An Indigenous woman holds a sign as thousands of people attend a protest against the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion in Burnaby, B.C. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

“Why is Trudeau spending so much political capital ramming through pipeline and tanker traffic? No matter what he does for Alberta, Alberta will never elect Liberals.” ---

This coming Saturday on Burnaby Mountain will be a little like Gary Cooper’s classic western High Noon.

It will be a reckoning with big-time consequences for both the federal government and First Nations in their continued collision over the Kinder Morgan pipeline.

There will be some star power attending the protest of the pipeline expansion that day, including 82-year-old David Suzuki. At noon, “bold action” is planned. That has usually been code for people getting arrested — which 200 of them have already been. The leading man of the show will be one of British Columbia’s most revered Indigenous leaders, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip.

To his people, and a lot of non-native British Columbians, Chief Phillip is an amalgam of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela — a majestic and implacable force for justice. Bear in mind: everyone mythologizes the people they love and admire.

Having met and talked with the Grand Chief, let me put it this way: when Chief Phillip calls you a liar, as he described Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over broken environmental and treaty promises, there aren’t enough selfies in your smart phone to mitigate the damage.

The other side of this debate, the pro-Kinder Morgan brigade, is bringing star power too. Trudeau himself travelled to British Columbia this week to shore up support for the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion, known as the Trans Mountain project.

The prime minister toured the Canadian Coast Guard Base in James Bay, where he will discuss marine safety and spill prevention — oxymorons as far as pipeline opponents are concerned.

There will also be what anti-pipeline critics are calling “an elite fundraising event” — a $1,000-a-plate dinner party just up the road from the landmark Kinder Morgan protests. Protestors are planning to greet the PM with a mobile billboard — provided they can raise the $5,000 needed to rent it. No one knows what the billboard will say, but it will not likely include the words “Welcome back Justin.”

Trudeau has already had a taste of First Nations feelings here, face-to-face. For some FN’s people, the honeymoon is not only over, the separation agreement is now on the table. In September, 2016, the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations wrote a letter to Trudeau informing him that he was no longer welcome on their territory, or at least not until he started to keep his promises on Reconciliation.

And then it got personal with the activist movement. While Trudeau and his family were vacationing in Tofino in August, 2017, he was approached by Jeh Custerra, a campaigner for the Friends of Clayoquot Sound. A first-person account of the confrontation was posted on the group’s website.

“I approached him, he refused to talk with me, so I shared some ideas with him. I told him that reconciliation is more than just talk, and that free, prior, and informed consent with Indigenous Nations is essential. I told him the water he was on vacation to surf needs to be protected. I told him an oil spill would ruin what he was there to appreciate. When I confronted Trudeau, he was quick to call security. After our interaction, Trudeau vacated the area quickly. I stood firm upon the Earth, which I raised my voice to defend, and he was visibly shaken.”

First Nations people are not the only ones who reject Trudeau’s have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too approach to the conflicting realities of resource development and protection of the environment. The late Farley Mowat told me that a day would come when those two activities would collide, and that big government would always resolve doubts in favour of resource development.

Carl Rosenberg, who lives in the riding of Vancouver Granville, wrote a letter to PM Trudeau on one of the National Days of Action against Kinder Morgan’s project. It reflects Mowat’s view:

“You must decide whether your commitments are with Canada’s people (including its First Nations), with the environment, or with Canada’s oil industry.”

Internationally acclaimed writer, Ronald Wright, author of A Short History of Progress, is puzzled over how Trudeau has handled this file. As Wright told me at his home on Salt Spring Island, there is not much to be gained by his course of action politically speaking.

“Why is Trudeau spending so much political capital ramming through pipeline and tanker traffic? No matter what he does for Alberta, Alberta will never elect Liberals.”

Wright, who is known as one of the world’s foremost authorities on Indigenous people, points out that Indigenous rights in British Columbia have never been lost by conquest or signing off.

“Trudeau may well not be versed in history, but the people around him will surely be aware of the 2014 Supreme

Court of Canada case involving the Tsilhqot’in. Indigenous people have sovereign rights outside of treaties they have signed. Rights exist beyond the Reserve.”

Trudeau has anchored his position on Kinder Morgan on full support for Alberta premier Rachel Notley, and the knowledge that at the end of the day, he has the power to impose the pipeline on the people, government, and First Nations of British Columbia. Kinder Morgan’s injunctions against the protesters are legal. Short term, this project can advance by force.

But the other reality, the longer game, is that no one is going to buy Trudeau’s flimsy cover story that expanding the pipeline will actually make BC’s coast safer. Or that expanding Trans Mountain, will help in the fight against climate change. Or that Trans-Mountain has a flawless record with its pipeline.

In 2007, Trans Mountain and two other companies entered a guilty plea under a 21-count indictment under BC’s Environment Management Act, after the spill of 250,000 litres of crude oil in residential Burnaby led to the evacuation of 250 people from their homes.

If a Mountie orders Grand Chief Stewart Phillip off Burnaby Mountain, land he and others see as Indigenous territory, it is not difficult to imagine what will happen next.

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