First Nations group in Prince George challenge proposed pipeline
Quebec Inuit ratify land claim including offshore resource royalties
First Nations group in Prince George challenge proposed pipeline
By Gordon Hoestra
A First Nations group is challenging Ottawa's decision to send a proposed billion-dollar pipeline to a joint review panel.
The Sekani Tribal Council has filed an application in federal court to overturn Environment Minister Rona Ambrose's decision to send Enbridge's proposed $4 billion pipeline to a panel.
The tribal council – the largest First Nations group in BC's Northern Interior – say they were not consulted.
Ambrose announced September 29th the pipeline would be jointly reviewed by a panel of the National Energy Board and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency.
``The Crown has completely given us the run-around since January,'' Carrier Sekani Tribal Council chief David Luggi said October 26th.
``We've tried hard to have a reasonable discussion about a process that would work for First Nations,'' he said. ``This project raises too many important questions to allow the Crown to ignore their legal duties to us in our territory.''
Luggi said the Carrier Sekani have no faith in the chosen review process, which they view as pro-industry, and one that will accelerate industrial development in their territory. The Carrier Sekani have asked Ottawa to fund a $2.4-million Aboriginal-led review, but have had no response.
Luggi said the council is still open to constructive discussion with the Crown, but won't be ignored.
The proposed 1,150-kilometre pipeline – which still needs signed commitments from oil producers – will run from Edmonton to Kitimat.
The tribal council said about 450 kilometres of the proposed pipeline passes through its traditional territory. The vast area in the Northern Interior is one that the tribal council has unresolved Aboriginal rights and title claims. Unlike other parts of Canada, most of BC's First Nations have not signed treaties.
The Carrier Sekani has written to the Minister of Environment and other federal ministers, expressing its concern about the impacts of the pipeline and asking for a role in decision-making on Enbridge's proposal.
The Carrier Sekani Tribal Council has already questioned the benefits of the pipeline and is worried about the possibility of spills into salmon-bearing rivers.
``It's pretty hard for a fish to swim in a river of oil,'' said Luggi. ``You have several spills, and suddenly you have those values destroyed and good potential they'd never return.''
Requests for an interview on October 26th to the federal Ministry of Environment were not returned.
Enbridge spokesman Glenn Herchak said the court challenge is a federal matter, but added that the company is still working toward having the pipeline in service by the end of 2010.
Herchak said the joint review panel is the strictest form of project review.
``We believe it will provide for thorough, inclusive participation in the project review by all interested partied,'' he said.
Cariboo-Prince George Conservative member of Parliament Dick Harris said while he didn't know what had transpired between Ottawa and the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council, the First Nations group was welcome to ask local Conservative MPs for help.
``It might be something they should try,'' said Harris. He said he and Prince George-Peace River Conservative MP Jay Hill are familiar with the Enbridge project because they've had many briefings on it. Harris said he's also met with Enbridge officials several times.
``We know that the feds have to be involved in so far as First Nations issues, as well as environmental issues, and it's our job as MPs, particularly representing the government, to assist stakeholders that need to talk to the government about things like this,'' said Harris.
Gregory McDade, the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council's lawyer, said the case likely will not be heard for four or five months.
He said he expects the federal government will argue that while consultations haven't taken place yet with the Carrier Sekani, they will. The problem with that is they've already made the first decision, said McDade.
The Supreme Court of Canada's two-year old Haida decision stipulated that the provincial and federal government had a duty to consult with First Nations on development on their traditional lands. It has been tested a number of times.
``What's unusual here is that the federal government made no effort to consult,'' said McDade.
The Enbridge pipeline is one of four pipeline proposals through northern BC. It is meant to provide additional pipeline capacity needed as crude production from Alberta's oilsands is expected to double by the end of the decade.
The pipeline would deliver oil from Edmonton to Kitimat on BC's northwest coast to be loaded on to supertankers for delivery to the US west coast and Asia.
The route passes through Bear Lake, north of Prince George, then just south of Fort St. James, near Burns Lake, south of Houston and then to the northwest coast.
Quebec Inuit ratify land claim including offshore resource royalties
Quebec Inuit have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a massive land claim agreement that gives them ownership of 80 per cent of the small islands in the waters off their northern shore and guarantees them a share of offshore resource royalties. The Nunavik Inuit Land Claim Agreement will also see $86 million transferred to Inuit coffers over nine years.
Makivik Corp. president Pita Aatami announced October 27th that 78 per cent voted in favour of the deal in a referendum held the previous week. Eighty-one per cent of eligible voters cast ballots.
Once ratified by Parliament, the deal gives Nunavik Inuit rights to 5,100 square kilometres in Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait and Ungava Bay.
They will have outright ownership of surface and subsurface resources on land and will be entitled to a share of the offshore resource royalties collected by governments in the marine region.
Nunavik Inuit will also get 50 per cent of the first $2 million in offshore resource royalties collected by either the federal government or the government of Nunavut, and then five per cent of royalties after that.
The federal government will retain ownership of Akpatok and Digges islands, which are home to important murre colonies, as well as the Ottawa Islands.
The 260-page agreement resolves issues left over from the 1975 James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, which settled land-based claims by northern Quebec Inuit. The deal, 12 years in the making, settles the last of all claims by Canada's Inuit. It also deals with overlapping claims by Inuit in Nunavut and Labrador and the Cree of Eeyou Istchee in Quebec, guaranteeing Quebec Inuit rights to continue traditional activities in the adjacent jurisdictions.
The Nunavik Inuit will be guaranteed 10 per cent of any future commercial fishing licences granted in these northern waters by federal fisheries officials and will co-manage wildlife, land use and the environment with the federal government.
Over the first nine years of the agreement, they will have to repay approximately $12 million borrowed to pay for land claim negotiations.