Atleo, Mercredi at odds with BC’s Coastal Nations

Art Sterritt regrets that his desire to meet with former Assembly of First Nations national chiefs Shawn Atleo and Ovide Mercredi was made public before he had a chance to pick up the telephone, but he notes that Atleo and Mercredi, now advisors with Pacific Future Energy, could have got in contact with him.

“We have a couple of people who’ve come in, gone to work for an oil company and never bothered to talk to us before they went there and have not reached out to the group who has been the most vocal about this thing for the past decade,” said Sterritt, executive director with the BC Coastal First Nations.

“It’s a two-way street. If they want to reach out, we’re still there.”

The Coastal First Nations is at the forefront of preventing oil from coming through the north coast. And that is still the position the group holds despite Pacific Future Energy’s proposal of the “world’s greenest refinery,” a $10-billion project for the Prince Rupert area, which would “turn Alberta’s raw bitumen into high value refined products … but it won’t be done at any cost to our coast or the broader environment,” reads the company’s website.

Sterritt, who says he respects both Atleo and Mercredi and has had numerous conversations with both men before they signed on with Pacific Future, wanted to talk to the former leaders about “stepping down.” In December, Pacific Future announced Atleo was joining the company’s senior management team in the role of “senior advisor-partnerships.” Mercredi was named to the Pacific Future’s advisory board.

“There’s nothing we can do to make them step down … but certainly they’re not going to get any freeway when it comes to oil. I have a very clear mandate from my communities,” said Sterritt. “We’ve been very clear with all those (proposed developments that) exposing the north coast, the Great Bear rainforest, to any dangers from oil is not something we’re going to abide by.”

Sterritt is willing to give Mercredi a break in understanding the position of the Coastal First Nations because Mercredi is not from BC, but Atleo is from BC and the Coastal First Nations have discussed their concerns with him numerous times when he held the position of national chief.

Sterritt said he would be interested in hearing from Atleo and Mercredi as to why they think Pacific Future’s project should proceed. However, Sterritt is clear that there is no “wiggle room” when it comes to moving oil through the Great Bear rainforest.

While Sterritt does see the advantage of having two former AFN chiefs in the boardroom of Pacific Future Energy if they take the Coastal First Nations’ message to the rest of the company.

“It would be our hope that they would get a full body of knowledge about why we have the position we have and why a new slant on this is not going to do the trick,” said Sterritt.

Newly elected AFN National Chief Perry Bellegarde agrees there are advantages to having First Nations people involved within organizations and governments.

“I would see them as potential allies … if they’re inside around those board room tables, if they’re inside around those management team tables … that they’re saying the things they’ve been espousing when they were former national chiefs or former chiefs at the community level,” said Bellegarde.

He adds that the AFN can “be hammering from the outside,” but work from within – whether in the corporate boardrooms or provincial and federal cabinets – is valuable.

“But having said that, those people, I would hope and pray, they have an Indigenous person’s perspective and worldview about land and water and how precious that is to our people, how important it is to respect and reflect inherent rights and treaty rights,” said Bellegarde.