The Moricetown Band is planning to have a community vote May 31st on an agreement with the Coastal Gas Link LNG Pipeline Project.
Trans Canada has over 17 long-term project agreements with First Nation bands along the proposed Coastal Gas Link route.
Via email, Trans Canada says agreements are confidential but generally include staged initial payments, annual funding throughout the lifetime of the project, contracting and job opportunities and environmental and information sharing commitments.
They also say that during construction, access to areas along the right-of-way may be temporarily limited.
“Where our pipeline routes cross traditional territories and treaty lands, we respect the legal and constitutional rights of Aboriginal peoples,” Trans Canada said in an email.
Spokesperson for the Unist’ot’en Camp near Houston along the pipeline’s proposed route, Freda Huson, says the clans have the final say on what happens on Wet’suwet’en territory.
She says the construction of the project will be a threat to the remaining 10 per cent of the territory that hasn’t been developed.
The Unist’ot’en camp has been committed in the past several years to keep industry from accessing the territory without ‘prior and informed consent.’
“And that’s why you see they get turned around every time they try to get onto our territory where we live when I say, ‘you do not have consent.’ They have nothing to say about it because it’s true,” says Huson, referring to the 1997 Supreme Court ruling in favour of rights and title for the Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan.
Four of the five clans have voiced their opposition to the project in their feast halls. One clan still has to ratify their opposition formally. Hereditary Cheif Na’moks (John Ridsdale) says a referendum would be more accurate than a community vote.
The Moricetown Band signed a Pipeline Benefits Agreement with the BC government in January 2015 regarding both the Coastal Gas Link and Pacific Trails pipeline projects. The band also struck down an agreement with Coastal Gas Link in the summer of 2016.
The PBA shows benefits of up to 6 million dollars once project milestones are reached, however, the proponent is waiting on a final investment decision.
The re-vote was called after Band Cheif Duane Mitchell said in a statement that several members made complaints that they weren’t informed enough to make a decision.
A community vote requires a resulting 50 per cent of attendees at the time of voting to make a decision.
The Band says that members need to contact the band with their address to vote:
Phone: 250-847-2133
Mail: #3-205 Beaver Road, Smithers, British Columbia,V0J2N1