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As the prime minister graces the cover of Rolling Stone, the real news this week is how two major natural resources projects have been scuttled by government and the courts

The fawning front cover of the latest Rolling Stone, which features Justin Trudeau and wonders wistfully, “Why can’t he be our President?” also touts a headline promising to explain how the Trump administration is destroying the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Many Canadians will rejoice at the contrast — and, it’s true, few would exchange Trudeau’s golden aura for Trump’s tangerine tincture. But the idea that Trudeau is getting everything right — particularly when it comes to balancing environmental protection and growing the economy — is fallacious. The government is touting the International Monetary Fund’s forecast that Canada will lead the G7 in growth this year. But there is a lag before government action affects the economy.

The warning this week from the Chamber of Commerce that Canada’s climate-change plan and other measures are raising the cost of doing business in this country to breaking point is a canary in the coal mine, gasping from exposure to the toxic gases of too many taxes and too much regulation.

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https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

OTTAWA — The Supreme Court of Canada affirmed Wednesday that Indigenous people do not have a veto over resource projects affecting their traditional territory, even as it quashed a regulatory permit for an oil-exploration program that Inuit residents of Baffin Island feared would damage their hunting rights.

Residents of Clyde River – population 1,100 – fought an uphill battle against a consortium of multinational oil service companies that planned to conduct seismic testing to assess the oil and gas potential of offshore sites. The top court agreed that the regulatory agency had failed to adequately assess the risk posed by the seismic testing to the community’s treaty rights to hunt bowhead whales, narwhal, seals and polar bears.

In a companion ruling, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge by a First Nations community that argued the government had failed to properly consult and accommodate its concerns when the regulatory agency approved Enbridge Inc.’s project to reverse the flow of its existing Line 9 pipeline through Ontario to Quebec.

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https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Indigenous Canadian communities have unique rights under Section 35 of the Constitution. These protections, covering pre-existing rights and those acquired by treaty, are extensive – but some are also limited.

That’s the takeaway from a pair of Supreme Court rulings released Wednesday. One considered the National Energy Board’s approval of an oil and gas exploration project, over the objections of an Inuit community; the Court struck the project down. The other case looked at the NEB’s approval of the Line 9 pipeline reversal in Ontario; the Court said that, even though an affected Indigenous community was opposed to the project, the regulator had properly consulted and properly approved it.

At issue in both cases is the Crown’s “duty to consult.” When a development – like a pipeline or an oil-exploration project – has an impact on an Indigenous community’s rights, such as the right to hunt or fish on traditional native territory, they must be adequately consulted.

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