Alberta First Nation contests energy asset swap – The Globe and Mail
An Alberta First Nation is invoking a recent Supreme Court ruling over aboriginal land rights, complicating a deal involving two major pipeline companies.
The Stoney Nakoda First Nation, whose reserve lands are in the Rocky Mountain Foothills between Calgary and Banff National Park, said the federal government has not lived up to its constitutional duty to consult, and is calling on the National Energy Board to hold off approving an asset swap between TransCanada Corp. unit Nova Gas Transmission Ltd. and Atco Ltd.
As an intervenor in an NEB hearing into the asset swap, the aboriginal group also demands that an Atco pipeline that runs through its lands to Banff from the Calgary area, but is not part of the exchange, be transferred to TransCanada, so it would be regulated by a federal authority rather than a provincial one.
The NGTL assets are regulated by the NEB, a national body, and the Atco pipelines by the Alberta Utilities Commission.
