The president of Trans-Mountain says the current round of consultations with First Nations are going well relating to the pipeline expansion project.

Ian Anderson says more than 140 Indigenous communities have been engaged now two to three times each. He says more than 50 staff with the corporation are “fully assigned” to the file.

“Those efforts started up in December and January and have been going intensely ever since. They’re going very very well, in terms of understanding more differently the concerns and interests of those communities,” Anderson tells NL News.

“We’re at every table, we’re active participants. We know the players, we know the people, we know the issues. And we’re looking for things that we might do differently perhaps in some of the communities in order to provide some mitigation or accommodation measures.”

Last August the Federal Court of Appeal overturned the federal government’s approval of the pipeline project and said the Crown hadn’t done meaningful consultation with First Nations.

There is no timeline for the consultations to end, but the federal government has a deadline of May 22 to make a decision on the pipeline.

“A lot of hard work is going on, a lot of people are involved. And I’m optimistic that it’s going to be seen to be thorough and complete when it’s done,” Anderson says.