Pipelines focus of Indigenous summit
How to take ownership of energy projects like TMX part of lineup of presentations
First Nations that produce oil and gas in Canada will tackle some of the most contentious issues facing the sector at the Indigenous Energy Summit on Wednesday, including potential ownership bids for, and protests about, pipelines.
One of the biggest issues in the Canadian energy sector is the ongoing fight between hereditary chiefs and elected chiefs over the $6.2-billion Coastal GasLink pipeline in British Columbia, which has opened wounds for current and former northern B.C. chiefs.
Meanwhile, First Nations will hear presentations on how they might take ownership of major energy projects, including the Trans Mountain pipeline, or TMX.
Steven Saddleback of the Indian Resource Council (IRC) says a session will feature presentations on financing models that could be followed to allow ownership of major projects including the oil pipeline from Edmonton to Burnaby, B.C.
When the federal government bought Trans Mountain and its controversial expansion project from Kinder Morgan Canada Ltd. last year for $4.5 billion, it signalled that it did not intend to hold it for the long term and that potential buyers included Indigenous groups.
IRC member Bernard Shepherd, a councillor for Saskatchewan’s Whitebear First Nation, says Trans Mountain could be a good long-term investment and financing would not necessarily be an insurmountable obstacle.
“Some of the other activities going on around the pipeline offer short-term jobs but I think actually investing in it, owning it, I think that’s where there’s a longterm revenue stream,” he said.
The fight over TransCanada Corp.’s Coastal GasLink pipeline is also causing extreme anxiety within Western Canada’s beleaguered natural gas sector.
Last week, the arrests of 14 people at a blockade supported by Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs in protest of the pipeline set off nationwide protests by groups demanding the RCMP and pipeline company respect Aboriginal title.
The protests also set off a fresh debate over authority in First Nations’ territories and highlighted the divisions between elected and hereditary chiefs and how companies such as TransCanada and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, which is the lead investor on the $40-billion LNG Canada project connected to the pipeline, should consult with Aboriginal groups.
To Ellis Ross, a B.C. Liberal MLA and former chief councillor of the Haisla First Nation, the tension between the elected chiefs and the hereditary chiefs reminds him of a similar fight he had with Haisla hereditary chiefs.
“We had no choice but to take them to court,” Ross said in an interview of a difficult time in 2009 when the elected Haisla council sued the nation’s hereditary chiefs, challenging their authority.
“We are still trying to heal from that,” Ross said.
Ross has also been put in the position of defending elected band councils across the province and sharply criticized B.C. NDP government MLA Jennifer Rice, who said in a social media post that elected band councils are “a colonial construct with the historic intention of annihilating Canada’s First People.”
“To BC natives: there’s a quiet campaign to delegitimize elected band councils by activists, NDP and the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs. Be careful or at some point, you won’t be able to choose your own leaders,” he tweeted on Tuesday.
While each band is different, hereditary chiefs have historically been responsible for the lands of an Aboriginal group’s traditional territory. Elected councils were established through the Indian Act and have historically been responsible for social programs, economic development and governance on reserves.
Natural resource development, which affects both the land, the economic development and social programs of an Aboriginal group, can therefore bring out divisions between hereditary chiefs and an elected council.
To further complicate matters, in some First Nations the hereditary leadership has been challenged by the elected leadership, which sees its responsibility extending beyond the borders of reserves and offering social supports to members regardless of where they live.
“I think when you’re part of leadership — whether hereditary or elected — your accountability goes back to your people. Without that, neither system would be successful without your members,” said Haisla Nation Chief Councillor Crystal Smith.
“Every community has been at this point, at one point or another,” said Haisla Nation Chief Councillor Crystal Smith, adding that when the fight between Haisla elected and hereditary chiefs broke out, it resulted in deep divisions within the community and between friends. She was not an elected councillor at the time and chose, like many others, to tune out the fighting.
She said the Haisla Nation council is responsible for 1,800 members regardless of where they live and endeavours to offer supports and social programs for Haisla people both within and outside their reserve lands.
One elected Wet’suwet’en chief that has vocally supported the project in the area declined to comment.
Another chief in the region said they would prefer to deal with the divisions internally and didn’t want to escalate a fight in public.
For TransCanada’s part, the Calgary-based pipeline giant has said it has consulted with both elected and hereditary Wet’suwet’en chiefs for years since June 2012 and has an economic benefits negotiations agreement in place with a group of the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs since 2015.
The company confirmed to the Financial Post it has hired 80 Wet’suwet’en people so far, including some hereditary chiefs, to participate in summer work programs.