By Trevor Jang for Discourse Media.
Opponents of a massive liquefied natural gas project proposed for the north coast of B.C. have dug up a scientific report that band members were never shown.
In January of this year the Lax Kw’alaams Band signed an impact benefit agreement worth approximately $1 billion over 40 years in exchange for support for the $36 billion Pacific Northwest LNG project. But documents filed in federal court last month show the band council suppressed scientific research it had commissioned when the research report did not support the band’s position on the project. Members of the Gitwilgyoots Tribe, (Read more…) filed the documents, are also arguing the band has no authority to approve the project.
“I don’t believe that they’re very ethical with the way that they’re doing things,” Murray Smith, a spokesperson for the Gitwilgyoots, tells me. “Why won’t [they] show us [the report]? Because it would work against them.”