First Nations challenge Carney's national interest status for Pacific Link oil pipeline | Daily Hive

B.C. First Nations chiefs seek to overturn Prime Minister Carney's national interest status for Pacific Link oil pipeline

St’át’imc Chiefs Council press conference on Nov. 2, 2026, announcing their legal challenge against the Government of Canada's national interest designation of the proposed Pacific Link oil pipeline. (St’át’imc Chiefs Council)

An organisation representing 11 First Nations in British Columbia announced today that it has launched a legal challenge in Federal Court to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s formal national interest designation for the proposed Pacific Link oil pipeline.

The St’át’imc Chiefs Council (SCC) is pursuing the challenge a month after the designation was made under the federal government’s Building Canada Act (BCA), which is a measure to expedite the project’s federal approvals to allow construction to begin sooner.

It alleges the decision was unlawful and unconstitutional, with its challenge joining those of other First Nations that have announced their own lawsuits.

You might also like:

Pacific Link is being spearheaded by Alberta’s provincial government and the Government of Canada. It is intended to move an additional one million barrels of oil from the Edmonton area to a new marine export terminal in Tsawwassen in Metro Vancouver, with the pipeline’s route largely following the existing Trans Mountain Pipeline corridor. The final route remains subject to detailed design and planning work, review, consultation, and approvals.

Premier-elect Lorne Doerkson and his incoming majority provincial government led by the Conservative Party of British Columbia have pledged to work with their counterparts in Alberta and the federal government to advance the project, with B.C. gaining major ongoing economic and financial benefits in return.

Roberts Bank Delivery Tank Terminal oil delta tsawwassen

Potential route options for the new Alberta-B.C. West Coast oil pipeline to reach the new Roberts Bank marine terminal, largely following the Trans Mountain corridor. (Government of Alberta)

However, the St’át’imc Chiefs Council expressed concern over how the new pipeline could impact the environment of the Fraser River and the Strait of Georgia, with the expectation that Pacific Link would double crude oil tanker traffic.

“The threat of an oil spill affecting Fraser River salmon, our fishing rights and our way of being, is heinous,” said SCC chair Justin Kane in a statement.

“Yet this project was approved under the BCA without any impact assessment at all, and without any consultation with the St’át’imc Nation as a whole.”

The chiefs argue the federal designation effectively commits the federal government to allowing the pipeline to proceed, leaving later consultations to focus on the rules for building and operating it.

They claim that their First Nations should have been able to help determine whether the project should move forward in the first place.

Under the BCA, Carney’s national interest status gives a project advance federal approval, subject to further consultation and conditions. Multiple federal permits are then brought together in one document setting out the requirements the project must meet.

In its Oct. 1 announcement on the decision to grant the project a national interest designation, the federal government noted that its Major Projects Office had consulted more than 130 Indigenous communities near or along possible pipeline routes in Alberta and B.C. over the previous three months. At the time, the federal government also made it clear that further consultations with Indigenous communities were forthcoming and would form part of the review to establish Pacific Link’s conditions.

The federal government is aiming to finalize the conditions by September 2027, which would enable construction to begin.

The federal government has presented the pipeline as a way to reach more Asian customers and reduce Canada’s dependence on the United States. Given Canada’s significant economic challenges, it would also provide the Alberta, B.C., and federal governments with a new ongoing long-term source of revenue.

Indigenous communities are to be offered at least a 10 per cent ownership interest, supported by federal and Alberta loan guarantee programs.

“The collusion of the federal and provincial governments along with a few industry and corporate elites, who cloak themselves as economic saviours, will force First Nations further into third-world conditions contributed to by the extinction of the Fraser River wild salmon and the collapse of First Nations’ culture and traditions relating to wild salmon,” said St’át’imc Elder Art Adolph.

During today’s SCC press conference, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, a prominent Indigenous leader in B.C., said, “My fundamental message to corporations is ‘buyer beware’ when you invest in B.C., because we are not standing down, we are not stepping back.”

Phillip, who is the president of the Union of British Columbia Chiefs, also drew controversy last week when he said Premier-elect Doerkson’s plan to repeal the highly controversial BC NDP’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) would amount to a “declaration of war.”

“We’re not going to stand idly by while the government-elect does, in fact, rip it up,” said Phillip. “That’s a declaration of war.”

You might also like: