Local First Nations split on consultation plan by federal government

The accomodation is the compensation that LeBourdais and other First Nations that support the project would like to see. In fact, even before the federal government purchased the project, LeBourdais and other First Nations banded together to try and come up with the money to finance the Trans Mountain pipeline. He would like to see the same kind of agreement with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his government through this process.

“The First Nations would be the shareholders, and then everybody has an equal share,” he noted. “So for instance, the pipeline route, we have 55 First Nations bands, and so you would just say each band has two per cent ownership of either 51 per cent or whatever percentage we end up with.”

However, there are many other First Nations against the pipeline, including Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, who feels the Liberal government is being hypocritical by pushing the pipeline to be built quickly while listening to First Nation concerns during a consultation period of 22 weeks.

“The timeframe is absolutely ludicrous,” said Phillip. “This so-called consultation process seems worse in many ways than the first consultation process.”

First Nations communities were consulted and offered compensation by Kinder Morgan in the years leading up to a decision. Whispering Pines received $5 million in 2014 after voting in favour of the project.

But it has been a divisive issue across the country, but especially among First Nations with communities.

“It’s not a case of balancing it. That’s a complete mischaracterization,” said Phillip. “The issue here is the environment. The issue here is ensuring we afford the protection of the multitude of watersheds.”

LeBourdais fully understands all of those concerns, which he shares as well. His philosophy is, if First Nations cannot stop the pipeline, then communities should be engaged in these consultations trying to get as much compensation and environmental oversight as possible.

“We understand the importance of the pipeline to Canada. Canada should understand the importance of the environment to us,” said LeBourdais. “We just want to participate in that jurisdiction.”

by Chad Klassen

Local First Nations split on consultation plan by federal government

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