Pipeline firm seeks First Nations meeting
SMITHERS — A company building a gas pipeline through northwestern B.C. said it could delay work in an area at the centre of a dispute with a First Nation, but it is ready to resume construction.
The hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en representing five First Nation clans issued an eviction notice to Coastal GasLink on the weekend, but the company said today it is willing to “discuss issues of importance” to the chiefs.
The company said it is resuming work generally across the pipeline right-of-way, but it believes “dialogue is preferable to confrontation” and will delay workers returning to the area that’s under dispute while a negotiated resolution remains possible.
Chief Na’moks says there will be no access to the First Nation territories without consent from the hereditary chiefs, telling a news conference today that they are demanding the province stop construction of the pipeline and that the RCMP withdraw from their lands.
The 670-kilometre natural gas pipeline is being built as part of a $40-billion liquefied natural gas project in northern British Columbia.
Work on the $6.2-billion pipeline between the Dawson Creek area and LNG
Canada’s export terminal in Kitimat was stopped over the holidays but the company says construction activities, including delivery of pipeline materials, are scheduled to resume this week.
Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs issued a letter Saturday advising the company that its staff and contractors are “trespassing” in the same area where 14 protesters were arrested last January when the RCMP enforced an interim injunction at a blockade near Smithers.
The company has signed agreements with all 20 elected First Nation councils along the pipeline path, but five hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en say the project has no authority without their consent.
Fourteen protesters were arrested last January when the RCMP enforced an interim injunction at a pipeline blockade near Smithers.
At the news conference to mark the first anniversary of those arrests, the hereditary chiefs said they were acting in accordance with their laws on behalf of the five clans of the Wet’suwet’en nation.
“The province has proclaimed they will implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which includes free, prior and informed consent, but has failed to intervene in this issue,” the chiefs said in a statement.