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Yukon First Nation campaigns for Alaska pipeline route Kwanlin Dun dismayed with federal government's ‘aggressive’ opposition to U.S. incentives for Alaska Highway option and refusal to acknowledge benefits of southern route to Canada Gary Park PNA Canadian Correspondent
The Yukon’s largest aboriginal community has added its voice to those accusing the Canadian government of bias in favoring a Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline and “hostility” towards the Alaska Highway option.
The Kwanlin Dun First Nation, whose territory covers about 90 miles of the pipeline route near Whitehorse, said the government is ignoring the economic spin-offs a highway project would bring to Yukon First Nations, as well as northern British Columbia and Alberta, given its projected cost of US$20 billion against the C$3 billion estimated cost of a Mackenzie Valley project.
The argument for the Alaska route was made in Calgary and Ottawa during a week of meetings starting Oct. 7 with natural gas producers, industry representatives and federal politicians, including Indian Affairs and Northern Development Minister Robert Nault.
First Nation expected cooperation Piers McDonald, senior pipeline/government relations adviser to the Kwanlin Dun and a former Yukon premier, said the Yukon had been “lulled into the belief that the government has been acting in our best interests.”
The Kwanlin Dun had expected professional cooperation between the government and northern residents in the selection of Arctic pipeline routes.
“We did not expect that they would instead openly and aggressively campaign against the pipeline and against the best interests of Yukon people and residents of northern B.C. and Alberta,” said Kwanlin Dun Chief Rick O’Brien.
In taking such a hard-line stance against U.S. government incentives for the Alaska Highway project, government leaders such as Prime Minister Jean Chretien and Natural Resources Minister Herb Dhaliwal seemed determined to strangle the highway pipeline, ignoring the fact that two-thirds of the line would cross Canadian territory, he said. .
Canada has offered incentives In the process Chretien and Dhaliwal apparently forgot that the Canadian government has routinely offered incentives for frontier oil and gas development, while attacking the U.S. risk-sharing proposals, O’Brien said.
“It is not uncommon for public incentives to be applied to (Canadian) resource development projects,” he said. “In fact, it’s routine.”
O’Brien argued that North America’s gas demand is growing so fast the market “can easily absorb gas from the Mackenzie Delta, Prudhoe Bay and even from promising fields along the Alaska Highway pipeline.”
He said the Kwanlin Dun have been assured by North Slope producers BP PLC and ConocoPhillips that if President George W. Bush approves an energy bill with pipeline incentives and if Canada gives the necessary approvals, the highway line will proceed.
For now, the First Nation has decided that “if we don’t speak up for ourselves, nobody will,” said McDonald. “We have to fight for every opportunity that we can get.”
A spokesman for Nault said the government, rather than taking sides on the route selection, has insisted that the decision must be made by market forces, free from any subsidies.
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