Sad to say, but in my opinion based on observation, FN consultation is legitimized extortion even here in Alberta and very rarely produces any meaningful result. When the activity levels in the patch dropped and all service providers cut left and right the invoices from FN's for consultation site visits doubled. When we inquired many FN's blatantly said that there is less money coming now so we have to increase each invoice. I couldn't care less if this approach was applied to reserve lands, IOGC oversees anyway and you take the risk of playing there, it's basically sovereign land. My concern is that FN's through their Treaty's claim a consultation right over all lands. Right now it's only administered on public lands, but the discussion always come up about private just no FN or Government wants to broach it because they know it's a powder keg issue which would polarize public against FN's.
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