Higgs’s move fulfils a commitment his minority government made in its throne speech earlier this year and is in line with his party’s past support of the process.

However, the organization that represents Mi’kmaq chiefs – Mi’gmawe’l Tplu’taqnn Inc., or MTI – denounced the step as secretive and a step backwards in the province’s relationship with Indigenous populations.

A 2016 final report of a commission on the shale gas issue had urged the province to rebuild its relationship with Indigenous peoples, and to maintain the moratorium introduced in 2014 by the Liberals.