[IPSM] Gateway pipeline plans ignite aboriginal groups

[Macdonald Stainsby]

Gateway pipeline plans ignite aboriginal groups

Gordon Jaremko, The Edmonton Journal
Published: Monday, April 03, 2006

Aboriginal resistance is hardening against plans to put the oilsands on
global markets by pumping Alberta production into supertankers on the
Pacific coast of British Columbia.

Sweeping native rights claims blur the outlook for Enbridge Inc.'s Gateway
Pipeline, a $4-billion plan to build a new export route from Edmonton to
Kitimat. Prospects of a duel in the courts surfaced in early skirmishes over
the project before the National Energy Board.

Enter Carrier Sekani Tribal Council in Prince George, a central B.C.
counterpart to the Deh Cho First Nations that repeatedly tripped up the
$7-billion Mackenzie Gas Project in the Northwest Territories.

Like the Arctic natural gas megaproject, Gateway showers attention on native
settlements. The proposed pipeline route is studded with 41 Indian and Metis
communities, including 15 in Alberta and 26 in B.C.

Corporate diplomacy began as soon as Enbridge decided to advance the plan in
2002 after four years of market and engineering studies. The aboriginal
relations team has included a prominent former chief of Tsuu T'ina Nation on
the western edge of the company's home base Calgary, Roy Whitney.

Native communities do not necessarily oppose economic development in general
or Gateway in particular. But as in the Northwest Territories, in Alberta
and especially B.C., industrial projects are up against an issue of
aboriginal relations principle that no corporations and consultants can
settle.

As in the Deh Cho region, in Carrier Sekani country the sticking points are
not readily negotiable items such as jobs, contracts for local firms, or
measures to protect wildlife habitat and cultural sites.

The big question is highly political. Who is in charge?

Starting with an opening salvo by Chief Harry Pierre in January, the central
B.C. native coalition repeatedly warned that its eight members no longer
accept such groups' customary status as conventional participants or
interveners in pipeline hearings.

Aboriginal leaders seek governmental roles in setting up the regulatory
process for reviewing Gateway and choosing the judges, as equals with the
NEB and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency.

The threat of a native rights court case over Gateway surfaced as Enbridge
and the NEB followed standard Ottawa procedure for major energy projects.
Enbridge submitted a document known as a PIP or "preliminary information
package," describing the project and asking the board to start up the
regulatory apparatus.

The NEB formally determined Gateway will need multiple approvals because it
would have large effects on the industry, environment and communities.

Next came a formal NEB recommendation to create a special hearings tribunal
known as a Joint Review Panel, involving various expert agencies responsible
for different aspects of the project. Gateway currently awaits appointment
of its panel by federal Environment Minister Rona Ambrose.

The B.C. aboriginal group objected to the whole routine. "We do not believe
this is a satisfactory approach to a significant project," Pierre said in a
letter to the NEB. "It is an unfortunate start that does not respect our
members' traditional territories and our decision-making processes."

Like the northern Deh Cho, central B.C. aboriginal communities are in the
midst of years-long land claim negotiations. Members of the Carrier Sekani
coalition alone lay claim to at least 95,000 square kilometres of territory,
including about one-third of the Gateway route in B.C.

By late February, the native group hired the Vancouver law firm of Ratcliff
& Co., and it wasted no time in making a start on pressing the case. B.C.
aboriginal societies "stand to be severely impacted by the proposed project"
and want "a significant role in appointing members to that (JRP) panel as
well as a role in designing the review process,"
lawyer Maegen Giltrow wrote the NEB.

The board's recommendation to Ambrose "was made without consultation" and
should be retracted until talks are held with the Prince George native
group, added lawyer Gregory McDade.

McDade warned "the NEB has, as a Crown agency, already failed in its
constitutional obligations to the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council, and our
clients may be required to bring legal action in Federal Court (of Canada)."
In a brief interview, McDade said consultations have yet to be held and
peace has not yet been made -- and "we're hoping the government has some
plan to do so."

Warning shots have also been fired across the bows of Enbridge and the NEB
from coastal natives affected by the Gateway project's planned oilsands
supertanker traffic, the Haisla in the Kitimat region and the Haida on the
Queen Charlotte Islands.

gjaremko at thejournal.canwest.com
-- 
Macdonald Stainsby
http://independentmedia.ca/survivingcanada
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green
In the contradiction lies the hope
    --Bertholt Brecht.