The hard lessons of Northern Gateway – Alberta Oil Magazine

What’s it going to take to get aboriginal communities to support pipelines that carry bitumen to the West Coast? More than anyone ever imagined

It was, at the time, both a foregone conclusion and a nearly irrelevant one. Last June, acting on the recommendation of the National Energy Board’s Joint Review Panel, the Government of Canada approved the construction of Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline – subject, of course, to a mere 209 conditions. The problem, however, is that all the federal approvals in the world don’t mean much when the people who are standing – and living – between the oil sands and the export terminal in Kitimat that would take the bitumen to Asian markets are actively, and at times aggressively, opposed to it. Indeed, in the current political environment, all the federal approvals in the world might just make those opponents dig in even deeper.

Read More: http://www.albertaoilmagazine.com/2015/05/the-hard-lessons-of-northern-gateway/