Line_5_Action_October_2025 | Sierra Club Canada

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Subject: Canada Must Withdraw Support for Line 5

Dear Prime Minister Mark Carney, Party Leaders, and Environment Minister, 

I’m writing to you not just as a concerned citizen, but as someone who holds deep reverence for the Great Lakes—living bodies of water that have shaped cultures, sustained ecosystems, and carried stories long before pipelines arrived. I know you care about our shared future. That’s why I invite you to consider this letter not just as a policy plea, but as an invitation to remember what we are part of.

Line 5, a decaying pipeline beneath the Straits of Mackinac, now over 70 years old, leaks, fractures, and trespasses across ecosystems and sovereign Indigenous territories. Despite engineer-reviewed studies warning of catastrophic risks, a tunnel project is being pushed forward—not out of care, but through inertia.

This is not just decaying infrastructure—it is a wound in the body of Turtle Island. A gash that splits relationships, not just landforms. Each rupture in the pipeline echoes the deeper rupture of a worldview that treats land as resource rather than relative.

 - A tunnel through the heart? The Straits of Mackinac are not just a crossing—they are the heart of Turtle Island. The lakebed beneath them is the back of the mother turtle, the very being from whom this land emerged. These waters hold sacred burial sites, the resting places of Anishinaabek ancestors, and the memory of chiefs who stewarded these lands with reverence. To carve a tunnel here is not just a technical decision—it is a spiritual rupture. It is a violation of a sacred site that should be treated with care and protection. We do not bore tunnels through the bones of our ancestors. We do not gamble with the heart of Turtle Island.

Fossil fuel companies want us to believe that shutting down pipelines like Line 5 will lead to job losses and energy shortages. But this story is cracked and leaking—just like Line 5.

- Job security? The fossil fuel sector is increasingly unstable, marked by boom-bust cycles that leave communities stranded. The promise of permanent employment is a mirage. In contrast, renewable energy offers longer-term jobs in retrofitting, infrastructure, and restoration—if, and only if, those jobs are made accessible, safe, and just. In fact, the federal government’s own data shows that any other industry is better at generating jobs than fossil fuels. 

- Affordable energy? Studies now show that renewables are already cheaper than fossil fuels in many regions. Even energy economists are urging governments to step away from costly, legally fraught projects like Line 5 and invest in more viable, resilient energy futures.
But here’s the crux: we can’t afford to risk the largest freshwater system on Earth while we figure it out. We can sort out the details of a just transition—but not underwater, and not after irreversible loss.

And this isn’t just a technical issue. It’s a relational rupture.
Anishinabek Nation (representing 39 First Nations communities in Canada), all 12 federally recognized Tribes in Michigan, and the Bad River Band in Wisconsin have clearly called for its removal—not from ideology, but from lived entanglement with the Lakes. They are stewards, not stakeholders. And they have not been listened to.

Shutting down Line 5 is not about “stopping energy,” but rerouting our commitments. The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis has shown the shutdown’s market impact would be minimal. PLG, an independent expert, also reported similar findings. What would be immense, however, is the cost of ignoring the warnings, of waiting for disaster to teach us what wisdom already knows. Over 40 million human beings rely on the Great Lakes for drinking water.

And they are not the only ones. The Lakes hold the lives of sturgeon who have returned for millennia, of wild rice whose roots braid through sediment and story, of beavers, herons, and the microbial beings who steward water cycles quietly beneath our notice. This is not just a human utility at risk—it is a shared biome of memory and metabolism.

The Canadian government has filed amicus briefs defending Line 5 in U.S. courts, invoking the 1977 treaty to protect oil flows, not water, not Indigenous rights, not ecosystems. But the treaties our federal government holds with First Nations pre-date the 1977 treaty: the Robinson-Huron treaty was signed in 1850. In addition, treaties, too, require context, and Article IV makes room for environmental and safety regulation. Surely we are mature enough, at this threshold moment, to recognize that treaties are not tools of convenience, but covenants of responsibility—meant to protect life across generations, not justify harm in the name of outdated entitlements.

The transition away from fossil fuels is already underway. What’s needed now is courage—not to cling to outdated infrastructure, but to reroute our investments and attention toward just, regenerative systems. Keeping Line 5 open does not buy us time—it gambles with everything we can’t replace.

So, I ask:
- Will you stand with those who have always stood for the Lakes?
- Will you honor the Public Trust Doctrine, not in name only, but in embodied action?
- Will you allow care, rather than convenience, to guide your response?

I urge you to call for the decommissioning of Line 5 within one year, withdraw Canada’s legal obstruction in U.S. courts, and support Indigenous Nations as rightful stewards of these waters.

This isn’t just policy—it is a choice about how we relate within the planetary metabolism we are inseparably part of. We are not outside these systems; we are entangled in them. Every act of care or harm ripples through the web of relations that sustains life on this continent and beyond.

With hope and deep regard,

[Your Name]

[Postal Code]

Sources
https://ieefa.org/sites/default/files/2025-01/Updated%20Authors-Enbridge%20Should%20Consider%20Closing%20Line%205_Report_January%202025_Final.pdf
https://plgconsulting.com/white-paper-likely-market-responses-to-a-line-5-shutdown/ 
https://graham.umich.edu/media/pubs/Mackinac-Line-5-Worst-Case-Spill-Scenarios.pdf 
https://environmentaldefence.ca/2022/11/01/busting-enbridges-line-5-myths-part-3-indigenous-sovereignty-tribal-rights-and-consent-bad-river-band-v-enbridge/ 
https://environmentaldefence.ca/2023/11/24/canadas-use-of-1977-pipeline-treaty-to-block-recent-u-s-line-5-shutdown-order-is-violating-indigenous-rights/ 
https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=441-01770 
https://cms.equiterre.org/uploads/Fichiers/Letter_on_Line_5.pdf 
https://communitiesunitedbywater.org/communities-united-by-water/tell-canadian-ministers-no 
https://progressive.org/latest/pushing-to-stop-line-5-again-kemble-230523/ 
https://environmentaldefence.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Line-5-Report-S20.pdf