Nine First Nations have launched eight court challenges to Ottawa’s national-interest listing of the Pacific Link pipeline
Thunder Bay – LEGAL – Nine First Nations have launched eight Federal Court challenges to Ottawa’s decision to list the proposed Pacific Link oil pipeline as a project of national interest, opening the first major legal test of the federal government’s fast-track framework.
The applications seek judicial review of the Oct. 1 listing under the Building Canada Act. The applicants are located along the proposed pipeline or tanker routes, or rely on the Fraser River for fishing. Their claims have not been tested in court.
The nations include Boston Bar, Cheam, Lower Nicola, Kwantlen, Kwikwetlem and Tsartlip First Nations, the Skeetchestn Indian Band, and a joint application involving St’át’imc Nation and T’Sou-ke First Nation.
Tsartlip said Ottawa did not provide sufficient information about the project and its potential effects before making the national-interest decision. The St’át’imc Chiefs Council said a full assessment of risks to salmon and fishing rights, along with deeper consultation, was required before the designation.
The applications do not amount to a court finding that the government breached its duty to consult. They ask the Federal Court to review whether the decision-making process and consultation met legal requirements.
The project and Ottawa’s response
Pacific Link is intended to carry crude oil from Alberta to a marine terminal in the Delta, B.C., area, largely following the existing Trans Mountain corridor where possible. Public estimates cited in the court-challenge reporting place the project cost between $35.2 billion and $42.7 billion.
In the order supporting the listing, the federal government said the Major Projects Office identified and consulted more than 130 potentially affected Indigenous communities. Ottawa described the listing as a precursor to a Canada Energy Regulator review, further consultation and the development of conditions, not the end of regulatory scrutiny.
The same federal record acknowledges that the terminal and increased tanker traffic would disturb fish and marine mammals, add underwater noise in the Salish Sea and affect endangered southern resident killer whales. It says route planning, existing infrastructure and later regulatory conditions could reduce, but not eliminate, risks.
What happens next
No hearing date or decision timetable was confirmed by the research cutoff. The cases could determine how early the Crown must satisfy consultation obligations when cabinet uses the Building Canada Act to confer national-interest status, with consequences beyond this pipeline for other fast-tracked projects.
