B.C. First Nations chiefs deny pledge to support Northern Gateway pipeline By Mike Hagar, Peter O’Neil and Gordon Hoekstra, Postmedia NewsDecember 4, 2011 8:16 PM Greenpeace activists occupied Enbridge's office, both inside and out, in downtown Vancouver demanding the pipeline giant withdraw its Northern Gateway Pipelines application. Photograph by: Jenelle Schneider, PNG VANCOUVER — First Nations communities in northern B.C. held emergency meetings over the weekend to figure out how to scuttle a Northern Gateway pipeline deal with Enbridge announced Friday. “There are people here who are very upset. We’re trying to get to the bottom of who gave the go-ahead,” Chief Marjorie McRae, the elected leader of a community of about 2,000 on the Gitxsan First Nation, said Sunday. She and another chief, Norman Stephens, said their nation was “in shock and embarrassed” after the announcement that the aboriginal community had become an ownership partner in Enbridge’s embattled $5.5-billion pipeline proposal. The announcement was made by Enbridge and Hereditary Chief Elmer Derrick, the Gitxsan’s chief treaty negotiator. Stephens and McRae said they have the support of hereditary chiefs and four of five Gitxsan communities comprising more than 6,000 people in denouncing the agreement. Derrick said the decision was made by the Gitxsan’s 60 or so hereditary chiefs, although he said it was not unanimous. Friday’s deal was projected to bring at least $7 million in net profit over 30 years to the impoverished Gitxsan communities located in northwest B.C., about 700 kilometres north of Vancouver. Stephens said many hereditary chiefs didn’t even know that a deal was being negotiated with Enbridge. Noting that Derrick is employed as the chief treaty negotiator to settle federal and provincial land claims, it makes no sense that he is dealing with Enbridge, Stephens said Sunday. “He has no authority actually to be making a deal with Enbridge on a pipeline. This is wrong,” said Stephens, a hereditary chief who has the traditional name Guuhadawk. Stephens estimated that 20 or 30 hereditary chiefs are opposed to the Enbridge deal, perhaps more. Gitxsan opponents are concerned about the effect of an oil spill on sensitive salmon streams and rivers, said Stephens. The $7 million would not compensate for the damage of a spill, he said. Derrick has said that elected councils for the Gitxsan’s five bands have no say in the decision, but McRae, who is Gitanmaax Indian Band chief councillor, said that is absurd. She said even if some hereditary chiefs are supporting the Enbridge decision, they would still need the support of their communities. Most of the hereditary chiefs heard of the announcement through the media as they were attending a funeral for a matriarch and hereditary chief Friday, which made the timing of the announcement disrespectful and in violation of Gitxsan law, said Stephens. He said the announcement was part of Enbridge’s public relations strategy to counter Thursday’s coalition of 130 B.C. First Nations groups that vowed to present an “unbroken wall” to block construction of the project. On Saturday, Enbridge spokesman Paul Stanway said there was no correlation between the two announcements and that it is confident Derrick speaks for the greater Gitxsan First Nation. “We’ve done a lot of research and we think we understand the governance structure of the Gitxsan quite well and we’re comfortable with the way this has proceeded,” Stanway said. “We’re convinced we’re speaking to the right people.” Derrick made Friday’s announcement while acting as the chief treaty negotiator for the nation. He is a paid employee of the Gitxsan Treaty Society, which has a board of directors made up of representatives from the Gitxsan clans. Derrick could not be reached for comment on Saturday or Sunday. On Friday, Derrick said the Gitxsan gave the Enbridge proposal careful scrutiny before making a decision, including scientific work by the Gitxsan Watershed Authority to examine streams within Gitxsan territory that would be affected. Stephens and McRae are part of a group of chiefs that are plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Gitxsan Treaty Society. They want to see the treaty society — which has spent more than $19 million since 1994 — suspended. They argue that the society has not been consulting properly with the Gitxsan people. A court date has been set for early in 2012. Enbridge announced earlier this year it was offering a 10 per cent ownership stake in the pipeline project. The company said it has executed agreements with other First Nations, but will not name them. “All I can tell you is it’s a considerable number and we’re confident that more First Nations will enter into agreements with us,” Stanway said. The Northern Gateway project’s route is south of the southern border of the Hazelton, B.C.-based First Nation’s 33,000 square kilometres of territory. The line would pass by six streams that flow into Babine Lake, a vital resource to the Gitxsan. The 1,170-kilometre Northern Gateway pipeline is meant to open up new markets in Asia for crude from the Alberta oilsands. The Gitxsan were not one of the 61 First Nations communities that signed the Save the Fraser Declaration in public opposition to the pipeline. In an exclusive interview last week, Enbridge’s CEO Pat Daniel predicted that at least 30 of the 45 First Nations along the pipeline route from Bruderheim, Alta., near Edmonton, to Kitimat on the B.C. coast, will have deals with Enbridge by next June. And he said he hopes all 45 will be onside by 2013, when Enbridge hopes to get regulatory approval to start a project that is set to be completed by late 2017. A federal review panel is set to begin hearing from the public on the pipeline in January. The Gitxsan in northwestern B.C. are one of the province’s most prominent aboriginal groups — due to its role in the landmark 1997 Delgamuukw land claims decision in the Supreme Court of Canada — and has a population estimated by Enbridge at around 13,000. Vancouver Sun
