THE PAST SIX YEARS have brought quite a roller coaster ride for the Trans Mountain pipeline.
The original pipe was completed in 1953, but it was only 2012 when Kinder Morgan said it wanted to expand the pipeline.
The multi-billion dollar expansion project has looked to be on its death bed a number of times, only to be revived.
When at times the National Energy Board and the B.C. Supreme Court seemed to be clearing the way for the pipeline to be built, other hurdles would be put up.
Kinder Morgan itself lost confidence in the project’s prospects, selling it to the Canadian government at the first opportunity.
So after the latest decision from the federal Court of Appeal, it still feels premature to declare the project dead.
Instead, the new owner of the pipe, the Canadian government, will likely heed the court decision and do a better job in its consultation with First Nations people along the right-of-way route.
It will have to, for a couple of reasons:
First, this is legally the way it has to go now, especially since the Tsilhqot’in decision of 2014 upholding Aboriginal title.
It marked a new era when the scenario of Crown land is no longer instructive.
Intensive land use projects can’t simply be plowed through with cursory regulatory approvals.
And the second reason consultation has to be improved: because it’s the right thing to do.
Canada’s courts are starting to recognize that.
And the governments of Canada and the provinces shouldn’t assume they know what the concerns and issues will be when they engage in consultation.
With the Trans Mountain issue alone, we see there is a broad diversity of views within Indigenous communities.
A strident opposition, led by the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, pledges the pipeline expansion will never be built.
On the other side, dozens of individual First Nations are trying to organize to purchase the pipeline, recognizing the economic opportunities the expansion will bring to their communities.
Government should be able to sit down with Indigenous people keeping an open mind.
A partnership requires at least two willing participants, and that’s how us settler Canadians should see the potential relationship with our First Nations friends going forward.
