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First Nations to review pipeline proposal


A group of First Nations throughout northern BC, including the Council of the Haida Nation, will be taking a close look at a project to pipe oil from Edmonton to Kitimat, and ship it from there to China.
The group announced last week it has formed a steering committee which will establish a First Nations review process for the proposed Enbridge Gateway project. CHN president Guujaaw is a member of the steering committee.
"The goofiness of this project is that while the Americans are trying to figure a way out of having to deal with the Arabs, and while there are tankers importing oil onto this continent, we have continental oil being exported," Guujaaw said.
As well as taking oil from Alberta to the coast, the project would also import condensate back to Edmonton.
The Queen of the North incident has definitely heightened the already-existing concerns about oil tanker traffic heading out of Kitimat, Guujaaw said. The oil industry has said that its tankers are completely safe, but "that is the nature of every marine incident, it shouldn't happen but they do," he said.