..are those in the piece i posted not bc'ers
You know as well I do that if the Liberals had won the election Site C would still be proceeding full tilt. The only difference would be that Horgan and Heyman and Dix would be calling for the camps to be shut down. That's just the way they roll.
..yes i would agree with that krop. they would do that knowing full well they agreed with the liberals.
It is important to remain united and resolute and then we will see better days ahead for all of us!
He thinks health and safety guidelines introduced to help curb the spread of COVID-19 have been well-adopted by construction sites in B.C. There is physical distancing, greater education for workers, more signs, hygiene stations and protocols for disinfection, he said.
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In Vancouver, Anne McMullin, CEO and president of the UDI, noted that the provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, considers outdoor construction work a low-risk activity if the rules are followed.
..here in wpg workers at a meat packing plant have been declared essential.
..site c is not essential except to the powerful investors in the lng and fracking industry..who live nowhere near site c. so why take the risk in communities that don't have the resources nor the facilities to deal with the pandemic? the approach to the pandemic is supposed to be about flattening the curve. man camps are about sacrifice zones.
BC Hydro offered West Moberly First Nations $28 million in lump-sum payments and annual payments to address the impacts of the Site C dam, according to new court documents for a treaty rights infringement trial.
The documents also reveal details about deals BC Hydro signed with four of seven other B.C. Treaty 8 First Nations, which consented to the Site C dam project or did not “oppose or object” to it.
Until now, BC Hydro has withheld financial information about the secret deals it offered First Nations for the $10.7 billion Site C dam, the largest publicly funded project in the province’s history.
The documents, filed in B.C. Supreme Court on March 2, form part of BC Hydro’s response to a civil claim by West Moberly First Nations, which alleges the Site C dam and two previous dams on the Peace River constitute an unjustifiable infringement of treaty rights. A trial, scheduled to begin in March 2022, is expected to last six months.
According to the court documents, West Moberly First Nations did not accept BC Hydro’s financial offer, made in July 2014 — five months before the Site C project was approved by the B.C. government. That offer included a fee simple transfer of up to 3,000 hectares of Crown land, an area one and a half times the size of the city of Victoria.
The documents, filed in B.C. Supreme Court on March 2, form part of BC Hydro’s response to a civil claim by West Moberly First Nations, which alleges the Site C dam and two previous dams on the Peace River constitute an unjustifiable infringement of treaty rights. A trial, scheduled to begin in March 2022, is expected to last six months.
According to the court documents, West Moberly First Nations did not accept BC Hydro’s financial offer, made in July 2014 — five months before the Site C project was approved by the B.C. government. That offer included a fee simple transfer of up to 3,000 hectares of Crown land, an area one and a half times the size of the city of Victoria.
West Moberly also declined an offer from BC Hydro to apply for funding from a $10 million compensation fund for Indigenous groups, established to help address the Site C’s project’s impacts on land and resources used for traditional purposes, the documents state. (As of April 2, there was no information about the $10 million fund on BC Hydro’s Site C website, which lists other compensation funds related to the project.)
The Site C dam is slated to flood 128 kilometres of the Peace River and its tributaries, destroying Indigenous burial sites, traditional hunting and fishing grounds and dozens of cultural and spiritual sites with names such as Dreamer’s Island, Dancing Rock, Vision Quest Island and Canoe in Bush.
A Joint Review Panel that examined the project for the B.C. and federal governments concluded the impacts of the dam on First Nations traditional land use would likely be adverse, significant and impossible to mitigate.
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If BC Hydro offered that same sum of money to the four B.C. Treaty 8 First Nations who signed Site C impact benefit and land transfer agreements, the payout would be $112 million — not including indexing for inflation, the value of land transfers or procurement opportunities.
That’s on par with what Coastal GasLink estimated it would give five elected Wet’suwet’en band councils over a 25-year period in cash distributions totalling $4.6 million a year, for a sum of $115 million, according to a story in the Globe and Mail.
The disclosure about the money BC Hydro offered to West Moberly First Nations comes as the public utility falls under increasing criticism for continuing construction on the Site C project during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Although BC Hydro has scaled back its workforce, it continues to fly workers in and out from across B.C. and Alberta, despite calls from the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs and Fort St. John city councillors to shut down the project during the pandemic. As of April 1, there were 935 workers at BC Hydro’s Site C dam camp and seven were in self-isolation with flu-like symptoms....
..the ndp position on site c is politically based not medically based.
With BC Hydro reporting 12 workers with flu-like symptoms, city councillors, First Nations chiefs and local community members are calling for an immediate suspension of work on the project
Fort St. John’s mayor and city councillors didn’t mince words on Tuesday at a special council meeting that declared the pandemic a local emergency, briefly granting the city extraordinary powers such as the ability to manage people’s movements and to ration.
“If for some reason there was an outbreak at Site C our hospital would be inundated with patients that we could not handle, that our health system could not handle with the seven ventilators we have in the community,” councillor Trevor Bolin said during the meeting, which some councillors and the mayor joined remotely while others sat spaced apart in the council chamber. “They should just stop working until this is done … ”
“Site C is not a vital thing to our society,” said councillor Byron Stewart. “It is not an emergency service, it is not front-line service. It is a structure that’s being built. I personally would just like to see the province step in and shut it down, and send everybody home.”
Mayor Lori Ackerman said the Fort St. John hospital, which has 55 acute care beds and three ICU units, would be under “extreme pressure” if it had to accommodate sick people from outside the region as well as ailing local residents.
“This is not about not being compassionate, this is about ensuring the services to the community are safe and secure,” she said, emphasizing that her comments were directed at industry in general. Ackerman said fly-in fly-out workers should be “home with their families, self-isolating [with] their support systems.”
The ability of the city of Fort St. John to take local measures to deal with the pandemic was swiftly curtailed on Thursday as B.C. Minister of Public Safety Mike Farnworth, citing the need for a centralized provincial response, suspended all local states of emergency specific to the COVID-19 pandemic, except for the city of Vancouver.
“What we need to have is a coordinated response right across the province so we don’t have a patchwork response,” Farnworth said at a press conference.
But even though the province issued a new series of ministerial orders on Thursday to ensure a coordinated response across all levels of government for the duration of the provincial emergency — including orders related to the supply chain for essential goods and services, consumer protection and enforcement of orders for business closings and gatherings — it hasn’t taken steps to shut down work camps for industrial projects such as LNG Canada, Teck Resources’ Elkview coal mine, the Coastal GasLink pipeline and the Site C dam.....
..more from above
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The Union of BC Indian Chiefs is calling on the B.C. government to take immediate action to halt all Site C dam construction due to the risk COVID-19 poses to workers and nearby Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities in northeast B.C.
“Given the close quarters and inevitable contact points at the 1,600-worker camp, an outbreak of COVID-19 would be disastrous and with dire implications for nearby communities, including First Nation communities,” Grand Chief Stewart Phillip and two other members of the union’s executive wrote in a letter on Thursday to B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix and Premier John Horgan.
“We are informed that there is an extreme shortage of health services in northeast British Columbia, with virtually no hospital beds available to handle an outbreak in Fort St. John or nearby Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities,” said the chiefs, pointing to a recent BC Hydro news release saying work continues on building tunnels to divert the Peace River, transmission lines, highway construction and tree clearing.
“This negligence and irresponsible continuation of construction places the welfare of workers and communities at an unacceptable risk and is utterly inconsistent with the health advice provided by Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry,” the chiefs said.
The $470 million Site C camp, on the banks of the Peace River, is staffed by local workers, including from Indigenous communities, who cook, clean, make beds and normally provide services such as haircuts, personal training and trips to Fort St. John, six kilometres away, on a “Site C leisure bus.”
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BC Hydro did not respond to questions about how many workers staying at the camp have been tested for the novel coronavirus, or how many local workers may be self-isolating in their homes with novel coronavirus symptoms. COVID-19 test results in northern B.C. can take up to two weeks.
Asked what happened to four additional people who were in “self-isolation” at the camp with flu-like symptoms earlier this week, Fish said only that “these numbers do change daily as workers’ symptoms improve and they go back to work, or return home if their two-week shift schedule is over.”
BC Hydro also did not respond to questions about charter flights for the project.
The Narwhal has learned that BC Hydro charters planes from North Caribou Air and typically flies workers from Nanaimo, Vancouver, Kelowna, Calgary and Edmonton to Fort St. John for rotating shifts.
The planes land and take off from the North Peace Regional Airport, which has one small departure lounge also used by Air Canada, WestJet and Central Mountain Air passengers.
Jim and Margaret Little are two of the community members who have expressed alarm about the continued operation of the Site C project work camp, deemed an essential service by the provincial government even though energy demand in B.C. has been stagnant since 2005 despite a growing population.
“Most public facilities are now closed or with very limited openings,” the Littles wrote in a letter to Dix and provincial health officer Dr. Henry. “This project should be shuttered until such time that this pandemic has been controlled.”
The couple, a teacher and retired professional forester, pointed out most British Columbians have limited access to normal opportunities during the pandemic if they are following provincial orders.
“A significant number of employees move within B.C. to access and resource this project and this movement needs to be strictly controlled at this time,” the Littles said.
WorkSafeBC said it can’t provide information about the number of complaints related to COVID-19 it has received from workers at the Site C project, LNG Canada project or Coastal GasLink pipeline project, saying The Narwhal will have to file a Freedom of Information request to obtain details.
BC Hydro suspends Site C shuttle, six people in isolation at work camp
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Virus 'seems to apply to everyone' but big industry
On Friday, Kukpi7 Judy Wilson, Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) secretary-treasurer, reiterated the group’s position that BC Hydro should halt all construction at Site C due to the risk coronavirus poses to workers and nearby communities.
UBCIC has also sent a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, B.C. Premier John Horgan, and provincial and federal health ministers that asked for work on the natural gas pipeline, Coastal GasLink, to be stopped to protect public health.
As well, the Green Party and B.C. Indigenous leaders have expressed concerns about the continued construction of the Trans Mountain oil pipeline, which is now owned by the government of Canada.
“There seems to be a government push, still, to rely on big oil, and dirty fossil fuel oil and gas,” said Wilson at an online rally organized by Sustainabiliteens, Our Earth, Our Future, Leadnow, Dogwood and Stand.earth.
“The COVID virus seems to apply to everyone (in terms of) physical and social distancing ... and precautions, but it doesn’t seem to apply to big industry, or oil and gas,” she said.
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This week, Trudeau suggested that Trans Mountain would continue construction.
“I can assure you that Crown corporations, all Crown corporations, are following all the best medical advice,” he said Wednesday. Trans Mountain is operated by a Crown corporation, called Canada Development Investment Corporation.
On Friday, Trudeau also said he had held a discussion with premiers on Thursday that included an aid package for the oil and gas industry.
Active Peace Valley landslide renews questions about slope instability and B.C. government secrecy
As an active new landslide severs the only road to the Peace Valley community of Old Fort, residents want to know why the B.C. government is refusing to release information about an earlier landslide in the same location, near the Site C dam construction site.
“What kind of information do you have that is so bad that you can’t share it?” asked Kali Chmelyk, one of 150 Old Fort residents who has been under an evacuation alert since June 19, shortly after residents first noticed cracks and buckling in the road following a heavy rainfall.
Since then, an advancing wall of mud has eliminated more than 150 metres of the Old Fort access road, which was rebuilt after an October 2018 landslide wiped out part of the road, destroyed a home and prompted a local state of emergency.
The new slide has picked up speed and has been moving towards the Peace River at approximately two metres per hour since 10 p.m. on June 21, according to the B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure.
“It seems really shady,” Chmelyk said. “If we could at least know what’s going on, see the report, even if it’s a draft, that’s all I want. I don’t get it. I don’t understand why they would be withholding that.”
Last year, The Narwhal learned through a Freedom of Information request that the 2018 landslide, in an area underlaid by numerous natural gas leases and near one entrance to the Site C dam worksite, was classified as a “dangerous occurrence” under B.C.’s health, safety and reclamation code.
That triggered a geotechnical assessment to identify “the root cause and contributing factors” of the slide, according to a briefing note for Peter Robb, mining and energy assistant deputy minister.
In November 2019, the ministry told The Narwhal the assessment was not yet complete.
The Peace River Regional District subsequently filed a Freedom of Information request seeking all reports related to the landslide, which displaced eight million cubic metres of earth, cutting off Old Fort for one month.
But the provincial government refused to release the reports, telling the district, as reported by the Alaska Highway News, that disclosure would be harmful to law enforcement.
“What does that even mean?” Brad Sperling, chair of the Peace River Regional District, asked at an April board meeting. “I’m really kind of confused about their response to this.”
The district has requested that B.C.’s Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner review the decision.
Prior to the new slide, the regional district and the provincial government exchanged sometimes testy letters over who held responsibility for determining if the slopes around Old Fort were stable enough to lift an evacuation order and alert that have been in place since the 2018 landslide. The earlier order and alert affect six houses, portions of other properties and Crown land.
Last August, the regional district board asked Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth for data and information to substantiate a claim by the minister that the area was unlikely to experience “a dramatic slippage of the remaining hillside that might further impact homes” in the Old Fort area.
In November, the regional district hired consulting and engineering firm Tetra Tech to conduct hazard assessments of the Old Fort and Buffioux Creek areas, to determine whether the emergency alerts and evacuation orders should remain in place.
According to the FOI documents obtained by The Narwhal, a gravel mine that was stockpiling materials on the slope above Old Fort was not the root cause of the 2018 landslide.
The Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources said its investigation into the 2018 landslide is still ongoing.
“While understanding the need for timely and robust investigations, the Chief Inspector will take the necessary time in order to adequately consider the information and prepare the investigation findings,” the ministry said in an email......
The Site C dam has become an albatross and a serious objective review is needed urgently
Mauro Chiesa has worked on project finance around the world for many banks, including the World Bank. Harry Swain chaired the Joint Review Panel on Site C and is a former deputy minister of Industry Canada. Mike Harcourt is a former premier of B.C. and former mayor of Vancouver.
Here’s an ineluctable law of nature: Project costs escalate during construction. But still, there are limits around what people should accept. For B.C.‘s Site C dam, the costs have gone from $3.5-billion, which was the estimate when the project was first touted, to the $6.9-billion quoted when the project underwent public review, to the official $10.7-billion price tag that hung until very recently. Since then, BC Hydro has discovered nasty geotechnical conditions under the powerhouse and spillways, and says their cost and schedule estimates are so broken it will take them until the fall just to produce new ones.
The last time costs got away from BC Hydro, the NDP government layered on a Project Assurance Board to keep track. Clearly, its members have not done their jobs, not that their names – nor any reports – have ever been released to the public. On July 31, Bruce Ralston, the province’s Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources and the man in charge of Site C, appointed Peter Milburn, a former deputy minister of finance whose original training was in engineering, to oversee the overseers and to report back in the fall. Under media questioning, however, Mr. Ralston avoided committing to making public any of Mr. Milburn’s reports.
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But was it really a surprise? Back in 2018, a hugely experienced dam engineer named Harvey Elwin said – in a sworn court statement for the West Moberly First Nation – that he’d never seen such appalling foundation conditions nor such secrecy on the part of project proponents. You can bet your boots that every word of his statement was parsed in the corridors of BC Hydro. They knew there were problems years ago. Either they never told the government, or the government did not want to ask, or the Project Assurance Board decided to hope the problem would go away.
BC Hydro blamed all this on COVID-19. But the problem has been staring the utility in the face for years. Its current (and late) reports to the BC Utilities Commission cover 2019 and the first quarter of 2020. Ignoring the novelty of blaming a piece of Pleistocene-era geology for a 21st-century problem, only the final two weeks of the 65 weeks covered by the report overlapped with the COVID-19 lockdown. In 1957, a 15-year-old bridge on the Alaska Highway collapsed a few miles downstream when a landslide in construction-softened clay dislodged the northern cable abutment, so this is nothing new for government.
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BC Hydro has consumed all of the project’s contingency budget five years before project completion. It will not complete the project for the promised $6.9-, sorry $7.9-, sorry $8.3-, sorry $10.7-billion. At least they have pushed off the date when Site C becomes part of the rate base, to be paid off by all of us taxpayers, until after the next two elections.
But a fundamental problem even nastier than unco-operative geology still looms: the fact that even by 2025, there will be no demand for the power Site C produces. Its cost will likely be north of $120 per megawatt hour (MWh) – even more than the $118/MWh residential consumers paid last year, and more than the very high $87/MWh paid last year for power from Independent Power Producers. Couple that with the concessionary $54/MWh rates promised to the liquefied natural gas industry, and residential consumers are in for a terrific shock. And as the price rises, less will be consumed. This is the elasticity of demand: a snake that eats its own tail.
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In 2017, the NDP government decided, against much evidence, that the B.C. Liberals had succeeded in pushing the project past the point of no return. They now own this project, period. It’s time for a serious, objective, swift, experienced and professional review – not the narrowly circumscribed predetermined review that an embarrassed BC Utilities Commission was obliged to undertake in 2017. It’s still not too late.
Prominent people demand immediate halt to Site C over stability concerns
A former president of BC Hydro and a former federal fisheries minister are among 18 prominent Canadians urging the provincial government to halt work on a huge hydroelectric project in northeastern B.C.
The letter signed by former Hydro president Marc Eliesen, former fisheries minister David Anderson, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs and others says construction of the Site C dam must stop while geotechnical problems are explored.
They say an independent team of experts should determine if the problems can be resolved and at what cost.
Further construction of the dam across the Peace River near Fort St. John requires diversion of the waterway, which the letter argues could be a "costly and potentially catastrophic mistake."
Those signing the letter urge Premier John Horgan to appoint an independent panel to assess geotechnical issues at Site C and to release those findings before making a decision about the future of the dam.....
'Scattering of Man' details horrors experienced by First Nation after B.C. Hydro dam flood
A new documentary called the ‘Scattering of Man’ details the horrors experienced by the Tsay Keh Dene Nation before and after a flood caused by the W.A.C. Bennett Dam in B.C. in the 1960s.
“For years and years it was a hidden story, and there’s a lot of hidden history in this country,” filmmaker Luke Gleeson said on CTV News Channel Saturday. “We had seen the history of this [story] told through [B.C.] Hydro and other people, but it’s really an unknown history and our people were finally ready to tell our story.”
Gleeson said he brought the idea of the documentary to Tsay Keh Dene Nation and wanted to move the film ahead as there had been attempts from people in the past to make short films on the subject - but now “people were really ready to tell our story.”
Leadership approved the film and the documentary is fully funded by the Nation, Gleeson said.
“It’s a completely independent First Nation film,” he continued. “It took us a number of years, but we got there.”.....
When B.C. Supreme Court Justice Emily Burke served her ruling on a long-fought case between Blueberry River First Nations and the province in late June, unequivocally determining the B.C. government breached the Nations’ Treaty Rights by permitting and encouraging widespread resource extraction, she noted B.C.’s regulatory regime for industrial development is broken.
It was a precedent-setting decision — the first to find that cumulative impacts can add up to a breach of Treaty Rights — and it could have sweeping implications for oil, gas, forestry and hydroelectric development across Canada.
“You’ve got to hope that the decision is serving as a wake-up call for B.C. that structural systemic change is needed to address these issues,” Gavin Smith, lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law, told The Narwhal in an interview.
While public awareness is often centred on the impacts of a particular project or a single industry, such as logging or fracking, decades of industrial development have irrevocably altered landscapes.
By 2016, for example, 73 per cent of the Blueberry River First Nations’ traditional territory was within 250 metres of an industrial disturbance.
The Blueberry’s successful court case connected the dots between disparate industries, from mining and forestry to hydroelectric dams and fracking — showing how they layer impacts on the landscape, compounding changes to ecosystems, wildlife and ways of life.
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1. The Blueberry decision has ‘enormous’ implications for the Site C dam
The Site C dam, currently under construction on the Peace River, would impact Blueberry River and other Treaty 8 Nations’ territories.
BC Hydro recently noted in its quarterly progress report the Blueberry decision could impact the project’s schedule, which has already seen significant delays and cost overruns.
“Although BC Hydro believes that the Blueberry decision should not affect the issuance of permits because the project is approved and under construction, there remains the possibility that the timing of the issuance of provincial permits required for the completion of the project may be affected.”
While the Crown corporation maintains the court decision will not stop the project in its tracks, the ruling will inevitably influence future rulings on court cases related to Site C. West Moberly First Nations, another signatory to Treaty 8, is taking the province to court on claims that B.C. is infringing on its Treaty Rights by proceeding with Site C construction.
“Construction and operation of the dam will cause profound and immitigable violation of the rights of West Moberly set out in Treaty 8 and guaranteed by the constitution,” Willson wrote in an open letter to Premier John Horgan......
..i recommend a full reading of this piece. it's important.
Document reveals influence of oil and gas lobbyists on B.C. officials after Indigenous Rights ruling
In the wake of a precedent-setting Indigenous Rights case in June 2021, B.C.’s ministry of energy did something rather unprecedented: it immediately cancelled summer auctions for new oil and gas tenures.
This sudden closure of oil and gas opportunities in response to the Blueberry decision — a B.C. Supreme Court ruling, which determined the province violated the Treaty Rights of Blueberry River First Nations by permitting and encouraging damaging industrial development — sent a shudder through the industry that continues to reverberate across the country today.
Documents released to The Narwhal through freedom of information legislation show petroleum and natural gas (PNG) lobbyists told public servants that B.C. could lose more than $90 million in annual revenue and up to 10,000 jobs as a result of the Blueberry decision. These stark warnings were then passed on to senior B.C. government officials, including Fazil Mihlar, deputy minister of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation.
Mihlar declined The Narwhal’s interview request.
“The ministry continues to receive information from PNG operators highlighting the impacts,” reads an Aug. 16, 2021 briefing note, which was heavily censored prior to being released to The Narwhal.
The internal document reveals the extent of influence major oil and gas industry executives have over information and advice that reaches the highest levels of the B.C. government.
Mihlar declined The Narwhal’s interview request.
In fact, the briefing note confirms the advice sent to Deputy Minister Milhar was largely based on “feedback” from two of the country’s most influential oil and gas industry lobby groups, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and the Explorers and Producers Association of Canada.
This feedback included warnings that the court ruling was “significantly” affecting company cash flow and would make it difficult for companies to honour contracts as the province faced a “flight” of investments to other jurisdictions with “greater regulatory certainty.” It also warned that this would ultimately affect government revenues, social programs as well as indirect jobs related to industry.
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A footnote in the document explained that the estimate of the risk of up to 10,000 job losses was based on an “extrapolation” of calculations done by Alberta-based oilsands giant, Canadian Natural Resources Limited.
When asked whether anyone in government analyzed or verified the claims and estimates prior to sharing them with the deputy minister, the ministry told The Narwhal in a statement that it “uses a number of best available information sources to derive an estimate of the potential economic impact” of the Blueberry decision.
It declined to identify any of those sources of information.
It’s unclear whether public servants provided any additional context to the government about how industrial activity was affecting Indigenous Rights or contributing to the climate crisis.
Experts say this paints a skewed picture of what would happen if B.C. reworked how fossil fuel projects are considered, reviewed and approved in light of Indigenous Rights and territorial claims, and also if the province shifted its focus to cleaner and less controversial forms of energy.
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A spokesperson for LNG Canada did not directly answer a question about whether the decision would impact its supply needs but told The Narwhal the project recently passed the 50 per cent completion mark.
“We’re moving swiftly and safely towards commissioning and start-up, and to fulfilling our promise of delivering a world-class LNG facility in Kitimat,” the spokesperson wrote in an email, adding the project has already contributed $3.6 billion in contracts to B.C. businesses, including more than $2.8 billion to local and First Nations-owned businesses.
Alberta’s energy regulator compiled a 14-page document on the impacts of the ruling in response to a freedom of information request, but redacted all 14 pages on the basis they contained “legal advice and analyses that are subject to legal privilege.”
Natural Resources Canada told The Narwhal the court decision provided clarity on the connection between industrial development, provincial decision-making and Indigenous Rights.
“The Government of Canada recognizes the importance of addressing potential cumulative impacts of natural resource projects, including their potential impacts to Indigenous Rights,” the federal agency wrote in an email.
“With respect to economic significance, the B.C. Montney region — which overlaps with [Blueberry River First Nations] territory — is an important natural gas producing region,” the agency added, noting the oil and gas sector employs 178,500 workers directly and 415,000 indirectly across the country. A majority of those jobs — both direct and indirect — are based in Alberta but the federal agency said B.C. accounts for around 15 per cent, or 62,000, indirect jobs.
“The decision reinforces the importance of ensuring resource development happens in a way that respects Indigenous Rights so it remains an important source of revenue for affected Indigenous groups and Canada more broadly.”....
The BC NDP like the Sask. NDP are a resource extraction party. Environmentalism is an add on to their industrial era mindset of high paying jobs only being possible by cutting the planet up into little pieces and selling them to the highest bidder.
My prediction. based on previous government breaches of the Charter. is that they will delay any implementation of this order because it requires someone to give direction in Ottawa. The DFO has waited for over two decades for the government to legislate indigenous fisheries and in the meantime they merely enforce the rules that are on the books. Our system is designed to protect the corporate status quo. Besides Horgan and his inner circle are left liberals and believe they can win a majority again from the middle.
..from an email.
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Today, we’re writing to you with heavy hearts.
We know that pressing for rights in the courts is a strategic and powerful way to push back against unfettered development and to advance better laws benefiting future generations. You’ve stood with Indigenous Nations through some tough fights, and seen RAVEN celebrate the defeat of tar sands pipelines and open pit mines.
But: sometimes, infuriatingly, the march of industrial destruction is faster than the slow grind of the courts. Although moral victory can still be possible, landscapes may be irreversibly damaged before treaty rights can be vindicated in court.
This is exactly the scenario West Moberly First Nation faces. The construction of Site C has progressed to a point where it is very unlikely that any judge would order the dam dismantled. Because of this, West Moberly has reluctantly agreed to settle the portion of their case related to the Site C Project.
That decision was made at the end of a ten-year struggle, in which West Moberly’s community has consistently chosen to fight for their rights and culture. That has meant tough choices for the Nation, including forgoing economic and financial benefits — such as refusing construction and procurement contracts on Site C, worth over $100 million.
As a RAVEN supporter, you knew what an unsafe, unnecessary, and unjust project Site C was and is. Thousands of people joined together to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to back West Moberly’s principled legal action.
RAVEN’s support was vital to build a large scope of expert evidence that West Moberly used to build its court case, and can rely on now and in the future to understand the true impacts of these projects and developments in its territory.
"West Moberly will now be negotiating from a position of strength largely owing to the legal action we filed in 2018 and continued with the support of RAVEN. We thank each and every donor for your generous support." - Chief Roland Willson
West Moberly’s fight is far from over. The rest of their civil claim focuses on the damage caused by the other two Peace River dams that were constructed without the Nation’s consent. In negotiations with the province, the Nation will be arguing that the cumulative impacts of W.A.C. Bennett and Peace Canyon dams have had a huge impact on the land and wildlife in their territory, and will be seeking redress.
The trial has been paused, but the legal action has not been terminated. If it turns out that BC is not negotiating in good faith, the Nation still has the option to resume litigation.
“The decision to settle this part of the court case was taken with a heavy heart and with serious considerations of the best interests of our community. Our focus now turns towards efforts to heal what remains of our land, to heal our people, and to protect our way of life in the face of all the resource development in Treaty No. 8 territory.” -Chief Roland Willson
Just as their fight to resist the dam was fuelled by a sacred duty to their land and people, West Moberly will take the benefits of the Site C settlement and direct them towards revitalising its communities, culture and ways of life.....
