A high-stakes delegation of First Nations leaders from British Columbia travelled to Calgary this week to deliver a direct message to pipeline executives: investing in a new bitumen corridor to the northern coast comes with significant legal and financial risk.
The meetings, held Wednesday at a downtown Calgary hotel, brought together Indigenous leaders with senior officials from major energy companies including Pembina Pipeline Corp. and Trans Mountain Corp. — signalling an intensifying battle over Alberta's plan to develop a pipeline through B.C. territory.
"We Are Prepared to Use All the Tools Available"
Haida Nation President Jason Alsop, who also goes by Gaagwiis, said his communities have a sacred obligation to protect the ocean and its food security. A new oil pipeline and the crude tanker traffic it would generate pose an existential threat to that stewardship, he argued.
"We are prepared to use all the tools available to us to uphold that responsibility," Alsop said in an interview. "And that makes investment in a pipeline to the north coast a significant risk — legal risk, financial risk."
The warning carries weight. Chief councillor Arnold Clifton of the Gitga'at First Nation pointed to a hard-won victory a decade ago, when northern B.C. communities successfully blocked Enbridge Inc.'s Northern Gateway proposal to Kitimat.
"I think it's going to be a lot stronger now if anything would come up, because we'll have everyone involved to fight," Clifton told The Canadian Press.
Corporate Meetings and Unanswered Letters
Trans Mountain, the Crown corporation operating Alberta's existing pipeline to the Vancouver area, confirmed its CEO Mark Maki attended the Wednesday dialogue. A company statement noted the meeting was "respectful" and valued the opportunity to hear Indigenous perspectives.
Pembina Pipeline, which has partnered with the Haisla Nation on the Cedar LNG project in Kitimat, did not respond to requests for comment about the meeting. Notably, Pembina has not publicly expressed interest in pursuing a new bitumen pipeline.
The First Nations delegation also extended invitations to other oil and gas companies, though scheduling proved difficult. The group delivered letters to those firms outlining the legal and financial risks of backing a B.C. oil corridor.
Alberta's Summer Submission
The Alberta government plans to submit a formal proposal to the federal major projects office this summer, seeking to de-risk the project sufficiently to attract private investment. The proposal is part of a broader energy accord struck between Alberta and Ottawa late last year, which pairs a new B.C. pipeline with a massive carbon capture and storage initiative in Alberta.
Significantly, any B.C. oil pipeline would require changes to federal legislation that currently prohibits new oil tanker ports on the northern B.C. coast — a legal hurdle that may prove as formidable as Indigenous opposition.
This article originally appeared on CBC Business and is published by WestNet News. Read the full CBC report here.