Northern-Gateway-Pipeline

By Kavitha Chekuru / Al Jazeera The sun pierces through thin slices of halibut that lie drying across cylindrical pieces of wood as Christopher Stuart continues to delicately cut more of the freshly harvested fish for the sun to bake. Stuart, a member of Canada’s Gitga’at First Nation, is performing the task for the first time at the tribe’s annual spring harvest on Princess Royal Island, just off the coast of British Columbia. But it’s not his first time at the seasonal camp called Kiel. He has come every year since he can remember to gather with other Gitga’at to harvest halibut and seaweed. ...

By Justine Hunter / The Globe and Mail The federal review of the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline has hit another setback this week after a coastal first nation community withdrew from the process, saying the Harper government has predetermined the outcome. The hearings were temporarily derailed when the panel was greeted by protests in the remote native community of Bella Bella on Sunday. The panel ended up holding abridged hearings in Bella Bella. ...

By Shawn McCarthy / The Globe and Mail Ottawa is headed for a legal showdown with British Columbia first nations if it insists on proceeding with the Northern Gateway pipeline, the leader of the Yinka Dene Alliance warns. Chief Jackie Thomas, of the Saik’uz First Nation, was part of a delegation in Ottawa Tuesday meeting with opposition members of Parliament to build support for their anti-pipeline stand. She said her group will pursue a legal challenge if Ottawa approves the pipeline over their objections. ...

By Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times The prime minister is talking about being “held hostage” by U.S. interests. Radio ads blare, “Stand up to this foreign bully.” A Twitter account tells of a “secret plan to target Canada: exposed!” Could this be Canada? The cheerful northern neighbor: supplier of troops to unpleasant U.S.-led foreign conflicts, reliable trade partner, ally in holding terrorism back from North America’s shores, not to mention the No. 1 supplier of America’s oil? ...

By Shawn McCarthy After vowing to take on radical environmentalists determined to stop the Northern Gateway pipeline, the Harper government has released a new anti-terrorism strategy that targets eco-extremists as threats. With his announcement this week, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has increased the concern among environmentalists that Ottawa regards them as implacable adversaries to be monitored and battled, rather than well-meaning advocates to be consulted. “This is just one more step in their attempt to marginalize the environmental movement and to quiet its voice,” John Bennett, executive director of Sierra Club Canada, said Friday. “It’s an indirect suggestion that somehow environmentalism is attached to terrorism and that’s just wrong.” ...

Aboriginal groups in the Canadian Pacific province of British Columbia said on Thursday they had formed a united front to oppose all exports of crude oil from the Alberta tar sands through their territories. The declaration is another political blow to the Canadian energy sector and Canada’s right-of-center Conservative government after Washington decided last month to delay approving a pipeline carrying oil sands crude to the Gulf Coast. It adds to the uncertainty over Enbridge Inc’s planned C$5.5 billion Northern Gateway oil pipeline, which would move 525,000 barrels a day of tar sands-derived oil 1,177 km (731 miles) to the Pacific port of Kitimat, British Columbia. ...