“I want the energy minister to change his earlier answer about the Imperial Oil spill on Cold Lake First Nations land. Multiple oil spills and tailings ponds are leaking in northern Alberta, and he should take that seriously.”

“Mr. Speaker, it is indeed nice that we have seen the clock at midnight. I cannot break the legal fiction, while we are all here together, but it is time for Adjournment Proceedings. I am raising a question I initially raised April 20, two days before Earth Day. I had, on a previous occasion, witnessed an exchange between the hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona and the Minister of Energy, in which he was dismissive of the concerns of the most recent oil spill from Imperial Oil on the Cold Lake First Nations territory. I asked on that occasion if there might be an interest on the part of the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources in amending his answer to reflect deep concern for the fact that it is not just one oil spill or one leaking tailings ponds in northern Alberta in the area of the oil sands, it is multiple. Some hon. members: Oh, oh! Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, I am having trouble hearing myself.”

“Oil sands waste ponds have been leaking into the Athabasca River for years. Scientists warned the government about this more than ten years ago, but nothing was done. These leaks hurt the environment and break Indigenous treaty rights. I want the government to tell us when it will finally act to stop these leaks.”

“Mr. Speaker, the difficulty we have and the reason I raised this issue again is that I did ask in the House, on April 20, for a better answer. The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment attempted to answer at that point, saying that the government was concerned and was “working closely with the Crown-indigenous working group along with the affected communities”, and that it would find “a long-term, science-based solution”. The difficulty I have with that answer is that it has been more than a decade since one of the most prominent scientists in Canada, the late Dr. David Schindler appeared before the fisheries committee in this place and testified that his research had found the component parts, chemical contaminants that could have come only from the tailings ponds, not from any natural source in the environment, of contamination that violated the Fisheries Act, yet the government had taken no action. Dr. Schindler made it very clear to the fisheries committee that there had already been extensive contamination of the Athabasca River from what are called tailings ponds. The difficulty is not so much that Imperial Oil is experiencing leaks. It is that the containment system is a failure. It is basically a sieve. What Imperial Oil did in the past, when it initially did not tell the community that it had what it could see was a breach of containment, was pump the water out of the areas where there was extensive recent contamination, and then pump it back into the same container, which was a sieve and was leaking. Years before, I had participated in environmental assessment hearings where this particular oil sands mine was approved to go ahead, with conditions to make sure that the river, the treaty rights, the rights holders in the area, and the indigenous people were actually protected. Their health, the environment where they live and the fish they eat needed to be protected. Dr. David Schindler warned the environment committee of this in public testimony more than a decade before these recent, continuing leaks and breaches. It would be easier for me to accept that the government, either the current government or previous governments, is concerned about the multiple breaches of the treaty rights of the rights holders throughout the area of the oil sands development, if it ever had been in the past. It would be easier to believe that something was going to happen, if it had ever happened in the past. I put it again to the government: When will it show concern for the environment in this area and the continual breaches and leaks?”

“Oil companies are polluting First Nations' water and violating their rights while making billions in profit. The government needs to honour its treaty promises.”

“Mr. Speaker, the difficulty I have with this, again, is that we have had working groups and consultation groups, and if we ask the first nation peoples of Cold Lake, as well as those around the Cold Lake operations and the Kearl mine, there have been repeated breaches of their rights and contamination of their waterways, yet Imperial Oil last year, in 2025, had a profit of $3.5 billion. It seems that perhaps we have a disconnect between where the wealth of the area is going, which is not to sustain people’s livelihood or assist in protecting the environment, and the treaty rights of the peoples of the region. I would ask again that when the government considers reconciliation, it would consider honouring the promises made in the treaties we have.”