Oil - Pipelines

The Federal Court of Appeal has granted leave to the Gitxaala Nation to apply for judicial review of the Northern Gateway pipeline project's approval.

The Gitxaala is challenging the federal cabinet's approval of the Enbridge project.

The court application argues that the federal Conservative cabinet did not consider the Gitxaala's aboriginal rights and title in approving the oil pipeline proposed by Calgary-based Enbridge.

Freshly fed with a wild salmon feast and stirred by drumming and anti-oilsands proclamations, a crowd of several hundred stood en masse to loudly sing Tsleil-Waututh Nation's anthem on Sunday.

Roughly 500 people crammed into the First Nation's North Shore community centre on the eve of what the band's culture and language manager Gabriel George dubbed an "historic event" -- the signing of an intertribal treaty against Kinder Morgan's proposed pipeline through southern B.C.

Treaty makes Kinder Morgan Expansion Project illegal in Coast Salish Law

COAST SALISH TERRITORY, NORTH VANCOUVER, BC; SEPTEMBER 21, 2014 – Today, First Nations from the lower mainland, Vancouver Island, and Washington State have come together to sign an historic treaty to protect the Salish Sea from tar sands oil and related threats, making the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Expansion Project illegal under Coast Salish Law.

For immediate release: On September 8, the City of Burnaby filed a Civil Claim against Kinder Morgan, seeking an injunction to restrain Kinder Morgan from continuing to carry on works in the Burnaby Mountain Conservation Area in contravention of the city of Burnaby’s bylaws. The Burnaby Parks Regulation Bylaw prohibits the cutting of trees and damage to the park. Kinder Morgan workers entered the park on September 2, and cut down trees and bushes to allow for helicopter and drilling activities. Kinder Morgan ignored an Order from the City to cease bylaw contraventions.

The company maintains its work is legal, but the City of Burnaby and a Member of Parliament do not.

“I never cease to be amazed at what this company does in pursuit of its pipeline project,” said Burnaby—Douglas M.P. Kennedy Stewart in a statement.

The battle between the City of Burnaby and Kinder Morgan over the extension of the Trans Mountain pipleline is heating up after municipal officers issued stop work orders to crews surveying the pipeline's proposed route under Burnaby Mountain on Tuesday.

Energy giant Kinder Morgan wants to bore a hole under the mountain in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby to Burrard Inlet as part of a proposal to nearly triple the capacity of the existing pipeline, but the city has vowed to block the project however it can. 

John Carruthers, president of Enbridge's Northern Gateway unit, said a number of issues need to be sorted out before construction can begin, including winning additional support from aboriginal communities along the 525,000 barrel-per-day line's route through northern British Columbia

"We have stated that the earliest in-service date was 2018," Carruthers said following a speech to a Calgary business audience. "That's quickly evaporating because we need to have this time to meet with people. The focus is on re-engagement, not the in-service date."

VANCOUVER - The city of Vancouver says it will go to the Federal Court of Appeal on Friday over Kinder Morgan's proposed expansion of its Trans Mountain pipeline.

The city wants a judicial review of whether the National Energy Board should consider climate change in its assessment of the project.

Vancouver officials have already asked the board, which said it could not take the global issue into account.

The chief of the Lower Nicola Indian Band south of Kamloops, B.C., whose territory is crucial to the $5.4-billion Kinder Morgan expansion project, wrote a strongly worded letter to the Prime Minister today about his "serious reservations" about the project.