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FIRST READING: As Carney government approves first pipeline, First Nations threaten to destroy another

Proposed oil pipeline made a big deal of Indigenous ownership. A consortium of West Coast First Nations doesn't care

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FIRST READING: As Carney government approves first pipeline, First Nations threaten to destroy another Back to video

Just as the Carney government approves its first natural gas pipeline, First Nations are warning oil companies there will be consequences if they take up a proposed bitumen pipeline.

On Friday, the Canada Energy Regulator approved the $4 billion Sunrise Expansion Program, which would expand an existing natural gas pipeline running from Chetwynd, B.C., to the U.S. border.

The approval marks the first time that the Carney government has delivered on its promise to expand Canada’s network of oil and gas pipelines. In a statement, Energy Minister Tim Hodgson said “this is what being an energy superpower looks like.”

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Nevertheless, the Enbridge project is getting the go-ahead at the same time that a consortium of B.C. First Nations are systematically contacting Canadian oil companies and warning them to “stay away” from a far more lucrative federal proposal to build a bitumen pipeline to the Pacific.

Six First Nations governments, representing about 8,500 total members, drafted a letter explicitly warning oil and gas companies to “steer clear” of any plan to build a pipeline to the Northwest Coast, and threatening “significant risk” if any were attempted.

“Haida, Kitasoo Xai’xais, Gitga’at, and Heiltsuk Nations advise pipeline companies of risk of backing a Northwest Coast crude oil pipeline and tankers project, urge CEOs to stay away,” reads a press release issued by the Council of the Haida Nation.

The “steer clear” letter was presented in person to executives with Pembina Pipeline Corporation and Trans Mountain Corporation, and then delivered to “several other major pipeline companies” who declined a meeting.

The consortium is attempting to pre-emptively shut down the proposed “West Coast Oil Pipeline,” the result of a November agreement between Alberta and the Carney government to build a “bitumen pipeline to Asian markets.”

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As yet, there’s no agreed-upon route for the proposed pipeline, although the Alberta government revealed this month it is favouring a terminus somewhere on the northern B.C. coast.

It’s also not clear whether any of the private sector companies contacted by the consortium have even considered getting involved.

Planning for the West Coast Oil Pipeline is entirely within the hands of the Alberta government, while several major private sector companies have publicly said that political difficulties have scared them away from the idea of running liquids pipelines to the Pacific.

Enbridge, which lost an estimated $373 million on the now-cancelled Northern Gateway project, has been vocal about its intention to avoid Canadian oil pipelines altogether unless Ottawa can overhaul the regulatory process.

At an October speech to the Empire Club of Canada, Enbridge CEO Greg Abel specifically mentioned the continued existence of the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act, which bars large tankers from sailing off the northern B.C. coast.

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“No company would build a pipeline to nowhere,” Ebel said.

The anti-pipeline consortium seemed to acknowledge as much. A statement trumpeted their success in shutting down prior projects, including Northern Gateway, and imposing “legal risk” on the endeavour.

“No companies have come forward to support a proposed oil pipeline and tankers project to the North Coast thus far and we expect it to stay that way,” Marilyn Slett, chief councillor of the Heiltsuk Nation, is quoted as saying.

Both Alberta and the federal government have been particularly emphatic about how any West Coast Oil Pipeline would have to include heavy Indigenous ownership and participation.

A November Memorandum of Understanding about the proposed pipeline mentions the word “Indigenous” 19 times, and Alberta’s official literature for the project brands it a “world-class Indigenous co-owned pipeline.”

Nevertheless, the First Nations consortium indicated an uncompromising intention to shut down the project, citing a “potential oil spill” as a deal breaker.

Gaagwiis, president of the Haida Nation, is quoted in a statement as saying that Prime Minister Mark Carney had sought out “free, prior and informed consent” for a pipeline, and that none would be forthcoming.

“There is no pathway to yes for us when it comes to this level of risk to our food security, culture and way of life,” he said.

All of this is occurring against ongoing controversy in B.C. over the amount of Indigenous control over both resource development and even the very workings of the provincial government.

This has mostly coalesced around the issue of DRIPA, a 2019 bill that wrote the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into B.C. law.

Although pitched as mostly a symbolic measure, last December a B.C. Appeals Court judge ruled that DRIPA effectively superseded all other B.C. laws and was now “the interpretive lens through which B.C. laws must be viewed.”

B.C. Premier David Eby originally signalled his intent to remove the more compromising sections of DRIPA cited by the court, only to abruptly reverse course last week.

Last Monday, Eby appeared alongside the First Nations Leadership Council — a pro-DRIPA activist group — and announced that the legislation would be staying in place.

“The Government of B.C. will not be introducing legislation to suspend or amend DRIPA or UN Declaration-related provisions in the Interpretation Act, in the spring legislative session,” read a one-page statement from the premier’s office.

In a press scrum that day, Eby would acknowledge that the decision was partially informed by the threat of Indigenous blockades, saying “there is a very real threat to our province in continued conflict with First Nations.”

In advance of a fiscal update scheduled to be released Tuesday, on Monday the Carney government launched the Canada Strong Fund, which it touted as a “sovereign wealth fund” for Canada.

There’s just one problem. Sovereign wealth funds are typically set up to sock away budget surpluses. Canada, by contrast, is stacking up record quantities of government debt.

The totemic example of a sovereign wealth fund is the Government Pension Fund of Norway. Norway has been running massive budget surpluses ever since the mid-1990s largely as a result of its lucrative oil and gas sector.

Rather than simply blowing all this surplus on extra spending, Norway adds it to a sovereign wealth fund that is now worth about $3.5 trillion.

Canada is in the precise opposite situation. Its combined provincial and federal debt is currently around $2.5 trillion, and multiple governments continue to stack up record deficits.

Norway’s budget for the 2025 fiscal year, charted a surplus of 10.4 per cent.

Canada’s most recent federal budget, by contrast, posted a deficit of 19.1 per cent. Which is to say, roughly one in every five dollars spent on government was financed via debt.

As such, the $25 billion pledged for the Canada Strong Fund is not the leftovers from an oil windfall. Rather, it’s just another $25 billion in debt.

First Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here.

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