AB Premier Prentice says other options besides Kitimat for Northern Gateway plan. Getting First Nations approval for the Northern Gateway pipeline will be “pretty tough,” as long as the proposed terminus remains at Kitimat, B.C., says Alberta Premier Jim Prentice. The Premier says there are other options besides Kitimat from which to load unrefined, heavy oil onto tankers destined for Asian ports, saying the environmental concerns of Coastal First Nations to the existing plan need to be respected. On the job barely a week, Mr. Prentice has already indicated he is conscious of Alberta’s image as an environmental miscreant and plans to address it – including developing a far-reaching climate-change strategy. That relationship was also forged during Mr. Prentice’s time as federal minister of Indian Affairs in 2006-07. After being sworn in as Premier last week, he announced he was taking on ministerial responsibilities for aboriginal relations. (He is also a former federal environment minister). He said he has already spoken with Christy Clark and the two have begun to build a positive relationship, something that often did not exist between the B.C. Premier and her former Alberta counterpart, Alison Redford. “My sense is there is a way to firstly address the environmental issues that First Nations have raised,” Mr. Prentice said. He said many “are very good points and we’ve collectively not done a very good job of responding to them, particularly among the Coastal First Nations. People say it’s all about money – well, it’s not about money. It’s actually about ensuring people who have lived on the West Coast of Canada from time immemorial, that their lives are not going to be changed irretrievably by some kind of disaster.” Under the current Gateway plan, Alberta crude would be loaded onto tankers at Kitimat and then navigate the ecologically pristine waters of Douglas Channel before hitting open ocean. Fears of a spill have been central to virulent opposition expressed by native and environmental groups. Prince Rupert to the north is one of a few locations that have been discussed as potential alternatives to Kitimat. In the past, Enbridge has said that a route to Prince Rupert, where there is already an established port facility, would be trickier from an engineering standpoint because of the overland terrain that would have to be traversed. Regarding the possibility of refining the crude in Alberta before shipping it across B.C., the Alberta Premier said the extent to which that might be necessary would depend on where the oil is going to end up on the West Coast. He said there are “multiple possibilities.” theglobeandmail/news/politics/prentice-raises-first-nations-concerns-over-northern-gateway-terminal-plan/article20734430/?utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_source=Globe%20Politics&utm_type=text&utm_content=GlobePolitics&utm_campaign=119934746
Posted on: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 05:04:26 +0000
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