The chief of the Ocean Man First Nation, Connie Big Eagle, says an oil spill on the band's land had to have occurred earlier than Friday, when the ministry of environment said it became aware of it.
Big Eagle said a vigilant band member who has been working in the oil industry most of his adult life had reported smelling a strange odour and took it upon himself to seek out the source. Big Eagle said she was told that the person smelled the odour each time he drove by the area of the spill.
The Federal Court of Appeal has rejected a legal challenged filed by two British Columbia First Nations that argued the $8.8-billion Site C dam project violated their treaty rights.
The Prophet River First Nation and the West Moberly First Nation appealed a Federal Court judge’s decision to deny an application for a judicial review of the federal government’s approval of the project.
The B.C. government’s approval last week of the Kinder Morgan proposal to twin the Trans Mountain oil pipeline doesn’t mean the pipeline will be built – but it is a significant step forward.
In his Jan. 17, 2017 BC Views online column, “Fake news is all around us,” Tom Fletcher accused our organization and others of spreading “fake news”. We have a number of questions for Mr. Fletcher.
Coldwater Indian Band seeks leave to judicially review federal approval
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 17, 2017
Coldwater is challenging the Trudeau Government’s November 29, 2016 approval of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project in Federal Court.
OTTAWA — The proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion once resembled a political morass, something that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and B.C. Premier Christy Clark would wade into at their peril.
But both politicians have managed to put pipeline opponents on the defensive as both sides head into a three-front battle in 2017 over the $6.8-billion project.
After years of dramatic opposition by B.C. residents, the controversial pipeline expansion project of a Texas-based energy company, Kinder Morgan, is one step closer to breaking ground in Canada.
On Wednesday, the government of B.C. Premier Christy Clark issued an environmental assessment certificate for the proposed Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, which aims to triple the capacity of an existing system that already ships more than 300,000 barrels of oil per day from Alberta's oilsands to the West Coast.
Despite a wealth of smarts and determination, it’s going to be difficult for Indigenous people to stop the Kinder Morgan pipeline.
Ever since the 2004 Haida Nation decision, the duty to consult and accommodate has proven a powerful tool in the struggle for greater respect for Aboriginal rights and title. Courts have handed Indigenous Peoples numerous significant victories—they have also created a blueprint for overriding Indigenous Peoples’ inherent and constitutional rights.
