Page 5 - NorthAmOil Week 07

NorthAmOil COMMENTARY NorthAmOil
reports following the meeting, Trudeau said Scheer’s speech indicated that he was not willing to co-operate.
Trudeau described calls to use police to for- cibly remove protesters as “not helpful”, instead urging patience as Ottawa seeks to negotiate with First Nations leaders.
“Finding a solution will not be simple. It will take determination, hard work and co-opera- tion,” Trudeau said. “We are creating a space for peaceful honest dialogue with willing partners ... We need Canadians to show both resolve and collaboration. Everyone has a stake in getting thisright.”
However, no clear path forward has yet emerged. Tyendinaga Mohawk protesters in Ontario have said they will not end their block- ade until the RCMP leaves the traditional terri- tory of the Wet’suwet’en.
Canadian Minister of Indigenous Services Marc Miller met with Tyendinaga Mohawk demonstrators on February 15, and while he said “modest” progress had been made during the meeting, he could not say when the blockades might end. He added that the situation remained “highly volatile”.
What next?
As talks continue and federal and provincial o - cials attempt to resolve the dispute, questions are being asked about why TC Energy does not sim- ply reroute Coastal GasLink, taking it through an area that will not result in opposition from First Nations. However, CBC News reported last week that the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs had already suggested alternative routes, but that these had previously been rejected by the pipe- line developer.
CBC cited Coastal GasLink’s president, David Pfei er, telling reporters in January that the selected route was the most technically viable of the ones that had been considered, as well as
the one that would have the least environmental impact.
An alternative route was rejected in 2014, for a number of reasons including the fact that it would extend the pipeline’s length by up to 89km, increasing both the environmental impact and the cost of construction – poten- tially by CAD800mn ($604mn). e rejected route would also have been closer to the urban BC communities of Smithers, Houston, Ter- race and Kitimat, as well as a ecting four First Nations that had not already been consulted on the pipeline. Such additional consultation was estimatedatthetimetoadduptoayearofdelays to the project’s timeline.
Coastal GasLink also claims it proposed another route to the Wet’suwet’en in 2014, but did not receive a response.
“ e route that has been selected re ects the best engineering, environmental, cultural and economically feasible criteria possible,” Coastal GasLink told CBC in an emailed statement. “ ere is no route available to [Coastal GasLink] that would avoid traditional Wet’suwet’en terri- tory ... To change the route to avoid Wet’suwet’en territory at this date would require major envi- ronmental assessment work, which would not be feasible under the timelines to which we have committed.”
If the standoff continues for much longer, though, Coastal GasLink will nd itself under ever greater pressure to consider all options. Recent years have shown that pipeline projects can be signi cantly delayed, and sometimes even cancelled, when they run into major obstacles. e timely start-up of LNG Canada rests in part on the construction of the CAD6.6bn ($5.0bn), 2.1bn cubic foot (59mn cubic metre) Coastal GasLink going to plan. At this stage, an ongo- ing deadlock could be just as much of a cause for concern as having to make changes to the pipeline plan.™
Recent years have shown that pipeline projects can be signi cantly delayed, and sometimes even cancelled, when they run into major obstacles.
Protests and blockades by indigenous groups and environmentalists, in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs, have sprung up across Canada.
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