Pipes for the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project are unloaded in Edson, Alta. on Tuesday June 18, 2019. The Federal Court of Appeal dismissed on Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2020 the four applications challenging the project. (Jason Franson/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Federal Court dismisses Indigenous appeal of Trans Mountain project approval

The Federal Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal by Indigenous groups challenging the federal government’s approval of the Trans Mountain expansion project to pump about 890,000 barrels of crude per day from northern Alberta oil sands to an oil terminal on British Columbia’s Pacific Coast .

The unanimous ruling released Tuesday, clears yet another major legal hurdle for the long-delayed $7.4 billion project.

“This project is in the public interest,” said Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan, reacting to the court’s decision.

“With TMX we’re going to get more of our valuable natural resources to global markets, we’re going to generate revenues that will go straight towards clean energy development, lowering our emissions. We’re going to advance reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, including through economic opportunities.”

The expansion of the 1,150-kilometre pipeline that currently carries about 300,000 barrels of oil per day from northern Alberta to the oil terminal in Burnaby, a suburb of Vancouver, is seen as critical for Alberta’s and Canada’s economy but has run into stiff opposition from some Indigenous and environmental groups, as well as the B.C. government.

Four Indigenous groups whose traditional territories straddle parts of the pipelines route have argued they were not adequately consulted by the federal government before the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau approved it in 2016.

In August 2018, the Federal Court of Appeal quashed cabinet approvals for the project, citing inadequate consultations and incomplete environmental assessments, forcing the Liberal government to relaunch the consultation process to address the shortcomings identified by the court.

In June 2019, cabinet issued its second approval for the project. Following that, the Coldwater Indian Band, Squamish Nation, Tsleil-Waututh and a group of small First Nations in the Fraser Valley asked the court to review the decision a second time. In a December hearing, their lawyers argued the government went into the new consultations having predetermined the outcome.

The court ruled that the federal government “had remedied the flaws in consultation earlier identified by this Court and had engaged in adequate and meaningful consultation with Indigenous peoples” affected by the project’s construction before approving the pipeline for a second time.

“Contrary to what the applicants assert, this was anything but a rubber-stamping exercise. The end result was not a ratification of the earlier approval, but an approval with amended conditions flowing directly from the renewed consultation,” the court said.

The consultation process is “much consistent with the concepts of reconciliation and the honour of the Crown,” the court ruled.

As part of the consultation process, Ottawa sent 60 federal representatives to meet with 120 Indigenous communities in both Alberta and B.C.

The court said that the vast majority of Indigenous communities along the route of the pipeline actually support the multibillion expansion project and the economic benefits it could bring.

Of the 129 Indigenous groups potentially impacted by the project, more than 120 either support it or do not oppose it, the court said.

As well, the federal government has signed benefit agreements with 43 Indigenous groups, the court said.

The Indigenous groups that launched this legal challenge have 60 days to appeal the Federal Court of Appeal’s decision to the Supreme Court.

With files from John Paul Tasker of CBC News and The Canadian Press

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