First Nations want feds to let them use oil and gas cleanup funds not spent by Alberta government [Video]

Several First Nation chiefs spoke at a news conference west of Edmonton on Monday to call for the federal government to allow them to access unused funds the Alberta government had received from Ottawa to clean up oil and gas sites in the province.

“Many Alberta First Nations have felt the greatest impacts of natural resource developments which have swept through our lands and ancestral territories for generations, leaving behind environmental wreckage, while being deprived of the opportunity to meaningfully participate or benefit,” Chief Ivan Sawan of Loon River First Nation said in a news release. “We are calling on the federal government to do the right thing and release these funds for the environmental and economic purposes they were intended, so that First Nations can create meaningful job opportunities, clean up our lands, and create a healthier and more prosperous future for our people.”

The funding the chiefs spoke about Monday related to the Alberta Site …