“A Vietnam-Like Quagmire”: Media Framing of Indigenous Opposition to the Trans Mountain Pipeline

This chapter examines news media representations of the Federal Court of Appeals decision to overturn approval of the TMX in August of 2018. The proposed expansion, which would increase the capacity of the existing Trans Mountain pipeline that runs from the oil sands of Alberta to the British Columbia coast, emerged as one of the most divisive contemporary political issues in Canada during the years immediately following the TRC. Importantly, it represents a significant test of the Canadian government’s willingness to extend the paradigm of reconciliation to include a respect for Indigenous Peoples’ right to free, prior, and informed consent. Using the methods of frame and content analysis, the findings of this chapter indicate that the news media engaged in decontextualized patterns of coverage, helping to construct a highly insulated narrative of the pipeline that erased the hard rights claims of Indigenous Peoples. The framing present in news coverage raises significant doubts about the news media’s capacity to contribute to meaningful land-based reconciliation between Indigenous Peoples and the settler state.