The Canadian PM’s breakthrough oil deal with Alberta cost him a cabinet minister and will still face stiff opposition
When the people of the Haida nation won a decades-long battle for recognition that an archipelago off the coast of British Columbia in Canada was rightfully theirs, it was a long overdue victory.
The unprecedented deal with the provincial and the federal governments meant the Haida no longer had to prove that they had Aboriginal title to the land of Xhaaidlagha Gwaayaai, “the islands at the boundary of the world”
Now, both governments will have to face what that might mean.
On Thursday, the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, and the Alberta premier, Danielle Smith, agreed an energy deal centred on plans for a new heavy oil pipeline reaching from the province’s oil sands to the Pacific coast.
