One of the groups looking to buy a majority share of the Trans Mountain pipeline thinks the feds might sell it closer to the next federal election.

Mike Lebourdais, the Whispering Pines/ Clinton Indian Band chief and spokesperson for the Western Indigenous Pipeline Group, was talking about “background chatter” related to the pipeline.

“What they say publicly and what the background chatter is, usually is two different things. One of them is, we’re in a minority government and typically they last one-and-a-half or two years, and so they’ll be looking for some kind of good news story. Basically at the pipeline group, we’re trying to get taxpayers their money back and we’re just trying to get some environmental oversight.”

Meanwhile, he says his group has added two new Indigenous communities into the fold which are along the pipeline route near Edmonton.

“We’re moving along, we’re moving our letters of intent into binding agreements with our tier-one pipeline operator. That will go a long way with convincing Ottawa that the First Nations along the pipeline – the rights and title holders – should have a first crack at buying this pipe.”

Right now it’s unclear when the Trudeau government might sell the pipeline, which it bought from Kinder Morgan for $4.4 billion in 2018.

At least three separate consortiums of Indigenous communities are looking to bid on a majority share of the pipeline.