Sheryl Lightfoot, the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous rights and politics and a UBC professor of First Nations Indigenous studies, spoke to CBC about Ottawa’s recent approval of the Pacific NorthWest LNG project.
She said the argument that the project was inherited from the previous government damages people’s view of the federal government.
“It just confirms people’s deepest suspicions — that there actually is no change, and that the processes in place have just continued, and that the status quo of the Harper government is the underlying agenda of the Trudeau government,” she said.
Kevin Hanna, director of the Centre for Environmental Assessment Research at UBC’s Okanagan campus, also weighed in on the topic in a Journal of Commerce article.
He mentioned the uncertainty of Petronas, the oil firm that would lead the project.
“(Petronas) made it very clear that they are not sure they want to go ahead,” he said. “I am not sure I would bet on it anytime soon,” he said.
