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LEGAL REPORT: ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT F Facing off with irst Nations Aboriginal groups are challenging a variety of energy developments in what one lawyer calls 'tremendously complicated litigation.' BY GL ENN KAUTH A lready hampered by the recession, Alberta's energy industry faces a relatively new challenge: lawsuits launched by aboriginal groups. "Abso- lutely, it's a trend, and I think, if you're looking for a growth area of practice, this would be one. It's tremendously complicated litigation that goes on for a long time, and there are huge amounts at stake," says Lewis Manning, a partner with Lawson Lundell LLP in Calgary. Manning has extensive experience defending energy companies in such cases, most recently in Manitoba where a number of First Nations have launched challenges in Federal Court against the Keystone and Enbridge pipelines aiming to carry oilsands bitumen from Alberta to the United States for processing into 46 SEPTEMBER 2009 www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com crude oil. But while the latest Alberta cases target oilsands developments, he says all of them carry a similar theme. "It's all aboriginal groups who are essen- tially arguing that the pipeline approvals should be set aside because of a failure to consult and accommodate. In sub- stance, it's the same type of argument that's being made across many jurisdic- tions. There are a lot of lawyers involved on the aboriginal side in different jurisdictions." In Alberta, the litigation takes pri- mary aim at the provincial government for allowing oilsands development on land traditionally used by First Nations for hunting and trapping. In one of them, the Chipewyan Prairie Dene First Nation in the hamlet of Janvier, 150 kilometres