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OTTAWA — Natural Resources Minister Amarjeet Sohi has personally met with leaders of nearly two dozen Indigenous communities since the Federal Court of Appeal struck down the Canadian government’s approval of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion in August.

The court said the original consultations with Indigenous communities affected by the pipeline plans was insufficient so the government is planning another attempt. Sohi has already met with people from 22 communities, including most of those behind the successful court challenge, as he tries to set rules for a new round that he hopes will satisfy the court’s conditions.

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Sohi says this new round of talks has no deadlines and will follow the court’s blueprint.

“I take this very very seriously,” Sohi said Monday, a few days after his latest trip to meet with communities in British Columbia. “We need to do things differently.”

In rejecting the government’s approval of the pipeline plan at the end of the summer, the court said the consultation plan was sound but wasn’t properly executed. The panel sent to meet with people affected by the pipeline was given no mandate to do anything with what it heard. The bureaucrats took notes but provided little in the way of feedback or answers to questions raised by different band councils. In many cases the communities were told their concerns could be dealt with after the pipeline was built but got no guarantee they actually would be.