Eleven working days were not enough for First Nations to weigh in on whether the Pacific Link oil pipeline should be designated as a project of national interest, chiefs told the MPO’s Dawn Farrell in a meeting of the B.C. Assembly of First Nations, and there needs to be a national standard for what meaningful consultation is. Farrell said she agrees that genuine co-operation with Indigenous Peoples is key to major projects’ success and plans to show that she means it over the next year. (The Canadian Press)

Talking point: Farrell said, however, that she isn’t sure how to square meaningful consultations with the federal government’s imperative to approve things faster, but also that without those consultations and co-operation, she knows proposals will get stuck in long court fights. That’s what happened with the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, which Farrell shepherded as a government project after the Federal Court of Appeal stopped it in 2018, partly over inadequate First Nations consultations.

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