The Canadian Government

The Government of Canada has been equally hypocritical about oil development in the range of the Porcupine caribou herd. In the 1960s and 70s the Canadians leased all their land in the area to oil companies who drilled more than 90 wells, some in the herd's calving area. The government also built the Dempster Highway, which runs directly through the calving and migratory area. The Canadian Gwich'in have never protested any of these actions.

When drilling found no economic hydrocarbons, the Government designated the area adjacent to ANWR a national park and declared its opposition to any development on the ANWR coastal plain. At the same time Canada continues to explore offshore in the Beaufort Sea and periodically requests information from Alaska on tanker routes from the Mackenzie Delta across northern Alaska and into the Pacific.

The Canadian Centre for Foreign Policy Development, at its April 12, 2001 Roundtable on Foreign Policy in Edmonton, Alberta, made clear its political and economic goal regarding ANWR:

"Canada must have scientifically sound and clearly established data demonstrating the drawbacks to oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) if we want to be effective in the US political marketplace. At the moment, however, there are distinct signs that the Bush Administration is backing away from efforts to open the ANWR to oil exploration."

At the "Canada and the Circumpolar World conference: Meeting the Challenges of Cooperation Into the Twenty-First Century," this recommendation and report on activities concerning the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site was presented:

"The Committee recommends that the Canadian Government continue its current efforts to protect the calving grounds of the Porcupine Caribou herd, particularly by assisting Canadian and Alaskan aboriginals to educate U.S. opinion on the issue. The Government should also take the necessary steps to have the entire area jointly designated as a World Heritage Site under the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, if such an approach is supported in consultations with indigenous groups.

Canada continues to press the U.S. Administration and Congress to provide permanent wilderness status to the critical calving grounds of the Porcupine Caribou Herd in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska, as Canada does through its national parks in the Yukon. Canada is actively supporting a "wilderness tour" of the U.S., organized by Canadian and American Aboriginal and environmental groups. The tour is promoting legislation that designates areas in the U.S. as wilderness, including the calving grounds in ANWR. Before Canada could jointly propose with the U.S., through a nomination document, that the area become a UNESCO World Heritage Site, consultations would have to be undertaken with Aboriginal groups, local communities, territorial governments, and, above all, the U.S. (federal and Alaskan governments)."

Former Canadian Prime Minister John Turner, representing the World Wildlife Fund, called upon Canadians to use the April 20, 2001 Quebec Summit of the Americas to categorically state its opposition to American plans for oil and gas development in [ANWR].

Turner was joined at a press conference by fellow World Wildlife Fund-Canada board member Norma Kassi of Old Crow, Yukon. Said Kassi, "In mobilizing our opposition to industrial development in the ANWR, we are in a much stronger position knowing that the Gwich'in peoples enjoy support on this issue from WWF around the world."