Friends of the Lubicon
PO Box 444 Stn D,
Etobicoke ON M9A 4X4
Tel: (416) 763-7500
Email: fol (at) tao (dot) ca
www.lubicon.ca
February 5, 2008
Husky Energy, another major oil company, has now weighed in on behalf of TransCanada's proposed pipeline across unceded Lubicon Territory over Lubicon objections.
Husky's Statement of Intent to Participate in the hearing of the TransCanada pipeline application reads;
"Husky is a major producer and shipper on NGTL, as well as a producer of Alberta's oil sands and as such has an interest in the proceedings relating to this Application".
NGTL is an acronym for Nova Gas Transmission Limited. NGTL became a wholly owned subsidiary of TransCanada in 1998.
NGTL was originally incorporated in 1954 as the Alberta Gas Trunk Line by then Alberta Provincial Premier Ernest Manning to transport gas in Alberta. With an effective, government-provided monopoly on the transport of gas in Alberta, AGTL did well and began to form and incorporate subsidiary companies related to the oil and gas industry. By 1978 AGTL had acquired, among other things, majority ownership of Husky Oil which it owned until 1991. Husky was one of the companies that opened up unceded Lubicon Territory for gas and oil exploitation in the early 1980's.
In 1980 AGTL changed its name to Nova, An Alberta Corporation "to better reflect the companies growing range of corporate interests" that included, among other things, joint ownership with the Alberta government of a major cell phone company called Novatel Communications. The cozy relationship between regulator and regulatee continues with the Alberta government appointing the members of the Alberta Utilities Commission that will be considering the pipeline application.
fol-request at masses.tao.ca