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aside their political differences and negotiate
common sense business agreements that will
both satisfy environmental concerns and yet
still see Aboriginal communities benefit? Is
it possible to create an Aboriginal Pipeline
Group(s) similar to what was structured in
the Northwest Territories by the Inuvialuit,
Sahtu, and Gwich'in communities along the
Mackenzie Valley route? In that agreement,
which was signed on June 19, 2003, the
Aboriginal Pipeline Group and
TransCanada
signed an agreement giving the Aboriginal
groups of the Northwest Territories a one-
third ownership of the pipeline project.
Based on past history of negotiations
between First Nations along the proposed
BC pipeline routes, it seems unlikely that
any collaborative agreement can be reached
without some kind of mediation/negotia-
tion process involving an independent third
party who is not representing either gov-
ernment or industry. If LNG and/or oil are
to flow in any geographical direction across
Canada, then a group that will be trusted
by the affected Nations and industry needs
to establish a dialogue between all of them
along the pipeline routes to the Northwest
coast of British Columbia, the US border and
the east coast of Canada.
Some people have recently pointed to
Chief Clarence Louie and his new Aboriginal
Strategy Group LLP as a potential leader
of such a process. When we asked the
Chief about this he replied in his typically
pragmatic way, "If we don't stop fighting
amongst ourselves these opportunities will
pass us by. We don't have to agree on where
our territories begin and end, we just need
to get together, form our own companies and
negotiate a bigger piece of the pie so we'll
all benefit. Aside from the obvious environ-
mental concerns that need to be addressed,
how damn hard can it be to sit the business
leaders of these communities down and
agree on a royalty formula with industry?"
We hope someone like Chief Louie can
help the communities along these pipeline
routes to come to a business arrangement
soon or maybe Canada as a whole will lose
out economically.
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