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First Nations to Bid Trans-Mountain Pipeline Expansion

First Nations to Bid Trans-Mountain Pipeline Expansion

Edmonton (ATB): Chief Mike LeBourdais of the Whispering Pines First Nation, a community to the north of Kamloops, told Radio NL that the group has met with banks, industry and other potential equity participants.
With a federal election expected by November, LeBourdais told Radio NL’s Shane Woodford that “we are going to put a pre-emptive bid” in front of government, probably by April or May.
The Whispering Pines community is one of 43 First Nations in B.C. and Alberta that have reached impact benefit agreements with the Trans-Mountain project, if it goes ahead.
Last summer, LeBourdais told media that the hope is that the proposed pipeline expansion would get more Indigenous support if First Nations were in charge of it.
“The best way for those who are worried about the environment is to have control over the thing you fear,” he said.
Last year the federal government took ownership of the Trans-Mountain pipeline for $4.5 billion after previous owner Kinder Morgan suspended construction of its $7.4-billion expansion unless government could offer the company certainty that the project would go ahead.
Other Indigenous groups have also discussed buying into the project, including the Indian Resource Council of Canada, which held high-level meetings with government last month, according to the CBC. And the IRCC is set to meet with its membership near Calgary to discuss possible ownership models.
However, First Nations representatives who have opposed the pipeline project say those discussions don’t necessarily advance the project.
“One Indian Act band or a couple of Indian Act bands purchasing the pipeline doesn’t give them consent (to proceed),” said Judy Wilson, chief of the Neskonlith First Nation and secretary treasurer of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs.
First Nations that oppose the expansion project include Lower Mainland communities such as the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh.
Wilson, whose Neskonlith First Nation’s territory is east of Kamloops, said that whether federal government or other First Nations own the pipeline, they still have to meet obligations to properly consult with First Nations.
A Federal Court of Appeal decision last fall quashed the pipeline-expansion project’s environmental approval because the project, in part, hadn’t adequately consulted with six First Nations that had challenged the permit.

Wilson said the federal government’s attempt to restart that consultation process in her region hasn’t gone well.

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