I am a 17-year-old girl living in Squamish, and I am very concerned about the potential social impacts of FortisBC’s proposed workcamp for the Eagle Mountain Pipeline.
Workcamps are known to have significant impacts on nearby communities, including increased rates of violent crime, violence against Indigenous women, children, and 2SLGBTQ+ people; increased substance abuse, sex trafficking, car accidents, and reduced service capacity for local residents. Women, girls, and youth are at the highest risk of sexual violence in general, and in most studied cases where a workcamp is added to a town, these numbers have only grown.
In 2007, SAFFE conducted a survey in Squamish that found 73% of youth aged 12 to 18 had experienced some form of sexual exploitation, mostly in the form of older men offering them free drugs or alcohol.
Clearly, workcamps and resource extraction projects pose immense threats to the safety of women, girls, and other vulnerable groups when introduced to a town. I believe that the District of Squamish has a responsibility to protect our community from these risks, which are unwelcome and unsuitable anywhere. The pipeline project is already a major threat to the local environment and wildlife, and the addition of a workcamp in close proximity to neighbourhoods adds an extra level of humanitarian risk to the overall project. FortisBC must be held to higher standards and cannot escape corporate responsibility and accountability.
As a youth and girl, the threat of a workcamp in Howe Sound is a scary and frustrating idea. The effects that past projects like these have caused to the safety and well-being of women all across Canada are so unimaginably disgusting and sickening,
I cannot fathom them being present here. The possibility that me, my friends, or any other girl could be more likely to be sexually targeted is repulsive. We have seen history repeat itself all too many times, and just because we are living in 2024 does not mean we are immune to the same risks.
I urge you to please think about the effects that FortisBC’s plans could potentially have on the mothers, sisters, and daughters of Squamish, and consider expressing your opposition to the temporary use permits by emailing the District of Squamish and supporting My Sea to Sky.
Cedar Pidgeon
Squamish
