British bank enters oil sands suit

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The Co-operative Group, a United Kingdom-based bank, has contributed C$100,000 to a legal fight by a small Alberta First Nations community against oil sands expansion in the province.

That followed a donation of C$90,000 in March and the promise of more money to come in August.

The Beaver Lake Cree Nation, with about 900 members, filed a lawsuit in May 2008 against the Canadian and Alberta governments, challenging projects in areas used for hunting, trapping and fishing.

Beaver lake attorney Jack Woodward said the legal claim includes 17,000 approved projects, which, if they go ahead, will destroy a “meaningful right to hunt and fish.”

The Beaver lake community, about 120 miles north of Edmonton, said its rights to hunt, trap and fish were included in an 1876 treaty with the Canadian government and they will now be compromised by the planned oil sands projects.

The Alberta government, in a pretrial motion filed in June, asked the court to dismiss most of the Beaver Lake Cree lawsuit as “frivolous and an abuse of process,” arguing the issues should have been resolved through its Energy Resources Conservation Board, not in court.

The Co-operative Group, which is the world’s largest consumer-owned business, said it has targeted the oil sands under its ethics guidelines because members are concerned about the environmental impact of developing the resource.

—Gary Park