EDMONTON — Canada’s chief executive of the year, though he is backed by one of the most powerful and determined Canadian prime ministers in generations, faces enormous hurdles at the grassroots level as he pushes his company’s $5.5 billion Northern Gateway pipeline linking Alberta’s oilsands resource to energy-hungry Asian markets via B.C.’s pristine coast.

Enbridge Inc.’s Pat Daniel must first overcome a regulatory approval process in which some 4,000 individuals and groups have registered as objectors. Then there’s a Hollywood-backed, well-financed protest movement that is vowing civil disobedience to stop the project.

And even if Daniel overcomes those two obstacles he faces threatened court challenges from aboriginal groups claiming title to parts of the pipeline route.

But Daniel, in an exclusive interview with The Edmonton Journal, said critics have seriously underestimated his company’s support among First Nations anxious to take advantage of economic development opportunities in northern B.C.

Enbridge, faced with an aggressive public assault this week from B.C. environmental and aboriginal groups, countered Friday with the Gitxsan First Nation announcement that it is taking an equity stake in the pipeline.

The Gitxsan in northwestern B.C. are one of the province’s most prominent First Nations, due to its role in the landmark 1997 Delgamuukw land claims decision in the Supreme Court of Canada, and has a population estimated by Enbridge at around 13,000.

“This now makes it obvious to the public and to others that we do have support, and we hope that that momentum will build from here,” he said Friday.

Daniel boldly predicted in the interview that at least 30 of the 45 First Nations along the 1,170-kilometre pipeline route from Bruderheim, near Edmonton, to Kitimat on the B.C. coast, will have deals with Enbridge by next June.

And he said he hopes all 45 will be onside by 2013, when Enbridge hopes to get regulatory approval to start a project that is set to be completed by late 2017.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, meanwhile, once again defended the importance of Canada finding a way to get oilsands bitumen to Asian markets in the wake of the Obama administration’s decision to delay the Keystone XL pipeline to the U.S.

“It is not in this country’s interests that we are a captive supplier of the United States of energy products, especially when we see some of the politics that are going on south of the border,” Harper told reporters.

B.C. First Nations, some of whom vowed to form a human “wall” to prevent Enbridge from setting foot in the province, remained defiant.

“This is just the same old divide-and-conquer tactic we’ve known for centuries,” said Chief Jackie Thomas of Saik’uz First Nation, speaking for the Yinka Dene Alliance.

“It doesn’t matter who they get a deal with. The wall of First Nations saying no is unbroken. They plan to come through our territories and we’ve already said no, and we’ll use every legal means we have to stop them.”

Daniel, 65, was recently named Canada’s 2011 chief executive of the year by the Caldwell Partners executive search firm. The award was partly in recognition of some key Enbridge acquisitions and a healthy rise in the company’s share price.

But Daniel, who earned $6.7 million in 2010 for a company with almost $1 billion in profits, rejects the stereotype that he is a successful corporate titan from the Alberta oilpatch who is insensitive to the environmental sensitivities of B.C.’s activist-oriented political culture.

An avid outdoorsman, fly-fishermen and self-proclaimed environmentalist, he proudly boasts owning a single car — a somewhat beat-up 2006 Toyota Prius that he is considering trading in for an all-electric Chevrolet Volt.

And his company has initiated numerous environmental programs that have won the company praise. They include a 2009 initiative to leave a “neutral footprint” during projects by replanting trees, funding land conservation reserve programs, and generating renewable energy.

Daniel, who earned science degrees from both the University of Alberta and the University of B.C., challenged former B.C. senator Pat Carney’s recent assertion that residents in northwestern B.C. will be hard to sway if they view the risks of a devastating pipeline leak or tanker spill outweighing perceived benefits.

He said Enbridge hopes British Columbians take a big-picture view of the project.

“I think I’d appeal to them as Canadians,” he said.

“We certainly would not put anyone at risk with this project, but we all I think have a responsibility to often accept things that are in the national good that might not necessarily be our favourite individual project.”

The “national good” argument refers to the perceived need, as Harper noted, that Canada needs to find other markets for oilsands bitumen following TransCanada’s Keystone XL delay.

Daniel said the resulting competition from opening up the industry to Asian markets, and especially China’s, will boost the price the industry gets by $2-$3 a barrel.

That will have a “huge” impact on federal and provincial tax revenues used to pay for programs like health care and education, he said.

But Daniel doesn’t underestimate the challenges. He said the Northern Gateway is the company’s most important project since the company built its first major pipeline to ship Alberta crude to the U.S. shortly after the Second World War.

But he also said the company has never faced this level of opposition since it was incorporated as Interprovincial Pipe Line in 1949.

One of Enbridge’s challenges, he acknowledged, is dealing with public fears of a tanker spill such as the Exxon Valdez disaster off the Alaska coast in 1989, or the far more recent spill of 800,000 gallons of oilsands crude from an Enbridge-operated pipeline in Michigan in 2010.

“Well, I think the assurance we can provide is that we will use the most up-to-date of technologies and the best practices anywhere in the world to minimize the likelihood of any kind of an incident.

“I’ve been saying as much as I can publicly that if we can’t do this as Canadians, who can? About 70 to 80 per cent of the world moves by tanker right now, and it moves safely and soundly from countries where you wouldn’t expect them to have standards nearly as good as Canadian standards,” he said.

“Can I give an absolute guarantee? No. But if we can’t do it as Canadians, who can?”

Poneil@postmedia.com

Twitter:@poneilinottawa

Read my blog, Letter from Ottawa, at edmontonjournal.com/oneil