Lawsuit targets BC tanker ban

Gary Park

Petroleum News

At a time when more than 170 demonstrators have been arrested for breaching a court injunction at the Trans Mountain tanker site in Burnaby, Greater Vancouver, many of the First Nations they are supposed to be defending have started legal actions against governments for banning tankers in British Columbia waters.

One community has filed a civil claim in the Supreme Court of British Columbia against the Canadian and B.C. governments seeking a court judgment that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s ban is “an unjustified infringement on the plaintiffs’ aboriginal rights and title.”

The filing was made by the Lax Kw’alaams First Nation, which is among 30 aboriginal communities who have raised more than one-third of the C$100,000 they expect to need to cover their legal costs.

Other First Nations that support the C$16 billion Eagle Spirit oil pipeline and energy corridor from Alberta to Hyder, Alaska, where tankers would be loaded with oil sands bitumen bond for Asia are also engaged in court action.

The Lax Kw’alaams, a 3,800-member consortium of nine communities near Prince Rupert, claim unextinguished title over a vast region of the B.C. North Coast, said Mayor John Helin.

The document says the plaintiffs have “the right to choose to what uses the land can be put,” while arguing Trudeau’s tanker ban thwarts this objective “and the ability of the plaintiffs to create economic support for their community based on the development of an oil export facility.”

The Lax Kw’alaams said the Canadian government has “not considered or responded” to its request to set a latitude in its oil tanker moratorium that would allow tankers from Hyder to sail through a lane in Dixon Entrance.

But a spokeswoman for federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau said in a statement to the Financial Post that the tanker ban is designed to protect an “incredible environment that coastal and indigenous communities call home and ensure clean water” for future generations.

She said the moratorium was based on 75 public meetings and a further 20 sessions with indigenous groups.

- GARY PARK