Bloomberg Vancouver<\/p>\n
British Columbia Premier John Horgan gave little sign his government was ready to intervene in a contentious blockade obstructing Royal Dutch Shell Plc\u2019s $31bn gas export project, shying away from condemning the indigenous group that\u2019s defied a court order to remove barricades. \u201cThere is no quick fix to resolving issues that go back to 1876 and beyond,\u201d Horgan said, referring to the year of Canada\u2019s Indian Act and the thorny legacy created in British Columbia, where most First Nations have never formally ceded jurisdiction of their ancestral lands. \u201cWe recognise the right of individuals to protest.\u201d But he also acknowledged that the project, LNG Canada, had met every requirement to proceed and had the support of all 20 First Nation groups along its corridor, including the Wet\u2019suwet\u2019en on whose lands the blockade is taking place. \u201cWe believe that LNG Canada has met the obligations that we asked them to achieve.\u201d The blockade underscores how hard it\u2019s become for Canada to clear the way for sanctioned energy projects \u2014 even those blessed by all levels of government and elected indigenous leaders. When Shell and its four Asian partners agreed to invest last October after a decade of negotiations, the project was feted as the blueprint for how industry should work with First Nations. Yet in the months since, a group of holdouts have erected barricades on a public road, preventing TransCanada Corp from working on the 420-mile (676km) Coastal GasLink pipeline that will supply the export facility. The protesters ignored a November court order to allow access. \u201cIt\u2019s important to understand that construction time lines require us to gain access to the area and begin activities as soon as we safely can to keep the current construction schedule and time lines in place,\u201d Jacquelynn Benson, a spokeswoman for Coast GasLink, said in an email. \u201cAny delays to that would affect our ability to meet those dates.\u201d LNG Canada didn\u2019t immediately respond to a question about delays to the project. The project \u2014 also backed by Petroliam Nasional Bhd, Mitsubishi Corp, PetroChina Co and Korea Gas Corp \u2014 is Canada\u2019s largest infrastructure project ever and the world\u2019s biggest planned liquefied natural gas facility in years. Indigenous leaders, including a former Wet\u2019suwet\u2019en elected chief, have lamented the blockade for threatening a project that off ers rural communities their best shot at economic development. Yet since Monday, when police arrested 14 to enforce the court order and restore access, protests have flared up across the nation in support of the blockade. In an October interview, Horgan credited LNG Canada\u2019s success to its aboriginal support, contrasting it against Trans Mountain, the oil pipeline bought by the federal government from Kinder Morgan Inc Shell was able to reach agreements with all aboriginal groups, whereas \u201cTrans Mountain was not,\u201d he\u2019d said. \u201cI think that speaks for itself.\u201d Three months later, it\u2019s not clear that made such a diff erence. \u201cBritish Columbia is unique in Canada \u2014 we have unceded territory and in every corner of the province we have court ruling after court ruling,\u201d Horgan told reporters on Wednesday, saying he\u2019d spoken to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about the impasse late Tuesday. The project, he said, \u201chighlights the challenges of reconciliation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bloomberg Vancouver British Columbia Premier John Horgan gave little sign his government was ready to intervene in a contentious blockade obstructing Royal Dutch Shell Plc\u2019s $31bn gas export project, shying away from…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2234,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[46,57,90,96,107,137,139,160,174,184,201,202,209,232,233,244,246,249,256,267,277,279,288],"class_list":["post-2226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-aramco","tag-baroudi","tag-democracy","tag-doha","tag-embargo","tag-gas","tag-gazprom","tag-international-maritime-disputes","tag-lebanon","tag-maritime-disputes","tag-offshore","tag-oil","tag-opec","tag-putin","tag-qatar","tag-rosneft","tag-roudi","tag-russia","tag-saudi","tag-straddling-hydrocarbons-reserves","tag-total","tag-trump","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}