Woodland Cree First Nation’s blockade on a road that leads to a worksite owned by Obsidian Energy Ltd.Paul Lavoie/Supplied
Tensions between Obsidian Energy Inc. and Woodland Cree First Nation have intensified again, with the oil company filing a court order asking that the chief and other members of the Northern Alberta community be arrested and jailed.
The standoff began in early May, when about 60 members of Woodland Cree blocked access to a worksite owned by Obsidian, after the community rejected the company’s application to expand drilling operations on its traditional territory. Woodland Cree Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom told The Globe and Mail last week that the community felt like it was being exploited by the company.
As a result of the blockade, Obsidian last week secured a court injunction that ordered members of the First Nation to cease blocking access to the site.
But they haven’t moved, and Obsidian’s lawyers on Tuesday wrote to the Court of King’s Bench in Calgary requesting an urgent application for contempt and arrest of the protesters.
Specifically, they asked for an order declaring that Mr. Laboucan-Avirom is in civil contempt, asking that he and other members of the blockade “be placed into custody pending the purging of their civil contempt or otherwise be subject to a fine, costs, or other penalty,” according to the court documents.
Obsidian also wants RCMP officers that have been monitoring the site since the blockade began to arrest anyone who refuses to obey the current injunction, the documents say.
Woodland Cree responded through its lawyers that Obsidian’s request is premature, with the oil company giving no explanation as to why it needs an urgent hearing to change the existing court order.
And it said ratcheting up injunction to request contempt charges and jail “has serious implications for the freedom of members of WCFN, including their Chief, as well as WCFN’s exercise of their Aboriginal Treaty and inherent rights.”
Woodland Cree has traditionally been extremely friendly to resource development, but Mr. Laboucan-Avirom contends that Obsidian has shown little regard for the First Nation by failing to hire contractors from the region. He also said there has also been a lack of concern around environmental stewardship.
Obsidian was slapped last year with an environmental protection order by the Alberta Energy Regulator for causing earthquakes with its oil sands operations. Woodland Cree says Obsidian has done little to improve its operations since then.
Woodland Cree isn’t the only First Nation that considers Obsidian’s area of operations to be within its traditional territory, the oil company said in its court filing Tuesday.
And while it came to a multimillion-dollar arrangement with Woodland Cree in 2023 to use oil field service companies owned by the First Nation at times, the company said in the court documents that it “does not, and cannot, favour one group over another by contracting with a single First Nation owned service company to the exclusion of others.”
An existing relationship between Obsidian and Woodland Cree built a revenue stream of more than $8-million for the benefit of the community since 2021, Obsidian said. But the most current round of negotiations broke down because the First Nation’s proposed terms “would create a monopoly in its favour” when it comes to operations and royalties.
“The purpose of the blockade is to apply pressure on Obsidian to agree to WCFN’s terms and conditions for an economic relationship agreement. Such tactics are unlawful,” it wrote in the court documents.
Corporal Mathew Howell, a public information officer with the RCMP, confirmed that members of the Peace River detachment have continued to visit the blockade site to try and find a peaceful resolution to the standoff.
Emma Graney