TC energy is building “Coastal GasLink”, a 680 km gas pipeline to bring oil from the fields to a LNG processing plant in Kitimat BC. This pipeline has been approved by the Canadian government and some wet’suwet’en band councils. However, the wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs, who hold authority over their traditional territory as outlined in the traditional indigenous law, firmly oppose its construction. They argue that the pipeline and its construction violates their sovereignty, violates their land and disregards their right to Free, Prior and Informed consent (FPIC) which is outlined as a base requirement in the United Nations Declaration of Indigenous Rights.
This is a fight where indigenous sovereignty is being threatened by big oil companies and they are losing. Our goal with this PSA video is to spread awareness, inspire action and support the indigenous sovereignty. We’re specifically targeting the younger audience and individuals who may already have an interest in protesting/standing up for indigenous rights. This subset was chosen as we felt that this group of the population both had the highest chance of potentially standing up about the issue instead of ignoring it like the majority of the population. We specifically felt that our PSA could be enough to push them over the edge and do something about the issue.
We appeal to this audience by dedicating a significant portion of our PSA video to showcasing the vigorous protests of the hereditary council and it’s chiefs as well as inciting a call-to-action near the end of the PSA by including a QRcode near the end of the PSA which leads to an NPO site where individuals can find out more information and learn how to help.
To appeal to ethos, pathos and a sense of duty, we highlight the environmental, cultural and ecological damage caused by the pipeline and its construction. One such example would be the leaking of sediments into the Kwa river.
Both me and my partner Ali did an equal 50/50 split in terms of effort on this assignment. While I primarily worked on research and finding credible clips for our video, Ali worked to stitch them together into the beautiful video that you are about to witness. I believe that with the addition of a marketing budget, this PSA video would have been a success in our goal of spreading awareness. However, one big improvement that we could have done was conducting a video interview of one or more of the wet’suwet’en people and have them incite the call-to-action as that would have added more credibility and incited a more emotional response from the viewer.