Climate Justice in local Indigenous communities in collaboration with Mountain Protectors

The Mountain Protectors are a grassroots group monitoring and reporting activities of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion on Indigenous lands. Our team’s overall goal is to support the work of the Mountain Protectors by researching, analyzing and summarizing existing legal pluralities into a succinct document to be used to determine the best path forward when frontline workers find or are notified of breaches committed by pipeline companies. This involves jurisdictional research for the protection of Indigenous rights in the oil and gas sector, current legislation and regulations on species at risk, contaminated soil, FOI’s, major infrastructure,  land claims, human rights issues, land dispossession, corporate governance, environmental impact, as well as selective prosecution and arrest.

This project seeks to build upon previous documentation of spill reporting by last year’s CJRC group to conduct an analysis of existing local, provincial, and federal policies and legislation on major infrastructure projects. We summarized where major infrastructure governing laws and policies can be located and how they impact major infrastructure projects in Canada and examined data retrieved from Canadian energy monitors and sensors.

Expanding on the previous report by:

• Looking at legal intersections with legislation outside of the oil and gas sector (e.g. endangered species legislation)
• Literature review
• Policy analysis and policy recommendations (this might be out of scope)
• Consulting existing documents written by Indigenous communities
• Looking at statements, news articles, and other reports that are written by Indigenous Peoples to ensure that our final report is looking at voices that are often left out of media and academia, 
• Analyzing Canada’s commitment to UNDRIP