OTTAWA (Reuters) ? A Canadian firm seeking to build a pipeline from oil-rich Alberta to the Pacific Coast needs to obtain the consent of aboriginal bands, some of whom oppose the project, Canada's top native leader indicated on Wednesday.
The comments underline the difficulties facing Enbridge Inc as it tries to push through the C$5.5 billion ($5.4 billion Northern Gateway oil pipeline, which would cross land belonging to many Indian bands, or first nations.
Shawn Atleo, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, said bands had "the right to free, prior and informed consent" over projects affecting their territory.
"We need to move away ... from the notion that we are only stakeholders when it comes to major projects. Whether it be a pipeline or a mine, first nations have real rights (and) those rights must be recognized when it comes to any development in this country," he told a news conference.
Native Indians, who make up around 1.2 million of Canada's 34.5 million population, largely live on reserves and suffer high levels of poverty, crime, unemployment and poor health.
The right-of-center Conservative government strongly backs Northern Gateway, which it says will help boost exports of tar sands-derived crude and provide lots of good jobs for natives.
The pipeline would carry 525,000 barrels a day across the Rockies to the West Coast, where it would be loaded onto tankers and shipped to Asia and other Pacific Rim markets.
The plan took on more urgency for an industry spending billions of dollars tapping the Alberta oil sands - the world's third-largest crude deposit - after Washington this month rejected TransCanada Corp's Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to Texas.
But some Indian bands in British Columbia say the risks of a spill are too great - either along the Northern Gateway route or along the Pacific Coast - and say they will block the pipeline if it is approved. Public hearings started earlier this month.
Increasingly unhappy aboriginal leaders say one big reason for their troubles is what they describe as the refusal of Ottawa to live up to treaties signed centuries ago between native bands and former colonial ruler Britain.
They say those agreements gave them rights over resources on their lands and are still valid.
"We have continued to lurch from crisis to crisis with deep social ills and deplorable conditions in our communities, very often when these communities are adjacent to major natural resources projects," said Atleo.
He said he wanted to break away from what he called the "Ottawa knows best" mentality.
Atleo spoke a day after hundreds of first nations chiefs held a formal meeting in Ottawa with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and senior cabinet ministers to press for more powers to improve living conditions and for more rights over resources.
Tempers are rising, and one senior British Columbia chief said this week that "an aboriginal uprising is inevitable" unless Ottawa handed over more control.
($1=$1.01 Canadian)
(Reporting by David Ljunggren; editing by Rob Wilson)
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