UN Committee Assesses First Nations' Consent on Petronas, Site C | The Energy Mix

23.8.17

UN Committee Assesses First Nations' Consent on Petronas, Site C | The Energy Mix: The discussion turns in large part on Article 2 of the UN International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which provides that “each State Party shall take effective measures to review governmental, national, and local policies, and to amend, rescind, or nullify any laws and regulations which have the effect of creating or perpetuating racial discrimination wherever it exists.” While Canada’s environmental assessment process for big resource projects recognizes a “duty to consult”, DeSmog notes, “that’s vastly different from the expectation of ‘free, prior and informed consent’ as outlined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).”

That distinction was a focus of Indigenous representatives’ interventions before the UN committee.

“We asked [the Committee] to use any force that they can to get Canada to uphold, support, and use” UNDRIP, Wet’suwet’en hereditary chief Deneza Na’Moks (John Ridsdale) told DeSmog. Although Malaysian state fossil Petronas eventually dropped out of Pacific NorthWest, “the cancellation of one project because of poor gas prices does nothing to address the underlying legal issues that will plague any project that threatens the wild salmon,” said Kirby Muldoe, a member of the delegation of Tsimsian and Gitxsan descent.