A First Nations leader is sending a stern warning to a Calgary company over its plan to build an oil pipeline to a tanker port on the B.C. coast.
Art Sterritt, the Executive Director of the Coastal First Nations, says aboriginals will not allow Enbridge to do to them what BP has done to the people of Louisiana, a reference to the massive Gulf oil spill.
The warning came as Enbridge submitted its formal application to federal regulatory authorities to build a pipeline to carry oil from Alberta's tar sands to a tanker port in Kitimat for export.
The company says the Northern Gateway project will open new markets for Canadian oil, create jobs and provide a boost to the national economy and the communities it passes through.
But Sterritt says the project poses a grave threat to the future of coastal First Nations, and they do not intend to lose the fight against the plan.
Environmental groups like Greenpeace and the Living Oceans Society are also against the project, saying a tanker port in Kitimat would make an oil spill on the B.C. coast inevitable.
