City consulting with Treaty 7 Nations on Green Line alignment

The City of Calgary is consulting with Treaty7 First Nations on its planned route as it sets the groundwork forthe Green Line LRT project.

Theline will be40 kilometres and cross Calgary from north to south. In the process it will skirtseveral sites which may be of interest to the Piikani, Kainai, Siksika and Tsuut'ina nations.

That includes the site of a former residential school in the southeast part of the city, just across the Bow River from Beaverdam Flats park.

"We sent out a notification letter, just introducing ourselves and the project," said Evan Kortje, the project manager for the Green Line."Subsequently, we set up meetings with each of the four individual First Nation communities, to give a bit of background on the project and then set up site reviews, to tour them through the full Green Line southeast alignment."

Kortje said part of the outreach is to build better relationships between the city and the First Nations and "getting a better understanding from a historical and cultural perspective of the lands that we're impacting."

No objections to the Green Line route have been raised by any of the First Nations, according to Kortje, and ifany archeological sites or items are uncovered during the construction phase, he said the nations would be consulted again.

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