Liberals consider their options on pipeline

Northern Gateway company won’t appeal court ruling but wants consultations restarted

Thestar.com
Sept. 20, 2016
By Tonda Maccharles

The federal government is weighing whether to reboot public consultations on the Northern Gateway pipeline proposal in a move that would keep the most contentious Canadian pipeline project alive despite the Trudeau government’s reservations about it.

Months after a federal appeal court appeared to seal its fate and reversed the project’s approval by the previous Conservative government, Calgary-based Enbridge said Tuesday the company would not challenge the decision.

Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr soon followed suit.

Carr told reporters Tuesday the Liberal government agrees with the appeal court finding that the former government of Stephen Harper didn’t adequately consult First Nations communities.

“The court was not critical of Enbridge, was not critical of the regulator, but was critical of the Harper government, that didn’t do its job. So we’re not going to contradict the court of appeals judgment in this case,” Carr said as he entered the House of Commons.

But he did not immediately commit to restarting consultations, saying only that the government will now look at its options.

“We’re not interested in carrying things out longer than what’s reasonable or necessary to do,” said Carr.

The Federal Court of Appeal ruled 2-1 in June that the National Energy Board’s recommendation for conditional approval was acceptable, but the federal government had failed in its legal duty to adequately consult aboriginal people. It said the government offered only a “brief, hurried and inadequate” opportunity for consultation, noting it would have taken “little time and little organizational effort to engage in meaningful dialogue.”

“We believe that meaningful consultation and collaboration, and not litigation, is the best path forward for everyone involved,” John Carruthers, president of the Northern Gateway project, said in a statement Tuesday.

The statement said the company believes “the government has a responsibility to meet their Constitutional legal obligations to meaningfully consult with First Nation and Métis.”

A project spokesperson would not speculate on whether the federal government would leave itself open to a lawsuit if it decides to kill the project outright.

The proposed project would build a pipeline to carry bitumen oil from Alberta to Kitimat, B.C., where it would be shipped to international markets via tankers passing through fragile coastal waters.

During the 2015 campaign, Trudeau promised a moratorium on crude oil tanker traffic on British Columbia’s north coast - and instructed his cabinet ministers to formalize that promise. But no moratorium has yet been ordered, reportedly bogged down in discussions around what kind of petroleum products would be covered.

Conservative MP Mark Strahl said the government needs to engage with First Nations “as the court indicated it needs to do,” and, if the project then meets all other conditions set out by the NEB, “the pipeline should be built.”

New Democrat MP Charlie Angus said the Northern Gateway project is “extremely problematic ... and the risks are enormous. I’m sorry, too bad, so sad; this is not a project that received a social licence from the people who would be affected. But it’s up to the government to lay out what their view is on consultation and how you do projects in an environmentally credible manner that has public buy-in, and, right now, we don’t have that process.”

The company’s statement also contained supportive statements by four aboriginal equity partners, who called on the government to “actively and fully undertake the required consultation as directed” by the court. It was signed by Bruce Dumont of the Metis Nation British Columbia; David MacPhee of the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation; Gitxsan Nation Hereditary Chief Elmer Derrick, and Elmer Ghostkeeper of the Buffalo Lake Métis Settlement.