailed Morgan and tried to phone him, to attest he had followed the procedure to the letter and that his rights and those of his wife as shareholders would not be compromised by the assignment of their proxies to our group – that was, after all, his intention. No good.
“That is it,” I was told. “You seven but not the other two. They are not on the list, and that’s final. No more discussion.”
And so I walked back outside, where there was a large group of media conducting interviews, to tell “the other two” that they would not be allowed in. Both had traveled most of the previous day from northern BC to come to Calgary just for this purpose.
One was Kandace Kerr, a landowner from Fort St. James, BC’s oldest community. Kandace is a garlic farmer and an organizer of the local farmers market. She had come to tell Enbridge, among other things, that she did not believe a pump station proposed for a site 800 metres from her house could be operated safely, particularly given news the day before that the National Energy Board found emergency back-up power systems in over 100 of Enbridge’s existing pump stations are not in compliance with regulations. Kandace wanted to talk about how Enbridge had failed to consult with landowners and why Fort St. James as a community had taken a stance against Northern Gateway.
Kandace may not have been unknown to Enbridge. She has taken an active role in the Joint Review Panel over the past two years, donating hundreds of hours to represent her community and question Enbridge witnesses, even though she has no legal training. She wondered whether it was coincidence that she was not allowed into the meeting. In the end, instead of going inside, she explained her concerns to media outside.
Luanne Roth, a fisher from Prince Rupert, was also turned away. Luanne had traveled 10 hours straight to attend the meeting and gift each of the 12 members of the Board with a beautiful cookbook, The Salmon Recipes: Stories of Our Endangered North Coast Cuisine, which had been lovingly produced through the efforts of over 100 volunteers in northern BC committed to ensuring an oil-free coast. Proceeds of this book, which includes stories by coastal residents, go to efforts to save Skeena River salmon. Luanne operates a 42-foot fishing boat and has been fishing ling cod on the north coast for 30 years. A single catch can feed thousands of families. Luanne wanted to ask the Board how they proposed replacing that food source if it were contaminated by an oil spill. Like Kandace, she did not get the chance to do so, although Karen Tam Wu and I did our best to represent these women and their stories and concerns to the meeting during question period.
Inside the AGM
The members of the group who did go in (Chief Na’Moks, Gerald Amos, Trevor Jang, Karen Tam Wu, Maryam Adrangi, Don Boucher and me) had just a few minutes to talk to media outside before we made our way into the meeting. We sat through the usual standard business of such gatherings: approval of minutes, election of the Board and appointment of auditors. CEO Al Monaco was nearly done his Powerpoint presentation on the corporation’s glowing health when the first departure from business as usual came: he showed a slide of the thousands of protesters at October’s Defend Our Coast rally, with an admission that their business was facing “new challenges.”
Then questions began. For over an hour, Al Monaco fielded questions (“tough questions,” in his words to us) from our group. Only one person who was not part of our delegation stood to comment, giving praise to Monaco on the corporation’s past year. For the rest of the time, repeatedly, Chief Na’Moks, Gerald Amos and Trevor Jang reiterated that First Nations situated along the pipeline route had said no to the project and were prepared to do whatever they needed to in order to stop it. What reserves, they asked, had been put aside for litigation? Had shareholders been informed of the likelihood of very substantial delay on the Northern Gateway approval process and the effect that would have on the project’s financial viability? Were committed shippers aware of the breadth of First Nations opposition, with over 160 signatories to the Save the Fraser Declaration standing against the project? And what was Enbridge’s exit strategy?
“I am 20 years old now,” observed Wet’suwet’en youth Trevor Jang. “My relatives fought for 40 years on the Delgamuukw case. Are you prepared to fight for this pipeline till my contemporaries and I are in our 40s?”
Many questions, no real answers.
Did we have an impact?
And then it was over, and we were back outside, blinking in the late afternoon sun. Did we have an impact? I think so. Someone told me afterward that they had overheard an Enbridge employee complaining bitterly in the reception area that the media are only interested in talking to the First Nations and that these meetings were nothing but trouble, something to get through as quickly as possible.
Meanwhile, a half page ad, and an op-ed from the Yinka Dene Alliance, appeared in Calgary Herald on May 8.
It was a long way to travel, and a great disappointment to all of us that Kandace and Luanne were not able to take part in the AGM. But, whether Al Monaco is ready to admit it or not, I suspect Enbridge got (and is still getting) the message.
By Brenda Belak, Staff Lawyer