Northern Gateway panel tangled in web of aboriginal rights, titles
A top Northern Gateway Pipelines official says the company is trying to balance the many competing interests in the project, and realizes it may be impossible to satisfy them all.
Federal review hearings into the $ 6- billion pipeline project continue Monday in Prince Rupert, where the three- person panel has been hearing about the company’s aboriginal engagement and public consultation.
“I think it is important to understand this is a very diverse project. It’s a very complex project. There’s a lot of interests at stake,” Janet Holder, leader of the Northern Gateway project team for Enbridge, told the panel last week.
Enbridge has gone well beyond what it believes is required, she said, but the 1,200- kilometre pipeline is “a very challenging project to try to incorporate everybody’s interests.
“There are some interests that are impossible for us to incorporate, and we get that,” Holder said under questioning by Rosanne Kyle, lawyer for the Gixaala Nation.
Getting First Nations on board has proven to be a difficult task for the Calgary- based pipeline company, exacerbated by Ottawa’s decision to designate the environmental and regulatory review as the primary means of Crown consultation.
John Carruthers, president of Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines, said about 60 per cent of aboriginal groups affected have signed equity agreements. He said efforts to engage aboriginal groups are ongoing and will continue after the panel issues its report.
At least one First Nation has already filed a constitutional challenge with the review panel, and the federal and provincial governments, questioning the legality of a panel decision that it claims infringes on aboriginal rights.