Bill Bennett, B.C. sport and cultural development minister, recently began a tour of Northwest B.C. to hold discussions with communities throughout the region on opportunities surrounding liquid natural gas (LNG) assets.
Premier Christy Clark’s government has placed anticipated tax and royalty revenues from proposed LNG extraction, transport, and storage, at the heart of the Feb. 12, 2013 throne speech. With provincial budget forecasts relying on future LNG revenues, Premier Clark recognized that the will and needs of northern communities, which will bear the brunt of LNG development, must be addressed.
While Bennett got underway last week in Terrace and Prince Rupert, with more community meetings planned by both provincial and federal levels of government - including meetings in Burns Lake - Wet’suwet’en Chief Karen Ogen had, the week before, issued a strongly stated warning to proponents of LNG pipeline proposals.
“Slow this boat down,” Ogen said of her community’s general concern. “We need to do this [the LNG consultation process] properly. These are major decisions that are being made and we can’t take them lightly.”
Her Jan. 31, 2013 press release, titled ‘Coastal GasLink Pipeline Project off to a bad start,’ articulates her concerns for the pipeline project which is currently in its preliminary, ‘pre-application stage’ of its provincial environmental assessment (EA).
The EA process includes mandated consultations with First Nations, but Ogen warns that a process defined by others on behalf of her council, hereditary chiefs, and community, does not embody the concept of ‘free, prior, and informed consent’.
“Before we can consent to anything,” Ogen said, “we need all the information on our end. All the way through the process of the EA, consultation should be happening, not just a one-time meeting and that’s it.”
For Ogen, continued conflicts that erupt between grassroots Wet’suwet’en and the Apache Chevron Pacific Trails Pipeline (PTP), show how the seeds of First Nations discontent are sown when consultation is not adequate from the beginning.
Ogen insisted that the ‘processes and protocols’ of her people need to be followed, and not just the mandate established by the environmental assessment office.
“Band leaders are the spokespeople for our people,” Ogen said. “But we still go back to the community for major decisions.”
She said that this aspect of her community’s decision-making process has to be respected and time allowed for the internal process of consultation and community feedback to be completed.
“I don’t make decisions for myself, by myself,” she said. “I have to talk with our elders, our hereditary chiefs, and our council members. We’ve been doing our due diligence in our community ensuring that people understand what this process is about and how it’s going to impact us.”
Ogen doesn’t deny the importance of the potential economic benefits of an LNG project to her people.
“We have to look out for the socio-economic issues in the community,” she said. “Not just the environmental [or] the traditional.”
But, Ogen said, the economic argument alone won’t be enough to set aside the need for studies related to Wet’suwet’en traditional land uses. Neither will the economic argument alone allow her to sidestep or curtail the community consensus required before any pipeline project crossing her territories can be consented to.
“I’ll tell you now, if companies don’t start off on the right foot with our peoples,” Ogen said, “then the path to prosperity and responsible resource development will be filled with obstruction and confrontation.”