Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry
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The Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry was commissioned by the Government of Canada in 1974 to investigate the social, environmental, and economic impact of a proposed gas pipeline that would run through the Yukon and the Mackenzie Valley of the Northwest Territories. This proposed pipeline became known as the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline.
The commissioner of the inquiry was Justice Thomas Berger. Justice Berger heard testimony from diverse groups with an interest in the pipeline. The inquiry was notable for the voice it gave to the First Peoples whose traditional territory the pipeline would traverse.
Berger traveled extensively in the North in preparation for the hearings. In his travels he met with aborignal (i.e. Dene, Inuit, Métis) and non-aboringal residents. He held formal hearings in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories to get the views of experts about the proposal. Following this, he held community hearings across the Northwest Territories and the Yukon, and this played an important role in shaping his views.
Berger's report was released in May, 1977. Titled Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland, the two-volume report highlighted the fact that while the Mackenzie Valley could be the site of the "biggest project in the history of free enterprise," it was also home to many peoples whose lives would be immeasurably changed by the pipeline. Berger cautioned that a gas pipeline would be a precursor to an oil pipeline. The 'energy transportation corridor' thus created would require an immense infrastructure of roads, airports, maintenance bases and new settlements to support it. The impact on the ecosystem (both the natural habitat and its people) would be equivalent to building a railway across Canada. Justice Berger recommended a ten-year moratorium to deal with critical issues—such as settling Aboriginal land claims and setting aside key conservation areas—before attempting to build the proposed pipeline.
Initiated in 1999 by Aboriginal leaders from across the Northwest Territories, the Mackenzie Gas Project constitutes the second attempt to build a gas pipeline down the Mackenzie Valley.
