Tag: Maze

When plans were announced last October to build a $40 billion liquefied natural gas project in British Columbia, Justin Trudeau couldn’t contain his glee. “I can’t stop smiling.” Indeed, it seemed that the project’s proponents had managed to successfully navigate the shoals of both Indigenous and environmental politics. First Nation band councils along the proposed natural gas pipeline route, from northeastern B.C. A few dozen protestors representing the hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en set up a blockade on one part of the proposed pipeline route to remind Canada’s governments that while their First Nation’s elected band council may have agreed to accept the project, they had not. What happens when, as in the case of the Wet’suwet’en, elected representatives and hereditary leaders disagree? Like many First Nations, the Wet’suwet’en have two parallel political structures. The elected council clearly disagrees. The Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that the Wet’suwet’en retain Aboriginal title to their traditional lands. All of this came to a head last year over plans to construct a new pipeline that would bring natural gas to the B.C. That’s because any leak in either the gas pipeline or tankers would simply release natural gas into the air, leaving land and water unfouled.