THOSE EVIL BASTARDS !!

Actually wanting to WORK and SUCCEED in what they have ventured ! They should be FORCED to demand taxpayer-funded compensation while they sit on their asses and cry.

The only thing BC will get

The only thing BC will get out of these parasitic ventures are short term jobs, ever dwindling benefits, incredible, permanent pollution, and reliance on fraudulent economics built on BS propaganda and ultimate self destruction.

The purported tax benefits from these idiotic ventures won't even pay for road repairs and the damage caused by pollution from the long line of overloaded Diesel trucks we now have running day and night from the Polley Mtn mine, breaking up our roads, bringing back sewage for dumping in the open pits, poisoning the watershed for the future, blessed by the governments.

We sell our resources to China, then buy back the products we could make right here in sustainable ways, giving productive employment to generations, so the new Chinese millionaire class can bring our own money back and buy the country from under our feet, making our braindead politicians and economists jump for joy over their "wealth creating foreign investment"

What's the point wasting resources on the military and new fighter planes, when anybody can come in and buy and colonize the country with imaginary capital, "created" from the air ?

What we need is more braintesting equipment for our universities, to discover the damage caused by the crap being taught in some of the departments in the name of "economics" and "sciences".

Ed Deak, Big Lake, on the Likely road.

First Nations Income

First Nations people no longer live on moose meat and berries alone. Visionary Taltan leaders such as Gerry Asp support resource development as a way for their people to reduce dependence on government handouts.

Resource development is not

Resource development is not the sale of resources for peanuts.

And once the the local resource runs out, what are the workers to do?

"Move where the jobs are?" in the brainiest Reform policy statement?

Ed Deak.

Pictures of the area

I am a former resident of Stewart and I have been promoting Northwest British Columbia as a destination for bicycle touring. I have posted pictures along the Stewart-Cassiar Highway (including the Tatogga Lake Resort) here:

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/5881

Here is the scenic highway into Stewart:

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?page_id=166701

The area has great value as a tourist destination.

Resource Jobs

Pay a lot better than "tourism jobs", Ed. They support taxpayer funded services and privately operated services for everyone's benefit. As I tried to explain to Joe Alphonse, does he really want to have to drive to Kamloops for services that are now in Williams Lake, but won't be if our economy is not supportive of the people here? The older we get, the more we depend on local services. No good paying jobs, no population supporting those services. That goes for doctor's offices and the Big Lake Store and Fire Department.

Worked all thru that area in

Worked all thru that area in the 70s & can vouch that it is world class, spectacular and unique. What a shame to trash it.

For some reason

too many people involved in industry and development cannot abide the notion that some significant places should be left alone. For want of a better phrase (and not to trash engineers), the "engineering mentality" can see value only in the products of technical transformation; the natural world holds no value but the possibility for "value-added."

It's obvious that in the contemporary world we need metals, we need jobs, we need medical care, and so on. What is too often less obvious is that we also need wilderness, the untouched complexity that natural evolution generates, not to mention the natural services (water cleansing, pollination, genetic diversity, and so on) that it provides.

It is a general truth that we see what we look for ("Seek and ye shall find."). If all we see in wilderness is another opportunity to cash out, usually through some hugely destructive intervention, it is because we have not yet learned to see the natural world's own perfections. We need to learn to see.

Ed Deak

Did you never move to find work? You must have been one of a very few, usually farmers. I've moved at least 6 times in my working life but my brother remains on the family farm.

As for savings, that is the role of the people being paid a wage. Most resource workers that want to have their children go on to higher learning save most of their working lives and encourage their children to get jobs and save their money. Few can afford to pay their children's way. Same for first nations. The resource companies will give priority for jobs and training to locals so if they want to learn and work, the companies will hire them. Companies in the NWT and Nunavut are flying in workers from southern BC and Quebec since the local workers cannot be depended on and have inadequate education.

Birch

Leave the unspoiled wilderness for the few that can take advantage of it, either by being local, being rich or being an explorer. I call it just another type of NIMBY. The Inuit in Resolute Bay like to see rich American hunters arrive to hunt polar bears but the American government has banned the importation of polar bear hides to protect the bears, which is right? Just like the local lodge owner, economics change depending on what happens in the world.

Cboo the tourism jobs, are

Cboo the tourism jobs, are also dead end, as they,as they rely on the oil economy, coming to a crash one day.

I started my first manufacturing business in Vancouver in 1957 and was employing skilled tradesmen at good wages for many years.

When I had my shop on the lane at 7th and Cambie, there were all kinds of manufacturing shops within walking distance. B usinesses were opening up by the thousands all over the country. But we had tariffs on imports and nobody went hungry.

Apart from a few in the Hastings area, there were no homeless. The first foodbank opened in "wealthy" Edmonton in 1981, when the present economic theory, now ruining the world, was forced on us by the multinational corporate mafia.

Topped by the FTA, the NAFTA, and the WTO.

Canada, the richest country on Earth now has almost a million people lining up at foodbanks, many employed in minimum wage, part time jobs, for the sake of "competitive efficiency" dictated by brainwashed economists and bought politicians.

We had all kinds of products "Made in Canada", all wiped out by the fraudulent "free trade" treaties. Now our stores are full of crap made in Asian slave labour shops. Because, in the warped minds of our governments they're "cheaper", even with millions of people in our countries paying for them with homelessness and poverty.

The sale of resources is not and income, but a conversion in any business accounting system. Not in economics, which have no debits. Everything is GDP and "income". No business could survive five minutes on this kind of accounting system, but politicians are pushing it.

As far the benefits of the export of resources are concerned, the Polley Mtn mine opened up under the NDP and closed for years under the BCLibs. because of lousy prices, , wrecking our small community, when people were laid off and were forced to sell out.

There's a very good chance, many real economists are warning about, that a worldwide depression could come any time, and we saw the forerunner of it in '08.

The only efficient and logical economic system is built on the greatest degree of self sufficiency. My wife and I have learned our lesson many years ago and have been working toward it, now reaping the benefits.

The same applies for all families, communities and countries. Globalization is a criminal fraud to collectivize the world's economy into the hands of a criminal element, similar to the Soviet system, now called "globally competitive free enterprise", raising costs, wrecking and killing tens of millions every year with starvation and easily preventable illnesses.

The trucks from the so called Prosperity mine will have to drive some 800 km each way to the ports, blowing out fumes and wrecking the roads. And this is "efficiency" ?

Ed Deak.

Wouldn't it be great if any

Wouldn't it be great if any "development" proposal had to put in place a system under which the gainers would fully compensate the losers? Instead, governments WE elect give the go-ahead to promoters who make super vague promises and assertions about benefits to everyone -- with NO mechanism to ensure the losers are compensated. How can we continue to be so stupid?

Sask....I've lived in 4

Sask....I've lived in 4 countries and have 3 citizenships, my wife in 5 with 4.

But not because of looking for jobs, but because of the criminal politicians who sold the ground from under our feet to crazy ideologies, like communism.

I've lived in England for 7 years under the same address.

Went to Vancouver in 1955, lived there until '79, had 2 jobs, laid off once, and quit the second time to start my own manufacturing business in '57. Now living at the same address for 32 years, having built the highest degree of self sufficiency, where we grow much of our food and build most of the things we need .

The most efficient, sustainable economic system is based on the local production of the greatest variety of goods for survival and good life.

Basically as we had it in the 50s and 60s, here in Canada. Imports and exports are necessary, but only to the smallest degree, as is commuting to jobs long distances, to jobs that could easily be done locally, especially with computers.

What people should remember is that goods imported from Asia, are not "cheaper" in real terms, because our unemployed, commuting, long distance transport, poverty, loss of homes and families, the daily growing illness, like cancers, statistics are the best proof that this criminal system based on imaginary monetary figures is destroying the Earth and humanity. These are the real costs, but go unaccounted as liabilities, or real payments, in this fraudulent system.

When I was young, no kids had cancers, or died of anything, and no women had breast cancers. Now 30 to 40% have it. These are all the unaccounted consequences of our stupid economic system.

Our business partner is a master mechanic, and we have a large repair shop on our land. I'm driving a 31 year old Chev. 3/4 ton truck.

My friend tells me that in 10 years there won't be any used vehicles to buy, because their computer systems will be dead and unrepairable.

Our garbage dumps are full of imported, unrepairable junk that should have lasted several times their present age, now vehicles will follow them.

And this is called "economic efficiency", because the buying of new junk to fill our dumps jacks up the economists' worthless GDP figures ?

Ed Deak.

cboo44

READ what Ed has to say, for cryin' out loud! Experience and history has shown that resource development is a short-term money grab. It puts money in the pockets of just about everyone except the areas being pillaged. All the local area gets are the salaries, but none of the profits. That's why the hinterland has been in a decline throughout all of Campbell's "Golden Decade".

It isn't by coincidence that three of the BC Liberal leadership candidates are promising more attention for the north and interior. But what kind of attention are they talking about? Falcon has "promised" the O&G exploration companies carte blanche, and that the farmers and residents won't get in their way at all, no matter what happens.

Northern BC's Copper Rush

I am always amazed at journalists who paint the landscape in such beauty-spirit speak as though those of us who were born and raised in these lands do not know the value of the land for ourselves.

As a Tahltan I know there are places within our land we should keep from development. Unfortunately much of that decision making was taken from us when southerners created Spatsizi Provincial Park, Mount Edziza Provincial Park, Stikine River Provincial Park, Todagin South Slope Provincial Park.

These lands were taken by environmental groups and turned into parks by Friends of the Stikine, BC Sierra Club and others without consultation with the land owners, the Tahltan people. I know this for fact because as a worker for the Tahltan Band between 1994 and 1996 I was shocked when new park boundaries were tacked up along the Stikine Canyon without our involvement or consultation and accomodation. This was done behind our backs and without respect to us.

It truly amazes me when journalists like Christopher Pollon attack local businesses for adapting to their economic needs. Who said Tatogga Lake Resort was only for tourists? For as long as I can remember exploration companies have been using this site as a staging ground. Once more as a child I used to watch geologists board helicopters and fly off over the lake northward. That was 40 years ago.

Mr. Pollon has a profession that can go anywhere in the world to practice because there will always be another media created "Serengetti" that needs saving. As for my people there is a reason why this is our land and that's because we are not a transient population. So we are taking advantage of the copper rush and making sure we have long lasting benefits from it. We have learned how to get better agreements from proponents. We have very sophisticated members with education in many disciplines.

If environmental groups and their well placed journalists were truly concerned about our land AND our people, then they should join the line to build infrastructure in our communities. They would create trust funds for our children's education. After all they have raised countless millions on the backs of our name and our land for their campaigns and to pay their army of employees. They did so by depriving us and others from a real opportunity to use our land that creates wealth and opportunity for our people.

Until they pay up for what they took away, they should all just shut up and go away! Including Christopher Pollon.

Here come the 70's

Frances worked all through the area in the 70's eh. But since he's done with working up there he think it should be just left to the critters and under-employed now?

I have a friend that runs a lodge up there now, not in the 70's. Lives in the area all year round. He does more than just run his lodge though, because that doesn't pay all the bills.

Last month he was telling me the folks in the Stewart area are so hungry for real steady work that if some one came calling to re-open the Cassiar asbestos mine you would have to hold back some of the locals from lining up to work there. Such is life when one is struggling to eak out a living in such a remote spot in in BC.

He is very excited that there are potential mining plays coming up.

I know another guy who's Dad was the guy who staked out Eskay Creek. His Dad worked hard his whole life and died fairly young leaving my friend a ton of penny shares in the still speculative Eskay Creek mine. Finally the mine was developed. Buddy sold his now valuable shares for a small fortune. When he sold those shares he opened up a resort in the South Okanagan. Yes, tourism derived out of a mining investment.

I don't want to think about the carbon footprint for all of us who drive hundreds of kilometers to enjoy that lake, water sking and wine.

Folks like my friend live up in the Stewart region because they love the land. They struggle to stay there and they are hopeful that they might finally make some money. Enough money to realize the dreams we all have. And enough time on their hands to sit in front of a computor and complain about a development that is a 26 hour drive from Vancouver where we do most of the complaining. Its a pretty damn big province we live in isn't it? Its going to cost a bomb to put a fence around the whole thing.

Anybody besides Frances been up that way lately?

Yanna....Work toward local

Yanna....Work toward local self sufficiency, where you make most of the things you need within and for local use.

This has been the way of life for humanity for a million years and the easiest to do now with the tools, equipment and resources available for local production.

When I was teaching woodworking in nightschool in Williams Lake about 30 years ago, before Bill Bennett stopped all non credit programs, good many of my students were FN and I've done my best to inspire them to make things for themselves, in their communities.

No idea whether I succeeded to any degree, but clothes, furniture, etc. many other things can and should be made locally for local use.

When the ore runs out in these screwballer open pit schemes, what will remain of the communities who became hooked to the money from the jobs, so they can buy junk made in China ?

Even the few years Mount Polley was off has caused great damage around here, ruining people's lives.

Ed Deak.

I grew up in Kimberley BC

I grew up in Kimberley BC where the Sullivan mine ran for 100 years, the surrounding area was beautiful and we enjoyed an awesome life.

When the mine shutdown I moved to Trail to work at the smelter, another operation that has been in existence for more than 100 years. The surrounding area is beautiful, its an awesome place to live.

Mining and smelting can exist in all areas of province if the proper precautions are taken. The problem is our governments, provincially and federally, aren't interested in restricting corporate profitability and aren't insisting that new developments respect the environment they are working in.

Say what you want about mining and smelting, you can't live without it, but it can certainly be managed better.

Road Lice

Just FWIW tourism is not a green industry in any form.

Also I've spent time working at Cassiar and travelled a bit within this huge area. If one can't find a place to get an unsullied view then one has a problem.

Tourist considerations are a non issue as far as I'm concerned. There's enough room for everyone.

Again, Choice or No Choice...

"Yanna....Work toward local self sufficiency, where you make most of the things you need within and for local use.

This has been the way of life for humanity for a million years and the easiest to do now with the tools, equipment and resources available for local production." Ed Deak

Hear, hear. Cheap oil energy, especially from the 3rd world, for which there is no Green energy model yet to replace it, more than anything else drove the immediate pre and postwar decades of capitalist mega-development...in resource exploitation, labour productivity, urbanization and the immigrant population explosion, especially in the US. Unless there is something that appears over the horizon, safe and clean to replace it, cold fusion not a reality, yet at least, this period of corporate capitalist mega-development may be about to implode in on itself. Mega highly mechanized, fossil fuel intensive agriculture no less than energy intensive mining mega-development are all vulnerable, no less than the plastics industry etc..

Demand from China right now is especially driving commodities. It still much needs to sell much of its production to the rest of the world however, and capitalism everywhere else, but especially the US and Europe,for a host of reasons having to do with their own de-industrialization vulnerabilities and ruling class corruption, is in a deep state of crises and decline. Which is destined, has already, begun to effect the Chinese economy.

We shall soon enough see, of course. But it is highly likely yet that the co-operative over the competitive, and the self-reliance over global corporate capitalism dependence model will yet be the only realistic option. Hands down, with little to know choice, if the species is to go on from here.

living on government handouts?

Lordie, Lordie, Realife! First Nations lived without government handouts for thousands of years. They lived in harmony with nature, and mostly in harmony with each other, for they had the grace not to overpopulate themselves beyond the land's ability to provide. Asians, Middle Easterners, Africans and Europeans and their descendents should have done the same. But oh no! Our idiot ancestors overpopulated their own lands and then took a boat to here and promptly overpopulated this part of the world, too. We are such dummies. We need to go back to the First Nation ways. They were right and we are wrong. Community living and sharing, economic and social equality, where you are always your village, no matter where you go.

@ Marysue52

You say, "Our idiot ancestors overpopulated their own lands and then took a boat to here and promptly overpopulated this part of the world, too."
Actually in my case, the idiot ancestors were kicked off the land and sent to Canada (the Clearances.) We were given or took from First Nations the land they lived on. I agree with the rest of your comments, but some of our ancestors did not have a choice about coming to North America.

@MarySue52

Aboriginal people may have lived for thousands of years without government handouts but they have no desire to live entirely off the land any more. Even a simple convenience such as a gas stove to replace an open fire requires money. This can only happen without government handouts if, as I previously noted, leaders are willing to embrace industry.