Western Standard - July 25, 2025


BC First Nations Oppose New Pipeline — Is Canada Held Hostage by Consultation Politics？


Episode Stats


Length

4 minutes

Words per minute

163.02765

Word count

672

Sentence count

40

Harmful content

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

First Nations in British Columbia have sent a strongly worded open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asking him to reject a new pipeline proposal from Premier Christy Clark s government. What does this mean for the future of the project? And what role does the federal government have to play in the process?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 First Nations, unsurprisingly, in B.C. are opposed to a pipeline coming through.
00:00:05.620 Is there anything they ever support?
00:00:06.840 Well, yeah, more land ceded to them for their exclusive administration.
00:00:14.800 But the story we're talking about here, Erica, is one that came out yesterday where the coastal First Nations in British Columbia
00:00:22.840 sent a strongly worded open letter to Mark Carney, Prime Minister, asking him to reject the new pipeline proposal
00:00:32.200 that is being advanced by Premier Smith.
00:00:34.920 It's the northern route.
00:00:37.440 And it's the one that David Eby said, well, she doesn't have a sponsor and she doesn't have a bid.
00:00:43.520 There's no project.
00:00:44.440 So, well, the Indians think that there's a project and they've asked Mr. Carney to deep sex it. 0.99
00:00:50.560 Now, I would personally, because I'm old and cynical, interpret that as just a sort of first move in the negotiations
00:00:58.620 to see where this thing is going to land and who gets paid what for doing it.
00:01:03.960 But that's the story.
00:01:05.800 So, Erica, you know about pipelines.
00:01:10.780 Well, I know how much the federal government and the Indigenous groups can get in the way of one. 1.00
00:01:16.800 I think that, you know, there was a lot of people that have looked to Carney and his Building Canada Act as a symbol of unity
00:01:26.140 and looking at actually making Canada an economic and energy superpower.
00:01:34.760 The key, and I think you've talked about this on the show, I know I've talked about with you folks before,
00:01:39.840 the biggest thing is the stakeholder of the Indigenous pathways.
00:01:42.460 Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but there is already corridors set up for a pipeline like this,
00:01:48.340 and it wouldn't actually be completely unfeasible to run another pipeline along the transportation corridor
00:01:57.440 and other pipelines that exist for an LNG pipeline.
00:02:01.580 So, to me, it's kind of a weak argument by this Indigenous group on the why,
00:02:06.700 because it's already a pathway there.
00:02:09.660 But this is going to be a big symbol of Carney's leadership, and if he's serious about this,
00:02:15.180 because it's always been identified that the hardest stakeholder and hardest hurdle on this Building Canada Act
00:02:20.820 is the Indigenous groups and those types of consultations.
00:02:24.860 So, I don't know if they're asking for a full stop, if they're asking for more funds, guaranteed income, or employment.
00:02:32.140 Like, these are the types of negotiations I think would come from Indigenous partners
00:02:37.340 that actually want to inject revenue and sustainability into their communities, especially in this case.
00:02:45.680 So, again, we'll see how Carney navigates this,
00:02:49.420 but this is going to be a hurdle that we see on every one of those pipeline projects that are coming down the road.
00:02:54.340 Well, until a federal leader has the courage to define the difference between consent and consulting,
00:03:00.580 we're not going to get anything done.
00:03:02.700 So, I mean, that's just the reality.
00:03:04.320 Somebody's got to put a foot down eventually, because they're, you know, implying that we need consent,
00:03:09.360 and technically we don't.
00:03:10.740 The Supreme Court's ruled on that many times, actually.
00:03:13.060 Yeah.
00:03:13.580 But no politician's positive.
00:03:15.520 So, I was going to say, like, I don't know, you know, the appetite in BC.
00:03:21.760 I suspect there's a more appetite in Alberta to push back on this consent versus consultation.
00:03:31.080 Do you think that this is, like, the DOA of these projects, Corey or Nigel?
00:03:38.300 If somebody doesn't make a stand on that portion, and they've got the Supreme Court behind them.
00:03:44.240 I wrote a recent column on that, breaking it down.
00:03:46.140 There's been multiple rulings, but no politician dares to say it.
00:03:49.200 If they won't, nothing will get done.
00:03:52.100 Because they'll never get full consent.
00:03:53.180 To Erica's point, I think you put it very well this morning,
00:03:55.300 and you say what 3% of the population get to determine what the other 97% get to do.
00:04:00.500 Yeah.
00:04:01.160 That can't go on.
00:04:02.120 It's sensitive, I know.
00:04:03.380 And I wouldn't want to be the politician to have to step into that mire,
00:04:05.860 but eventually somebody's going to have to.