Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

Fort Smith (Sep 24/01) - The Federal Court will be asked to decide Thursday whether or not a winter road can be built through Wood Buffalo National Park.

In a plan that's been 40 years in the works, the Thebacha Road Society was set to begin construction this month, when they were slapped with a court injunction Aug. 21, filed by the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, to halt construction until the Sept. 27 trial.

Sam Gunsch, Executive Director for the Edmonton chapter of CPAWS, said the injunction was necessary to prevent construction before the case was heard.

"The Reader's Digest version of our affidavits were used to argue for the injunction," Gunsch said. "We argued that there were substantive issues and irreparable harm if they went ahead now."

Federal Court Justice Eleanor Dawson expedited the review and she scheduled one day, but Gunsch says it will likely run two days, but a decision likely won't be rendered until October or November.

Gunsch says despite the hurried-up court case, they have had their case ready for quite some time.

"We applied for the judicial review in the spring, so we had to file affidavits back then," he said, adding that they have also been working on smaller, supplementary affidavits since then.

In 1992, CPAWS filed suit to stop logging in Wood Buffalo National Park, the Cheviot mine at Jasper National Park and a road through a national park in Ontario.

The legal expertise comes from the Sierra Legal Defence Fund.

Last May, Parks Canada approved construction of the 118-kilometre winter road.

Richard Power of the Thebacha Road Society said they were all set for construction this fall, but have once again been delayed.

Power feels confident they will win the case and says they have done two years of research towards that goal.

"I think we've set a record for Federal Court cases on the amount of paper that's been presented," he said.

Power says he and many of the people in Fort Smith take exception CPAWS halting the project.

"I scratch my head and wonder why an environmental group -- that does not have a membership represented in the area -- can hold up a project that's wanted here by thousands of people," he said.

CPAWS argues that there are gaps in the environmental assessment.

Powers said the work done is more thorough than it needed to be, as they only required to conduct an environmental screening on the project, but they provided a complete environmental impact assessment conducted by Westward and Associates.

"We've gone beyond what we had to do," Power said. "We held open houses and we crossed all our t's and dotted all our i's."

Following this week's court case, the road society may face a second injunction from the Mikisew Cree First Nation in Fort Chipewyan, who are also disputing the road based on treaty rights. Power said they will have to obtain a separate injunction.

"The Mikisew are going to have to submit their own evidence in their case," he said. "If we're successful in our court case, I don't know what evidence they would want from that anyway, because if we win, the court will refuse to hear that evidence."

If the Mikisew do not get an injunction, Power said the construction will likely begin is the court rules in their favour.

"I would say yes," he said. "It's going to be more costly and more difficult, but we'll have to wait and see what the court says on the 27th."