An Indigenous environmentalist says he thinks energy companies are adopting a new tactic in the fight to win the hearts and minds of the Canadian public.
Arthur Manuel works with the environmental group, Defenders of the Land and is also a member of the Indigenous Action Network.
He says high-profile Aboriginal people and representatives are increasingly being targeted by oil companies to act as their spokespeople.
He points to Phil Fontaine, the former chief of the Assembly of First Nations, and former Aboriginal Affairs Minister Jim Prentice as two such examples.
Fontaine was recently hired by TransCanada Pipeline while Prentice has taken a job with Enbridge.
Manuel thinks the appointments are first indicators of a new strategy by energy companies to find people with vast experience in Aboriginal Relations to head up their communications teams.
However in the end he feels it will backfire because it’s clear indigenous people have proprietary rights within their treaty and traditional territories:
“They can’t gain any confidence from indigenous people and they’ll actually undermine the economy more than they’ll help the economy.”
Manuel says Aboriginal title is under attack these days and that’s why we can expect big companies to try and win the public relations war with the help of big-name Canadians.