Todd / Rabyniuk : architecture of change in a contested landscape

Comments

[Stephanie]

There are some interesting parallels in this proposal to the way that in 1977 Justice Thomas Berger, having listened to First Nations groups engaged in land claims on the proposed Mackenzie Valley Pipeline route, put a 10 year moratorium on development. The ten years turned to twenty-five before the corporate players: Shell, ExxonMobil, Imperial Oil and Conoco opened negotiations with the Aboriginal Pipeline Group. Federal approval was given in 2011. Were any environmental concerns addressed in the newest version? No, but the APG has a one-third interest in the project.
First of all First Nations had to negotiate their land claims leading to a degree of political autonomy from DIAND; this allowed them to negotiate with and join the pipeline consortium.
The result of decades of consultation with many and diverse players has improved the material standing of the First Nations involved. Not all aboriginal people are against oil sands development: they stand to benefit materially, a very attractive proposition which undercuts a crippling relationship with DIAND under the Indian Act.

Yes, the best thing would be to not build at all, to have a moratorium on all industrial, infrastructural and civic development in the oil sands region. To get this, there would have to be an official government Inquiry, headed by someone as intelligent and thoughtful as Justice Berger, who came out of a different generation of civil servant (NDP MLA in BC, then MP, appointed to the Supreme Court of BC in the Trudeau era of Canadian politics). We have been for a while now in an era of the hollowing out of Canadian industry: there are no reins on the Oil Sands, the Alberta government argues its case in Washington, not in Edmonton or Ottawa.

My worry is that there are two solitudes speaking in different languages about oil sands issues and while one side wants to go slowly, negotiate with all parties, to do it right, the other is bulldozing away like there is no tomorrow.
The oil companies all have environmental research divisions: this what we see on the CAPP information clips and ads. There is a strategic moral argument to be made, and made over and over again, to the oil companies through these research divisions. As architects and planners, what can we bring to a research and development arm of the mining industry? It has to be more than protest in the partisan court of public opinion. We've got plenty of that now.

This proposal, by Todd and Rabyniuk, asks for a site (physical or virtual) in which all the tensions can be thrashed about and resolved: a restorative justice circle really. Where should this be and what would it look like? Is it not possible to anticipate the coming together of all sides whose positions are all over the web? It is important that everyone have a voice and be given opportunity to speak -- does this replace the processes of architecture which traditionally synthesize opposing positions and negotiate fault lines?

[Zoe]

Thanks for bringing up the parallels with the Berger Inquiry. As I read your comment, I literally felt like a lightbulb went on. I spent so much time trying to come up with an architectural response to the question of how to address these challenges that the processes/frameworks that I am more familiar with as a social scientist completely eluded me. I think it is interesting to bring the precedent set by the Berger Inquiry into the discussion because it is an example of an inquiry done well. It is almost legendary in some ways, and the stories told about it are as meaningful as the inquiry itself. One particularly important part of the Berger Inquiry was that it traveled to communities across the North, and people were able to seize the opportunity to share their stories about their lives in their lands. Having taken part in environmental impact hearings today, they don't seem to have the same heft or weight. It's all very procedural and even disenchanting. Is there a way that we can capture whatever it was about the Berger Inquiry that made it so meaningful and effective and reintegrate (reinvigorate) the processes that are used to decide the fate of people and landscapes affected by the oil sands today?