The one thing
Pacific Link becomes the first Building Canada Act designation, with a 10 per cent equity offer and more than 110 First Nations on record with concerns
Prime Minister Mark Carney, standing with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith in Fort McMurray, designated the Pacific Link pipeline — formerly the West Coast Oil Pipeline — as Canada's first project of national interest under the Building Canada Act. The roughly 1,200-km line would carry up to one million additional barrels of crude a day from Bruderheim, Alberta, to a new marine terminal near Delta, B.C., largely along the existing Trans Mountain corridor. Federally owned Trans Mountain Corporation will lead development, with Canada and Alberta as equal owners and Pembina Pipeline holding a 10 per cent private stake. The designation shifts the federal question from whether the project proceeds to how, with conditions on ownership, Indigenous rights and environmental protection targeted for September 2027.
Ottawa is offering Indigenous communities along the route a minimum 10 per cent ownership stake, financed through the federal and Alberta Indigenous loan-guarantee programs, plus benefit agreements on contracting, procurement and employment. The government says the Major Projects Office held more than 140 meetings with 110-plus communities between July 3 and September 18. That consultation window was originally one month; it was extended to September 18 after leaders objected, and the designation came 12 days after it closed. More than 110 First Nations have expressed concerns or opposition.
The response arrived within hours. The Assembly of First Nations said the process raised "many red flags" and appeared to predetermine outcomes; National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak said Major Projects Office staff do not understand how to work with First Nations communities. The Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs formally rejected the designation, with Grand Chief Stewart Phillip saying it will be "hard-fought in the court rooms, and if necessary, with boots on the ground." Coldwater Vice-Chief Michael Smithers said the Crown's duty to consult and accommodate Coldwater "remains unfulfilled," and Coldwater is considering court or other action. Community leaders told reporters they still lack basic information on routing, engineering, marine shipping and emergency response. Merle Alexander, representing affected communities, put it this way: "I don't think it's necessarily an empowering situation to feel the fix is in on a project of such significant interest."
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Economic Sovereignty
An eleven-year reconciliation accounting: equity offers scaling, infrastructure gap at $376.1 billion
A Canadian Press analysis published for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation set Ottawa's equity push against the numbers that have not moved. The federal government has offered 129 First Nations along the Trans Mountain route a collective 15 per cent ownership stake, financed by low-cost government loans. The Assembly of First Nations puts the cost of closing First Nations infrastructure disparities at $376.1 billion over ten years; 36 First Nations have gone more than a year without safe drinking water, and 83 reserves were affected by wildfire this year. Indigenous Watchdog, a non-profit tracker, found corporations have not started on Truth and Reconciliation Call to Action 92, which covers free, prior and informed consent before development.
Why it matters
The piece sets the two speeds side by side. First Nations Major Projects Coalition CEO Mark Podlasly, who supports equity participation, questioned whether a one-year "one project, one review" timeline leaves room for meaningful consultation. Wet'suwet'en Hereditary Chief Na'Moks described equity offers as an attempt to "buy you off." Both views were on the record before the Pacific Link designation landed the next day.
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Âsokan Generational Developments wins Alberta's Indigenous Business Award of Distinction
Justin Bourque, former CEO of Willow Lake Métis Nation, took the Indigenous Business Award of Distinction at the Alberta Business Awards of Distinction for Âsokan Generational Developments, the advisory firm he founded in 2023. The firm has worked with more than 40 Indigenous communities on close to $3 billion in transactions, mostly in energy. Bourque called the win "such an honour" and a "pleasant surprise," noting he was up against "two very impressive companies."
Why it matters
Three years in, an Indigenous-owned, Indigenous-led firm is sitting on the Nation side of the table in the kind of equity transactions that Pacific Link and the Trans Mountain offer are now putting in front of dozens of communities at once.
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Land, Water & Rights
Along the Pacific Link route, the objections are specific: treaty territory, tanker traffic, river crossings
Beyond the national statements, individual Nations named what the designation touches. Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation Chief Sheldon Sunshine called the process "unconstitutional," saying engagement ran two months against the year originally planned. Cold Lake First Nations Chief Kelsey Jacko said the Nation received no advance notice of the designation even though the pipeline runs through its in-situ oil sands territory. On the coast, Heiltsuk Chief Marilyn Slett raised tanker traffic; in the Fraser Valley, Semá:th Chief Dalton Silver raised salmon and fishing rights at river crossings. The federal government's answer is the count: more than 140 meetings with 110-plus communities over eleven weeks.
Why it matters
These are the same questions — compressed timelines, adequacy of accommodation, coastal shipping — that ran through the Trans Mountain litigation a decade ago, now arriving at a new statutory process. Whether the Building Canada Act's designation changes the analysis is something no court has yet addressed.
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Pays Plat First Nation receives 4,203 acres, completing a 2018 agreement 36 years in the making
Canada, Ontario and Pays Plat First Nation, on the north shore of Lake Superior, announced a 4,203-acre addition to the Nation's reserve on September 23. The transfer completes the Land and Larger Land Base Final Agreement the three parties signed in 2018. Chief David Mushquash said the addition realizes "the results of over 36 years of discussions between the Crowns and the Pays Plat First Nation." Ontario Minister Greg Rickford spoke of "clarity and certainty" for the community's land-base vision; federal Minister Patty Hajdu pointed to housing and economic opportunity.
Why it matters
It joins a run of completed additions to reserve this year — Hatchet Lake Denesuline, Flying Dust, Kettle and Stony Point among them — each one closing a file that in Pays Plat's case opened in 1990.
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Nipissing First Nation marks the return of 34,333 acres surrendered in 1907
Nipissing First Nation announced that 34,333.1 acres of unsold surrendered land have formally returned to Nipissing Indian Reserve No. 10, with 32,333.1 of those acres added by federal order on May 15, 2026. The land was surrendered in 1907 under government pressure for sale to nearby towns; much of it failed to sell at a 1919 auction. A 1924 agreement placed the unsold land under Ontario's control while Nipissing kept an underlying interest. A 1986 framework agreement and a 1995 Specific Agreement set out the return; Ontario issued its order in 2004. A community celebration was livestreamed October 2.
Why it matters
Gimaa Cathy Stevens said "this day belongs to the generations who kept our connection to this land strong," and that the process "took far too long." She said the land is not coming back for new development and there will be no per-member payments. At more than 34,000 acres it is among the largest single reserve-land returns of the year.
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Closer to Home
UBCIC rejects the Pacific Link designation by resolution, with the terminal landing at Tsawwassen
The Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs issued its rejection the same day as the designation, citing Resolution 2026-46 from its Chiefs-in-Assembly. Grand Chief Stewart Phillip called for free, prior and informed consent under B.C.'s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act to apply to every project fast-tracked under the Building Canada Act. The statement, also signed by Vice-President Chief Linda Innes and Secretary-Treasurer Chief Marilyn Slett, says the line and added tanker traffic would expose First Nations lands, waters and ways of life to spill and climate risk the signatories consider unacceptable.
Why it matters
The route follows the Trans Mountain corridor through the Interior and ends at a new marine terminal near Tsawwassen, in the Fraser estuary. UBCIC is asking that DRIPA's consent standard govern a federal designation — a question B.C. voters will weigh in on three weeks from now.
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DRIPA moves from the legislature to the campaign trail
Premier David Eby called a snap election on September 22, with voting October 24; the fall sitting that was meant to settle DRIPA's future was dissolved instead. On September 30 Eby attended ceremonies at Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc, asking British Columbians to "reflect on and learn from the tragic legacy of residential schools" and condemning the white-nationalist demonstration held on the reserve three days earlier. BC Green Leader Emily Lowan committed to fully implementing DRIPA through legislation, enacting Indigenous language rights legislation, striking a task force on missing and murdered Indigenous women, children and Two-Spirit people, and a formal apology over DRIPA's handling. BC Conservative interim leader Lorne Doerkson framed the day around "economic reconciliation"; his party has confirmed it would repeal DRIPA. The day was darkened by a vehicle collision at Tsawwassen Mills during a reconciliation walk that killed two Tsawwassen First Nation Elders.
Why it matters
DRIPA is the provincial consent framework that the Cowichan title case and now the Pacific Link objections both invoke. Three parties have now staked out three different positions on it — strengthen, hold, repeal — with the answer due October 24.
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Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc holds a healing circle after a white-nationalist group appears near the former school
Masked individuals associated with Second Sons Canada appeared on the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc reserve near the former Kamloops Indian Residential School site on September 27. The Nation organized a healing circle at the Powwow Arbour on September 28, where Kukwpi7 Rosanne Casimir thanked the wider community for its solidarity. Kamloops Deputy Mayor Kelly Hall attended and called the demonstration "despicable." Upper Nicola Band Chief Dan Manuel called it "deplorable and troubling" and said the Okanagan Nation Alliance would prepare to defend member communities; the Syilx Okanagan Nation issued a solidarity statement the same day. A joint National Day for Truth and Reconciliation event with the City followed at the Arbour on September 30.
Why it matters
This happened steps from the site that brought the country's attention to unmarked graves in 2021. The response came from the Nation first, then from the city and from neighbouring Interior and Syilx leadership within a day.
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The bright spot
Four new fluent speakers: UBC Okanagan graduates its first St'át'imc language cohort
The inaugural Bachelor of St'át'imc Language Fluency class graduated this spring: Deborah (Dee) Doss-Cody of St'át'imc Nation, Chief Officer of the Stl'atl'imx Tribal Police Service; Rena Patrick of N'Quatqua, an early childhood educator; Angelina Hopkins-Rose, now in an Indigenous language master's at the University of Victoria; and Audrey Casper of Tsal'alh, finance manager for the Lillooet Tribal Council. The degree runs two years at the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology and two years of immersion at UBCO, and is the third of UBCO's four Interior Salish language programs, after Nsyilxcn and Nłeʔkepmx. Fewer than 50 fluent St'át'imcets speakers remain, nearly all Elders. There are now four more.
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