Why do so many First Nations support LNG?

An article in Saturday’s edition of the National Post examined the divergent, complicated and conflicting views of First Nations in B.C. and Alberta affected by the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, but it also made an interesting point about First Nations’ widespread support for Liquid Natural Gas projects. “While B.C. First Nations have been lukewarm on oil pipelines coming from Alberta, on LNG there is palpable Indigenous disappointment that there isn’t enough development,” explained reporter Tristin Hopper.

B.C.’s experience with LNG offers important lessons for anyone who wants, as I do, to see pipelines built. There are three big reasons why our province was successful in securing broad support from First Nations in developing a new LNG industry. All of them came from our decision to ensure the active involvement for everyone involved —government, industry, and First Nations — so that benefits would be shared by everyone.

As Hopper noted, LNG poses a smaller environmental threat than oil. If it leaks, it evaporates and poses minimal risk to our oceans. But, as he also points out, this debate is not solely about environmental issues. It is about the right of First Nations to benefit from, and have some say over, resources that are extracted in their traditional territories.

This speaks to the second reason we succeeded in laying the path for a pipeline: we saw LNG development as a path to reconciliation. Thus, we made First Nations support for its development a singular priority from the get go. We spent six years in consultation with First Nations along the route. We garnered almost 90-per-cent support — from the natural gas wellheads in Peace River to the North Coast where LNG will be processed and loaded onto ships bound for Asia.

Third, from the start, private sector proponents embraced the idea that broad First Nations agreement was a basic condition of success. And so, along with the numerous pipeline-benefit agreements signed with government, proponents made their own agreements with First Nations from the Rockies to the coast. Their greatest success is in the relationships that were formed.

Lastly but most importantly, by recognizing that economic growth is in everyone’s interest, the province actively advocated for these projects. We did not leave this work to the private sector to do alone. Now there is a First Nations LNG Alliance that champions this opportunity as well.

Our government sat with communities and mapped out how we could find longsought-after reconciliation on a huge variety of issues. We agreed on new frameworks for managing child welfare. We agreed on ways to protect cultural treasures. We got to work building roads that were desperately needed, regardless of the fact that many of these projects were within federal jurisdiction.

The fact is, the federal government is not addressing many of the problems that First Nations are struggling to fix, and the private sector cannot address them, so the province took on the job, recognizing that finding agreement on resource extraction is not just about money, but also about the bigger project of reconciliation.

First Nations want to be full participants in Canada’s economic fabric. They want job opportunities. They want decent infrastructure. They want good schools. They want to be healthy. And most of all, they want the means to be independent of government — to be able to chart their own futures, rather than receive plans for their futures generated by government bureaucrats. First Nations have sat outside the economic mainstream for too long. Their children have been cheated of equal opportunities for too long.

LNG is a chance for British Columbia to address some of the chronic problems that First Nations communities live with as a consequence of colonial policies — problems that cannot be fixed as long as so many communities live in poverty. And the solution to poverty is not more studies and commissions. The solution to poverty is economic opportunity.

LNG is a golden opportunity to change the future for many First Nations communities. It is a chance to bring wealth and employment, to create new relationships and to get on with the urgent work of reconciliation. Our commitment to do it right was founded in the recognition that this is a generational opportunity to make change. LNG is not going to solve all the problems, but it’s progress.