Reconciling power, relations, and processes: The role of recognition in the achievement of energy justice for Aboriginal people

Abstract

This article confirms the usefulness of the trivalent energy justice approach in analyzing the case of the Chippewas First Nation, a Canadian Indigenous group opposing a pipeline expansion application before the National Energy Board, later appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada. Consideration of the unique socio-economic and cultural place of the Chippewas, their arguments in the pipeline approval case, and the court's ultimate determination, all provide a rich context to explore what the Chippewas’ consider recognition justice and how it intersects with distributive and procedural justice. Procedural justice innovations in Canada include the Constitutional recognition of Aboriginal rights and the duty to consult Aboriginal peoples. In the Chippewas’ case, these added procedures did not advance their case against pipeline expansion and inequitable distribution of environmental harms. In this Canadian Aboriginal case, recognition justice stands out from procedural and distributive justice; this case illustrates the inadequacy of procedural protections for Aboriginal peoples to advance the recognition of their unique position in the energy supply chain. To attain recognition justice, the procedural justice to attain it, and distributive justice granting protection from ‘energy sacrificial zones’ is required.