Trans Mountain pipeline's route change threatens sacred site, says Secwepemc knowledge keeper

A Secwepemc law called X7ensq't says that if you disrespect the land and don't take care of it properly, the land and the sky will turn on you.

"It's a serious law," said Mike McKenzie, a Secwepemc knowledge keeper. He said he wonders "how much farther" people want to go in violating it.

McKenzie was speaking about the Trans Mountain Corp., which last week resumed construction close to Pipsell, or Jacko Lake, near Kamloops, B.C., after a federal regulator approved a change to the Trans Mountain pipeline route.

McKenzie, who has been a vocal critic of the pipeline expansion, said he believes the destruction of the site is a continuation of cultural genocide.

"Without that place, we lose a big part of ourselves," said McKenzie, who noted the Secwepemc creation story takes place in Pipsell, and their laws and customs are born from that land.

"This is our Vatican. This is our Notre Dame. This is a place that gives our people an identity and kept our people grounded since time immemorial."

The Canada Energy Regulator approved Trans Mountain Corp.'s application to modify the pipeline's route in late September — a decision that could spare the government-owned pipeline project from an additional nine-month delay.

The regulator made the ruling just one week after hearing oral arguments from Trans Mountain and Stk'emlupsemc te Secwepemc Nation, which opposed the route change.

The Nation said the corridor near Jacko Lake holds "profound spiritual and cultural significance," and while it supported the project overall, it didn't support the deviation application.

The Nation said it only consented to construction in the first place under the understanding that the company would minimize surface disturbances.

A written response that Stk'emlupsemc te Secwepemc Nation provided to the regulator said a change in construction methodology would cause "significant and irreparable harm" to its culture.

It added that it did not provide free, prior and informed consent for the route deviation, as prescribed under the United Nation Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

It had told the federal regulator in 2018, when the Trans Mountain expansion project was still in the approval process, that Pipsell is a "cultural keystone place and sacred site."

Trans Mountain Corp. said the route change was required because it ran into engineering difficulties in the area related to the construction of a tunnel.