Jobs and revenue for government and profits for the companiies of course.

Nothing Else Matters (according to your average nitwit!)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Come on this doesn't affect the lower mainland elite or the environment that tourists coming to the big owww olympics. It will mean more donations to the BC fiberals. If it doesn't affect the fraser valley and lower mainland who cares. A Vancouver Island separatist.

Only in Canada, you say?
Free enterprise going wild!
Now try to remembr this sort of thing, when Gordo hands out goodies, just before the next election!

And this government, along with the fully owned Ottawa bunch, are the people who insist on putting "the right to own property" clause into the Constitution.

Which, in their warped mids, means right to expropriate property by some carpetbaggers waving the imaginary flag of imaginary money.

Ed Deak.

Boy does it ever. Most people have no idea what Alberta has already learned from their "experiments". What CBM does is does is makes the ground water unfit for animal consumption. All of the ground water becomes undrinkable. Floating fish... Alberta didn't learn that lesson. What they learned is that the land became uninhabitable.

And for the rest of us BC eligable voters, its time to make the phone calls to the media, and the about to be MLA's in the next election, and the RCMP to keep as much of this province from being sold out in the future, until the investigations can begin to get these crooks locked up to keep them from doing any further damage to this provinces people and environment.

Ed:

Good point, but wouldn't property ownership rights formal "du jure" inclusion in the Constitution actually end up preventing much of this problem ?

I don't quite understand why the surface (non) rights are trumped by the mining rights. Seems more of a historical remnant of the Gold Rush claim staking days.

Surface rights should have TOP priority, the rest is simply a fair negotiated settlement. If one does not agree, NO mining period.
.....OR perhaps legislation should be changed that "double -ups" the isssue..that the surface property owner has first dibs on the subsurface rights...which would then secure and cover all bases.

Trivia: Some due diligence on my part has looked into facets of the legislation. My general area has "peat" as the major subsurface element, and peat is not defined as a mineral under the act to the best of my knowledge,......hence I have a much lesser threat from mining companies.

Before everyone jumps on the current government, there is a lot the public does not understand about property rights in BC.

A fee simple title to land has normally not included any rights to the subsurface resources. Fee simple title is simply a set of basic property rights to the surface land. The subsurface rights have been available to be staked by others. This has been the case in BC since the 19th century.

The mechanisms of how the subsurface and surface rights owners interact has changed in the legislation over time. As it currently stands, a surface rights owner can not stop a subsurface rights owner from accessing their interest in the land, but the surface rights owner has a right to be compensated for any and all loss of the enjoyment of the use of their land. This is how it has been since sometime after 2001.

BC is also the legal pioneer in private ownership of water rights. English common law left water rights to those people living along a water course. In the 1850s the land title and water rights were seperated in BC. Just because you have a creek running through your land, you do not get a right to the water.

As a surface rights owner you also do not enjoy full rights to do what you want with your land. If you cut trees, there are local government and provincial government regulations that come into play. No matter what you do, there is always underlying Crown allodial title to your land that can take precedence over your property rights..

As it stands, the public has no right to be heard if government, local or provincial, does something that interferes with their land. The Crown allodial title is either with the provincial Crown or the Federal Crown, in BC most of the land has underlying provincial Crown allodial title. The bundle of rights that are fee simple title in BC are not nearly as broad as most people think they are.

Our civil society has decided there is a public good in the Crown being able to interfere with the public's enjoyment of their land. There are those that disagree and they are the ones proposing protecting property rights in the constitution.

The intent of the having property rights in the constitution is to protect the property owners from situations as they are happening now in BC. The idea is to give the some mechanism for landowners to protect themselves from caprisous acts of government.

At the moment the only people in Canada that have any protected property rights are the aboriginal people. The strongest property rights are held by the Nisga'a on their lands. They have no Crown allodial title underlying their lands and therefore are the only people in Canada with full rights to their land.

We, the ordinary people of BC, seem to be falling into the same colonial 'hole' in the road as before, whether it is over BC Hydro, BC Rail, privatization of the health care system, granting of water licences to IPP's, methane coal licences to various companies, etc. etc. By falling repeatedly in that "hole", we are put in the position of having to 'respond' of having to 'react'....which is the same old story-theme, just different actors.

Presently the Crown owns it all, and grants most of the coal, timber, minerals, oil, gas, hydro licenses to major Corporations whose Boards of Directors really don't give two cents worth for local workers, families, and communities, or the environment for that matter. Their focus is the bottom financial line and value to shareholders - especially majority shareholders. This is not new "news", this is the colonial way it has always been in BC., the municipalities and cities, and the people that reside within them, have little political power within the province vis a vis the Premier and the elite class of big business powers. This dysfunctional allocation of political power is the root cause of why the problems of coal methance development, or of BC Hydro's sale, restructuring, and the privatizing of our river's water to independent power producers exists.

Taking a moment, cannot we not ponder a different vision of democracy for this province, a democracy with a more equitable distribution of political power and wealth? To begin this reflection lets ask ourselves some questions? The following questions may I suggest need to be especially asked by municipal politicians and the people that reside within municipalities/regions.

Is it equitable and democratic that the Crown should own it all?

Is it right that the Executive Branch, primarily the Premier's office, should have all the power to say what goes down, and sold in BC?

Is it equitable that cities, municipalities be 'creatures' of the province?

Why could there not be a different internal constitution within BC that allocates rights and responsibilities between the capital region and other regions/cities, and First Nations?...and for that matter strips away the right of 'corporate personhood'.

Is it equitable that all resource rents, taxes, fees, etc. flow directly to a central provincial treasury with minimal flow-back to the region from whence the resource was extracted?

Do we not as people residing within municipalities, cities, regions, have an inalienable right to demand that 'political power and wealth' within the provincial political system be re-allocated in an equitable way, with checks and balances, with competing rights and jurisdictional competencies - instead of the Premier and Victoria deciding it all?

Our democracy has been savaged by the Campell government...it is NOT going to be restored by him, neither in my view by the BC NDP ...which if ever elected ...will simply seek to use the centralized powers of the CRown as they now exist. Democracy must be revitalized by citizens, having conversations with each other, meeting with each other, reinstating democracy in 'territory'/'region' by region within the province. It is 'nice' to talk about these things on the Tyee...but 'talk' just ain't going to cut it...it didn't in other lands and we would be naieve in the extreme to expect that here. It is either corporate rights or human rights, it is either democracy or corporatized Crown power? ...the piratization of privatization will continue...do check out the DVD "Social Genocide" to see it how it was done there...and is happening here. Bye Bye...middle class. Either we empower ourselves, or continue to let 'elites' at the top of highly centralized hierarchies (ie. Victoria/Ottawa political and bureaucratic hierarchies, corporate hierarchies, labor union hierarchies, political party hierarchies, etc. ) impose decisions upon us. Global warming...is simply theft of the 'commons' ---our sky, our oxygen, by corporations....legalized by law.

property rights in the constitution...will primarily further enshrine corporate property rights ...don't fall for that...the original framers of the US/French constitutions placed the primacy of 'human rights' well over 'monied and property' interests. ....rather, i propose, cease the legal fiction where corporations are granted all the rights of natural person..which gives them constitutional rights, and do not enshrine property rights...further strengthen human rights and democratic rights of citizens.

BC has its own constitution and it is rather easy for the legislature to amend it, thre is no need for any public consultation or anything, a simple majority vote of the MLAs. Might propose you speak an MLA that you are friendly with and propose changes to the BC constitution?

I would love to see a bill of rights enshired in the BC constitution along with more checks and balances on the executive branch of government. Over the last 30 odd years the legislature has consistently voted to amend the constiution to reduce the restrictions on the executive.

I would also give local government standing within the BC constitution.

We live within an environment where 95% of the land base is provincial Crown land. Any change to that would a dramatic shift in how BC operates. And if not the Crown, who should own that land? How best to manage that commons?

And, the primary reason to have a corporation as a legal person is so that it is clearly under the law, can own land, goods and other things, and ultimately so that it can be sued and held accountable. Removing that status of a corporation as a legal person requires it to be replaced by something of an equivilant nature.

Musing further,

....and perhaps as a parallel adjunct to the First Nations..the rest of us non First Nations are effectively on a mass-BC/Canadian " Reservation" where, in the end, we own everything collectively, but not individually.

We , it appears, don't quasi -"own"...we quasi -"rent"...of course excluding the Grim Reaper "we -all- rent" facet of the Big Picture.

The Natural Person legal concept is an interesting one as well. However, I think society is best served by formal legal ownership rights of and for its citizens.

As a model...The First Nations reservations lack of individual ownership rights contributes to many of the problems as to quality of life and other social problems. However a First Nations band in Eastern Canada has apparently voted to allow actual property ownership rights by its members...and has proven to be a major success, via individual pride of ownership meets individual responsibility.

The corporate boogey man is simply that, excluding Crown land issues. I agree that needs to be addressed. Regardless, I think that the rights of the average citizen individuals to "own" property is still the best/better way to go, and these potential boogeyman fears not be used to prevent this far better option.

Unbelievable - the advantageous BC have over other jurisdictions - clean air, sensible policies - are being thrown in the garbage.

Listen, I grew up in Montreal until I was 31 and then spent 7 years in Toronto before ventuuring here (3.5yrs)

AND LET ME TELL YOU besides the awful personaliy of TO in general, the thing that pushed me over the edge for certain was the fact that I would rollerblade during the day in TO and then be unable to sleep at night because I could not breathe.

The coal plants in Ontario create so much pollution that it CAUSES asthma. Only the greediest piece of human shit would want that to happen here.

We drove through the Bulkley Valley month or so ago and saw for ourselves the extent of the Pine Beetle and Spruce Budworm damage. It makes sense to me to see if that fibre (cellulose) could not be turned into "Producer Gas" on a large industrial scale since it is going to rot on the stump if we carry on as we are - there just ain't enough equipment or market to harvest the dead pine fast enough.

Now I have to agree with the guy speaking for the CBM developer: the citizen simply does not understand the law. That does not make the law particularly "Local citizen friendly". It is simply the law.
Change the law or suck up that sweet gas laced water \ Flat out!

Bernard
The issue of subsurface rights is an enormous red herring and a very rotten one.

The real question is the role of government in terms of the way it goes about the peoples' business.

No government should find itself in the relation the BC Government does relative to CBM.
No representative of free people ought to have to sit still while their representatives make efforts to

Making profits is in the interests of the private corporations who wish to exploit BC's resources.

It has nothing whatever to do with the husbanding and protecting the interests and the future prospects of this province’s citizens.

The Campbell neocons have forgotten this.

Sorry, they may never have understood it in the first place.

All this is Gordon Campbell's doing. He runs the government like a cult. No one is permitted to disagree - on pain of shunning or banishment.

The people are not going to listen to Mr. Campbell's apologists much longer, Bernard.

FYI,Mineral rights, as are Tidewater riparian rights were stripped from the owners of the land by a process that started in the first part of the 20th century.
My date might be a little off but I believe that pre- 1912 titles that have passed down through families still contain the mineral or subsurface rights.
Havoc can be created by a person with a free miners license and an axe to grind with any, corporation, municipality or person by taking out a mining permit in the middle of a golf course, private back yard, parking lot, you get the idea.
The point I am rambling to is that a law that makes the rights of citizens secondary must be changed.
M P Cullen said it very clearly. The decision should rest with the citizens of the Valley.

There is a large vein of methane quality coal south of Quesnel, whose rights are currently owned by a different company by the one in this article. Nevertheless, the 5 farms sitting on top of the vein are very productive cattle ranches which have been operating since pre-WWI days by 4th and 5th generation families. Needless to say, the locals are very vocal opponents as I witnessed during a forum organized by MLA Bob Simpson.

I beleive the "liscence" is referred to as "Free Miner's Certificate": FMC.
It used to allow holders to carry handguns and certainly rifles.

Now I'm not recommending any particular strategy here but-------

An FMC is cheap. Take one out and stake your own property just for fun. As I recall you are required to spend a hundred dollars (or so) per year on "Improvements" in order to maintain whatever your claim covers. It's been a while since I staked any ground (though since I was working for Penny Stock Promotors out of Vancouver at the time those claims may have been maintained) and I never bothered to carry a handgun since very few people can actually hit what they aim for with a pistol anyway.

However: Staking is a truely haphazzard process up until someone actually wants to develope a claim. Ther is a very good chance that the "Free Miner" who originally staked the property was a bit sloppy (You simply cut a tree down or plant a post every 1500 feet or so and nail your metal tag to it with all the required information penned on and throw 1500' each side of the line you walked: now you own whatever mineral rights below that some prior staker has either let go (by not registering the required improvements) or simply by leaving bits of the property open due to his/her poor measuring and/or navigation on the ground.

I see people in the theatened ares flooding the "B.C. and Yukon Department of Mines" (as I said it's been a while) and staking the whole area they are concerned about - 'Course it sometimes means that you actually have to venture out into the bush but apparently you can prepare the stakes, rent an helicopter, fly along your chosen line and toss out stakes at approximate 1500' intervals - who is to know you did not actually walk that line (guess what? That is exactly how the largest holders of mineral rights in the north did it.)

This is such a whopping "good idea" that I'm gonna renew my FMCand hire a chopper

How could I be the last commentor here?
Everyone did run down to the local Department of Mines and apply for an FMC? I doubt that.

has been purchasing mineral rights in the Victoria/Sannich area.
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