First Nations feud over BC refinery

Gary Park

For Petroleum News

A deep rift has developed among aboriginal leaders in Canada over plans to develop a 200,000-barrel-per-day bitumen refinery in British Columbia, opening the door to gasoline and diesel exports to Asia.

In a blunt ultimatum, Art Sterritt, the outspoken executive director of Coastal First Nations (representing nine native organizations), said that unless two former national leaders withdraw as advisors to the C$10 billion project they will face an aggressive campaign to discredit their role in the Pacific Future Energy venture.

He said Coastal First Nations do not trust the company’s vow to build the “world’s greenest refinery” in the Prince Rupert area, with “near net zero” carbon emissions.

Sterritt said the gloves will come off unless he can persuade Ovide Mercredi and Shawn Atleo, the two most recently retired grand chiefs of Canada’s Assembly of First Nations, to abandon the project.

He said a meeting is needed so that he can deliver a message to the two men that “you’ve got a chance to bail on this or we’re coming after you.”

Pacific Future is planning to ship oil sands crude by rail from Alberta to the refinery near Prince Rupert, arguing that refined products pose less of a threat to the coastal environment than shipping raw bitumen.

It claims any refined products that spill from tankers will float on the surface and evaporate, unlike bitumen which would sink to the ocean floor.

The proposed use of rail is designed to circumvent First Nations opposition to pipelines that have stalled progress on Enbridge’s Northern Gateway and Kinder Morgan’s expansion of its Trans Mountain system.

But Sterritt said he will not allow Mercredi and Atleo - who were hired last year as advisors by Pacific Future, a subsidiary of Mexican industrial conglomerate Grupo Salinas - to use their standing “to pacify everybody, or make people in Alberta and everywhere think that just because they’re involved that (aboriginal communities) are all going to roll over.”

Neither Mercredi nor Atleo was available for comment, but a Pacific Future spokesman pledged that his company will “only go where we are welcomed,” adding that “many constructive discussions” have already taken place with First Nations.

Atleo, while declaring he would “firmly” stand with First Nations who are opposed to the Enbridge and Kinder Morgan plans, has started leaning towards bridging the gap between the petroleum industry and aboriginal communities.

In addition to his appointment as senior advisor, partnerships, with Pacific Future he accepted Premier Christy Clark’s offer of a post with Vancouver Island University, to lead “dialogue sessions (to) help foster understanding and partnerships between indigenous peoples and the broader public, private and corporate sectors.”