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She said… he said

Thursday, 22 July 2010 14:46 Mark Kiemele
Run-of-river power project such as the one in Toba Inlet produced a sharp exchange in the BC Legislature in early June.

North Island NDP MLA Claire Trevena said: “Friends of the BC Liberals are coming in, getting very sweet deals to take over our rivers for 40-plus years, to industrialize them, to allow environmental degradation in the process, and to sell the power produced so that Californians can keep their air conditioners running in the summer and their golf courses green.”

But George Abbott, the minister of aboriginal relations, shot back: “They’re now getting very excited that a big corporation like General Electric might have the audacity to create jobs, to make an investment, to pay taxes in the province of British Columbia. But big corporations are really, really bad, apparently.

“The Klahoose partnership with Plutonic involves employment. It involves contracting opportunities on road building, on land clearing, on the operation of the entire worksite at Toba Inlet. It also involves some skills training in a partnership with North Island College.

“How was it that a big corporation like Plutonic Power was to enter into what appears to be such a beneficial partnership with the Klahoose First Nation? The answer is that, in fact, it is a beneficial partnership. It is only when we take very artificial constructs, like big, evil corporations, and apply them to an area of economic endeavour that one reaches entirely irrational conclusions – like the NDP do – about the partnerships with First Nations.”

 

Halalt’s days in court continue

Thursday, 22 July 2010 14:42 Mark Kiemele
Halalt’s days in court continue

Two interns from West Coast Environmental Law (WCEL) probably said it best.

“We were surprised to learn that the Halalt Nation is asked to provide detailed input on similarly complex development proposals every day. This underscored for us the challenge that First Nations face in processing these requests with the limited resources of their small communities, and the scope and complexity of the task of keeping up with proposed developments on and changes to their traditional lands.”

Justin Basinger and Dyna Tuytel, legal interns from WCEL wrote the above on their blog after sitting through one day of an extended BC Supreme Court hearing. Halalt is asking for a judicial review of the process that allowed a municipal project to go ahead that has already seen water being pumped from the Chemainus River aquifer.

And now the hearing, that was expected to be wound-up in early July, has been extended for another ten days in mid-November.

Chief James Thomas has already sat through several days of the arguments in the Vancouver courtroom with Court Justice Catherine Wedge presiding. So far the court has heard five days of submissions from Halalt’s lawyer William Andrews of North Vancouver and ten days from Julie Owen who represents the provincial government.

Respondents in the case are BCs Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Community Development and the District of North Cowichan. Halalt is arguing that the province failed in its duty to properly consult and accommodate the Nation whose reserve land is adjacent to the well site and whose traditional territory includes much of the river’s watershed.

The court case was first scheduled to be heard last winter before major works began on the $6 million project. But the project has now been completed.

Part of Halalt’s court costs are being funded by WCEL, but the two interns noted in their blog that:

“In this case the Halalt were able to receive a grant from WCEL’s Environmental Dispute Resolution Fund to hire their lawyer, but not every First Nation has this option for every consultation request they receive.

“It is unfortunate this dispute has had to go before a court, but the Halalt First Nation is optimistic that the strong legal basis for their concerns will be recognized.”

 

Snaw-naw-as logging plan upsets locals

Thursday, 22 July 2010 14:41 Mark Kiemele

Snaw-naw-as First Nation urgently needs sources of revenue, but local forest lovers want them to go elsewhere for economic development opportunities.

A forest license agreement to cut 15,000 cubic metres of timber was issued by the province to Snaw-naw-as which could earn it up to $750,000. But the license was issued despite BC’s commitment to hold off on licenses for logging in coastal Douglas fir (CDF) forests until a strategy for protect of the unique and endangered areas is in place.

A number of Snaw-was-as neighbours – some of them living near the 64-hectare District Lot 33 – are up in arms over any logging.

BC’s own Forest Practices Board entered the fray in June with the publication of a report entitled Conservation of Imperiled Coastal Douglas-fir Ecosystem. The report, acting on a resident’s complaint, noted that:

“The CDF has the greatest density of species in BC of provincial and global concern, has experienced the highest level of ecosystem conversion to human development (49 per cent), and almost all of its forests have been logged since European contact.”

It concluded that: “Government did not abide by its commitment not to issue new forest tenure in the CDF pending establishment of a land use objective… There is insufficient provincial Crown land in the CDF to satisfy conservation and other needs.”

That is why Snaw-naw-as finds itself between a rock and a hard place.

Administrator and councillor Brent Edwards has said that people who want such ecosystems protected should look at private land instead of the few remaining areas of Crown land available that are ‘on the table’ for treaty settlement or other agreements.

The problem for most Island First Nations is that the majority of land claimed as traditional territory is in the E&N Railway land grant and that the remaining private land is not on the table.

Snaw-naw-as has indicated the logging will proceed as soon as all the paperwork is in place.


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