Nope. All that matters is

Nope. All that matters is $$$.

We need to stop electing low wage conservative like Federal Cons and Libs, Provincial Libs in BC etc...

LOTS of contradictions

-OK, we're all about "preserving", except that Inskut Power would have required a power grid throughout the Klappan Valley. But that's "OK" because it was a "native initiative" funded by taxpayers?
-No mines, because of the infrastructure that would desecrate the "wilderness", but the mother of all invasive infrastructures, the BC Rail line to Dease Lake is a boon that allows natives and others to use the area resources as THEY see fit ?
-650 "recreationalists" visit the Spastizi every year "EMPLOYING 200" ??? That is a 1/3.25 ratio !! Who the hell is kidding whom? Employing ???... FOR HOW LONG? July to September?
Apparently it is wonderful that taxpayers can build a boondoggle railroad bed for people to use, and it's just fine for taxpayers to "invest" in a warm and fuzzy wind farm generation complex in the "pristine wilderness, but an actual self-supporting and private investor funded resource infrastructure is a big No-No ?? Are people nuts enough to swallow this nonsense?
Sorry, it just does not add up.

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, I love living here.

You simply can't replace industry jobs with tourism, just ask the people in Kimberley how that's working out for them now that their mine is extinct?

Say what you want about mining and smelting, we can't live without it, but we can expect it to be managed better, with an eye to minimizing the environmental impact and maximizing the financial benefits to workers and surrounding communities.

The mine is extinct

Exactly the point, the mine only provides short term employment and devastates the environment and then leaves leaving the people worse off with a destroyed environment and no jobs. When is the natural world going to be valued for the benefits it provides all of us. I don't think there is a price that can be attributed to that value.
We as humans have inflicted massive devastation on the planet, are we to continue until the whole planet is an Easter Island or should we step back and slow the destruction and if we really work at it maybe even reverse some of the damage already inflicted.
We can not undo a lot of the destruction but we sure can make a choice not do add exponentially to it. Are we to leave our future generations a baron planet all for todays greed. I hope and wish we can find it in ourselves to find better ways to live than to destroy our only home.

"Wishing" is not very practical

It's fine to spout off green, warm and fuzzy rhetoric, but it is resource development that pays for public services, the ones that everyone has become accustomed to and most urbanites demand. A mine does not have to "devastate the environment", that is again, a broad, sweeping generalization and just rhetoric. Hope for a better way does not include pounding away on a computer, made of minerals and plastics derived from developed resources.
We can be practical and responsible. "Just leave everything alone" is fine if you have your cave picked out and are prepared to embrace subsistence living.

demotto

I wouldn't call the environment around Kimberley as destroyed, except maybe for all the tourist and part-time facilities. Smithers also has a wonderful natural environment with hunting, fishing, lakes and skiing, plus a mine, railroad and forestry industries to provide jobs so people can live there. Greenwood is or has died but a new mine may allow the town to be revived giving people a chance to live near and enjoy a wonderful natural environment.

I believe the problem in and around the Klappan Valley is not making the mines to build a town and only have miners live there rather than fly-in/fly-out. Like Kimberley, some people may stay after the mine closes and find other was to make a living such as small industries, tourism and another mine. Transients, including miners, have no stake in an area, but the people who live there are more likely to protect and use it.

The Tahltan know what they want

Back in 2003, the Tahltan participated as a community in a two day exercise of looking at what a sustainable future with mining as part of their economy should look like to be acceptable to them. The report 'Out of Respect' with the community vision of the future is available here /www.iisd.org/publications/pub.aspx?id=606 and makes interesting reading in the context of the two reports.

Deal with it or shut the fug up...

For so long as "the system" with its greed and fear driven imperative exists, there will be this endless pursuit of rapacious growth. Nothing, absolutely nothing is sacred to it, other that the almighty dollar.

As that venture capitalist freak on Lang and O'Leary Report on CBC says, "Greed is good, and I love money. Less government interference, lower taxes and smaller government."

That's it, folks. Don't be surprised. There is no excuse for it. They mean what they say, as they run, rape and pillage across the planet.

And don't get in their way. They will run right over you and leave nothing but scorched earth behind themselves.

Or be "brave", and accept that we are in for a royal donnybrook. Simple as that. Or write off your kids and communities as a loss, and move on. You are pointless.

We live way better without mining and smelting.

The few tourists I've found, told me the only big trees they saw were on the back of a logging truck.

And, you are right Kootenay, we can't simply replace industry jobs with tourism. People are not even visiting BC very much anymore because why would they want to tour an industrial area? They can probably see that at home. Governments are failing and out of desperation they are damaging the environment with unnecessary and outdated industrial processes. And, governments are trying to make it as difficult as possible for people to travel. Travel opens our world with new possibilities and perspectives. If you don't believe me, then travel for a few years, and come back home -- it's not simple and it's not for everyone, but I do recommend traveling.

Seven Generations

Many First Nations communities have continued or returned to using what amounts to a "100 mile diet" concept, including wild game and fish, berries and medicinals. Traditional food sources are receiving more attention on TV and through the Internet.

Widespread viewings of "Blue Gold" and other stories on the Tsilqot'in country have demonstrated the combination of traditional ways and 21st century smarts and media savvy that exists in many communities.

Seven generations is a commonly heard expression in First Nations. It refers to our responsibility to leave the land we find ourselves on in a condition which can continue to be as healthy and productive, or better,into the foreseeable future.
Seven generations is a number many may touch within our lifetimes.

Great grandparents, grandparents, parents, ourselves, children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.

My mother met at least one great grandparent and three great grandchildren. Her life touched and was touched by seven generations of her family.

I'm up to six, and plan to be around to get to seven, hopefully eight.

Knowing this makes looking ahead seven generations a bit less daunting and impossible.

Based on my own family's average for producing the next generation, I need to thjnk about 100 years past my own life.

This means that if I thin and tend baby trees, nature willing, there will be big healthy trees there by the time the seventh generation comes along to use some of them.

If we care for and nourish the saskatoons, huckleberries and wild cranberries and other useful bushes and trees,they should be producing, nature willing, in 100 years.

If I transport tons of locally produced mixed manure and leave it in a big pile, in 100 years it will have produced tons more composted soil from all the rotted weeds it has nourished, and will be ready for planting anytime between.

Weeds are great solar collectors and awesome soil enhancements. No matter how tough they think they are, with enough shit on top they're just more compost.

Our weeds from the past sixteen years now nourish strawberries and calendula and garlic which are almost like weeds themselves as they clone and colonize. More for the later generations, as long as each succeeding generation continues in the same vein.

Wherever our ancestry lies we have some of this knowledge and experience buried shallow or deep in our past. It is lost in sacrificing everything to immediate wish gratification, which is the curse of modern materialistic societies, and a possibly incurable and mostly terminal social illness.

When did providing well paying jobs become a social crime?

My people, the Tahltan, traded goods and services derived from our land with other First Nations. We even took products from one First Nation and traded them for profit with another First Nation. Today we are involving ourselves in use of our land in a different manner.

Our land has been valuated since European contact. Various interests have extracted various resources for profit. Today the value of what's in the ground commands the most attention.

Our task is to ensure this time we don't get taken to the cleaners. And we are doing that despite interference from environmentalists and city dwellers that have not even come to our land. The poetic marketing campaign is in full swing and no one really takes time to see what WE want to change in our communities. It's their agenda and they recruit the disenfranchised in our culture to give force and effect to their causes.

Why do we place so much emphasis on what Wade Davis thinks anyway? He used government process to take 7 acres of land from us and by the laws of BC he has the right to keep Tahltans off his seven acres.

I don't see Wade Davis sharing HIS land with us Tahltans. Imperial Metals is bound by legislation to make a deal with the Tahltan through the EA process. Wade Davis doesn't have to even though at times he refers to his 7-acre paradise as part of what makes him qualified to preach to the converted. So he is making profit from our land for his own needs.

I don't see any legislation enforcing environmental organizations to buck up or share their profits from fund raising campaigns about and over our land. I don't see any remedies imposed on environmental groups for alienating access to our land through protected areas and federal or provincial parks.

We have an Elder who has made a business from taking tourists through Spatsizi Plateau Wilderness Provincial Park for over 30 years. Now he has been denied access if he doesn't get a permit.

I am sick of the environmental rhetoric. They are corporations just like the mining companies they wail against so publicly. They are concerned about a positive cash flow and exercising power and influence to achieve their agendas. They leave bad things behind for people after they have swindled them into supporting a protectionist agenda. They are false prophets spreading doom and gloom sermons.

And when they have left us in search of a new "Serengeti" of their own marketing creation they will forget the cost of what they did to the Tahltan and our northern neighbours.

The earth grows back and heals. When Mount St, Helens erupted and damaged Spirit Lake science said it would be a minimum of 250 years before the lake was alive again. Imagine the surprise when only after 5 years tadpoles were seen swimming in the lake and rainbow trout minnows were spotted. So Wade Davis and all those doom and gloomers need to realize they are doing no one in Tahltan country any favours with their BS.

Yanna Tan

You have made very impressive, knowledgeable, and reasonable posts in this thread. I am very impressed!

30 years ago, the Tsawwassen and Musqueam lived in dire poverty - poor housing, high unemployment, social despair - a feeling of inferiority. The same could also be said for the Osoyoos and Westbank people's, for example.

Then the knowledgeable ones saw the opportunity to change those conditions for the benefit of their people's - housing, unemployment, education, social matters are now on par with society at large. Opportunity and optimism now reign. It's quite an achievement.

Now the same potentially can take place for the Tahltan. Never rest until that can take place.

And many have not, Stewart

"Many First Nations communities have continued or returned to using what amounts to a "100 mile diet" concept, including wild game and fish, berries and medicinals."

And yet during last year's forest fires, in the Chilcotin, when fires were blocking Highway 20 and the Chilko Lake Rd, there were demands by band chiefs for people to be evacuated to Williams Lake to be fed, tended to and put up in hotels.
I know it's fun to spread myths among the urban elite, but don't spread that silly stuff around a guy that was raised in the area, whose parents and grandparents pioneered the area, OK?

cboo44

So I take it you are in favour of the mining, etc. profits remaining in the area? Not just a few paltry wages, but actual dyed-in-the-wool profits that can be used to create a post-mining infrastructure?

Converging Realities and Decent Incomes I

One should be able to easily understand and relate to what Yanna Tan writes above... the simple desire of his people to escape the poverty that has been imposed on them by the circumstances post contact. And some mining, like every other natural resource activity is going to have to go on. It's a plain and simple fact of human existence need. And we are not, our entire species, going to voluntarily go back to living in caves. All these things have to be faced up to.

That said, the issue is always, the scale and consequences of our activity, and how it is carried out to ensure natural values AND human health and well being, it's impact on water and fish resources etc.. Who is going to primarily benefit... the people of the area in which the resource activity is going to go on, or big off-shore corporate capitalist conglomerates?

And finally, what is going to be left at the end, when the resource is gone and the Big Money Boys have all moved on to new pickings. And they will. Are you just going to slowly drift back to the state of what was, only now even more diminished after the resource is gone, or is there going to be an ongoing legacy that will continue to feed and clothe, and provide clean water to people?

Mining towns and locales do not historically have a good record in all these areas of concern, and for good reasons. Ghost towns, ongoing arsenic laced and leaking tailings ponds and great scarred holes in the grounds and pits are here and there all about BC. And I see some of the really old ones on my horseback rides into the backcountry. Testaments to past rip, rape and run. Though at least the scale of the old ones were relatively small compared to todays mining capacities.

And while yes, the land does eventually recover and the trees return, more or less, and maybe even over hundreds of years the water cleanse and repair itself, minus what was taken of course, which will never return. And at the scale of current human industrial mining, mighty big holes and huge volumes of resource can be moved over a very short span of years relatively. Then "Poof!", the Big Money jobs are gone, the people forced to move on, and those who remain are left, despite all initial assurances, to clean up the mess, and deal with the poisoned creeks and streams. All just so much "collateral damage".

Though I agree, that tourism is, for most people, not an economic/work activity that will provide them with reliable, "decent" standard of living incomes. It may the owner/operators, but not "the workers".

continued next post...

Converging Realities and Decent Incomes II

from previous post...

But all this said, the reality still remains that there is a convergence of environmental realities occurring, along with a deep running economic crisis within current capitalism, and deserving of its own special mention, a serious energy supply issue that is a brick wall about to be hit. All of which suggests to me at least, that one may want to begin to think about how we are going to do things,and perhaps at a more appropriate and sustainable scale in the future. To be sure that we do not get caught out, with our pants down and all our gonads in one basket, as this all continues to roll out and impact... for that seven generations my friend Stewart MacKenzie speaks of often.

Native peoples, no doubt, but also increasingly, more and more of those Whites whose "standard of living" you may understandably have envied and want a piece of, are in a deep economic pickle and feeling understandably desperate. You may be down and hearing the count, I don't know. But the White Man's world and assumptions are also showing serious signs of being unsteady on its pins, and maybe even about to go down. The false storefront of some vibrancy may still be there, like the painted face of a hurting and sick hooker, but just look behind that and see what is really there from the alley.

We really all need to think very carefully here, and be cautious about the conclusions we draw from all this, and how and where we see our long term interests lying. Because in the end, if this perfect storm taking shape does actually converge on capitalism, as all the indicators suggest, save those of casino capitalism itself, there may be no bloody choice but to do things entirely differently than our previous "free market capitalism" assumptions.

In my personal view, self-reliance over reliance on Big Global Corporate Capitalism, and co-operative economic relationships over the seriously flawed and damaging competitive ones, is the future direction of economic affairs that we are going to have to struggle with and over.

But then, I guess, it's a question of whether folks decide that they prefer "co-operation" over, what is to me anyway, this insane, destructive "competitive" way of doing things. Though again, we shall have to see what "choices" do and do not really exist going forward.

Peace

All what I have said above considered, it is the Tahltan people who should finally decide what is and is not done on their territory. Though we may be excused having a word or two to say about it... and a point of view. :-)

Peace. :-)

Jerry Munro

I read some time ago (and it may be different now - but I somehow doubt it) that the richest reserve in Canada - in Alberta - had the poorest residents. Why, one may be tempted to ask? Well, because the ordinary residents got screwed over by the chiefs and FN bigwigs.

While it may be that the residents in this instance want some control over what goes on, will they actually get a tangible benefit, passed around to all? Or will we still have the leaky tailing ponds, while a few fly off to Vegas and DFisneyworld? In other words (and this is for you, snert) become "white men"?

sustainability et al

I'm in Kimberley, and the results of 100 years of mining is clearly visible--loss of trees, loss of natural creeks, sudden drops of earth and holes, etc. The ground underneath me may not be safe. AND you should see the square miles of tailing ponds still contaminated, after 10 years of reclamation. Then there are those 4 needless deaths...low oxygen. That beautiful hill with that spectacular view---but you can't build a house on it, or years down the road, you and your family will get sick. The forests aren't thick, as they used to be. Now there's a pulp mill in the valley, and it occasionally has a spill which ends up in the Kootenay River, along with the runoff from Roundup sprayed in the forests. Then there're those mines all around Fernie which are cutting down entire mountains! The run-off of loose mine material has to do damage to the rivers. I think we're nuts. The First Nations had it right--live in harmony with the land, the water and other critters. Treat all with respect. Don't overpopulate beyond the land's ability to provide. A simpler, lovelier life.

Tourism not the economy of workers, Jerry..

Not so sure 'bout the that Jerry. True, the capitalists exploit the worker in the name of tourism. But lots of people rely on the tourist dollar to make ends meet. And if the tourists don't come, there is the end of it. There is a lot to be said in favour of encouraging tourists to our land, and the most important is that they bring foreign capital which stays right here at home - in our economy to be spent locally and taxed locally for the betterment of all the people who live here. Nobody says I have to start a resort/ski hill/fishing adventure in BC instead of going to work for a coal mine which exports 100% of its profits offshore, but if I do it sure benefits the local economy much better than transnationals who are here for one reason and one reason only - to benefit largely foreign shareholders.
I think we are on the same page, Jerry, but think how much better it would be if all the resources in BC were reserved for people like resort owners who have an investment in the future of British Columbia.
Care to contrast that with the transnational whores (who would have us finance their scented toilet paper on the exploitation of the unknowing/unaware toils of the masses who live here and have been brainwashed into believing in the 'globalist' paradigm which is soon to make beggars of us all?)
Or to put it more prettily: Have us finance their scented assholes on the public per diem? Don't know how you feel about that but I would like to call a locally owned Roto-Rooter like Tunisia did and throw the bums out. Because it is going to come down to that, and when it does it would be so much better if we who live here actually control the land we live on and like to call home. It would be nice if we could say to China and India, 'Well, yes you can buy our resources, but we control them and we WILL control the price. Take it or leave it.' And they will have to take it because resources are in short supply and demand is long and never ending - something our neocon crooks in government are either too greedy or too stupid to tell us. We, my friend, in spite of the greed and stupidity of the government which would like us to believe that they actually 'represent' us would have us believe, we (who live here) are actually in the drivers seat. But it won't last if we give away the future to a buncha capitalist crooks. Ask me, I know them, I associate with them every day. They don't have two future thoughts to rub together. A vote for the Liberals is a vote for a group of greedy, narrow minded (and I mean narrow) pricks who are only interested in how much money they can make today.

@ Yanna Tan

"Our task is to ensure this time we don't get taken to the cleaners. And we are doing that despite interference from environmentalists and city dwellers that have not even come to our land. The poetic marketing campaign is in full swing and no one really takes time to see what WE want to change in our communities. It's their agenda and they recruit the disfranchised in our culture to give force and effect to their causes."
"Our task to ensure this time we don't get taken to the cleaners.'
Hmm... What will you call it when the resources have been sold for nickels on the dollar and twenty years from now you are in the same boat you have always been in? With one difference: The resources; which are irreplaceable, are now gone and you have nothing left to bargain with. What you are doing is giving away your resources on the false promise of future prosperity. Why? because you don't have the money to finance development yourselves. Why? Because a few transnational pricks control not only you but all the people who live in this country. You think you are going to make a killing but you are probably going to make about a nickel on the dollar for every resource extracted from your land by transnationals and bankers. Stop a moment and think.
1. If the resources are given away to transnational companies, what will you benefit 20 or 30 years down the road?
2. If you had the money to finance the exploitation of the resource yourselves, how much more would you make?
3. You don't lack capital to finance, you lack brains to see the opportunity. Consider this: The mining companies have already done all the exploration work for you, now they want to exploit your inexperience and offer you jobs and nickels on the dollar for the value or a one time only bonanza. Why?
4. Far be it from me to tell you your business but here is the opportunity for a whole new paradigm: You have the resource and with that you don't need the help of the white man, be they transnational corporations or concerned ecologists. If you had the brains, my friend, you could start your own bank using the resource as collateral to finance the development of it (if that is what you are determined on) and hire the expertise to run the bank. Why do you want to give most of it away? Ah, it's the present day cash crunch. Well borrow a few bucks against the future and start you own bank; all I'm saying is if you wish to enter the modern world why not do it the smart way? Why give away the farm when you don't have to? The resources will always be there and people will always want them. They won't want them like they want them today - they will want them much more in the future as resources dry up. You're selling out cheap. And always be wary of corporations/governments bearing gifts.

Bankers and other criminals

Bankers Every Canadian should watch this simple and clear expanation of how we have been enslaved for 50% of our working lives to the criminals known as bankers.

Transnational corporations - a poster child for corporate malfeasance Or 'How we could end up like Ecuador with monstrous ecological debts and not enough money to pay for social programs. Or you could hunt around on google and eventually find out the fate of people who live in countries like Jamaica and why they are not at all euphoric about being financed by American dominated 'World Banks'.

One last shot at Yanna Tan

Are you sure you are not being purposefully starved in the present to ensure your own future complicity in the pillaging of your own resources? History and the white man have never given the Indians a fair break and you think that now, because you have what they want, they won't offer you a box of chocolates and steal your future?

driftwood

There is a lot to be said as well for a 1st rate education, and an infrastructure which allows graduates to pursue a career using that education.

And as an aside, the mayor of Grand Forks, Brian Taylor, said that local mom 'n' pop grow ops in the area are supporting the local economy, because the people who got laid off from traditional logging and mining have to make a living somehow.
http://www.filmwatchingsite.org/watch-354989-CannaBiz
That would be what tourism is: a stopgap after a local economy is ravaged through neglect and abuse by complicity between the provincial government and a few trans-nationals.

Rick and Driftwood...

"I read some time ago (and it may be different now - but I somehow doubt it) that the richest reserve in Canada - in Alberta - had the poorest residents. Why, one may be tempted to ask? Well, because the ordinary residents got screwed over by the chiefs and FN bigwigs." Rick

Which is a problem throughout capitalism... not just Native communitiies... though clearly they get fucked over the more severely. There's that word again, "democracy" that jumps to mind... which needs to get applied to and integrated into the economy and all its enterprises and ventures, instead of this bulldozing hierarchical system. And "local" control over development and resources, instead of their being alienated to the top, where the ruling class and their henchmen exercise their monopoly dominance for aye or nay.

And while you, Driftwood, as always, make many good points, we will have to disagree on, in my view, the "over-emphasis" put on "tourism". It's value as a decent wage source for its workers is marginal, by and large. Which is NOT to say that tourism does not have a place in the economy. It's just that wherever it is the centrepiece, like Mexico et al, typically it sucks off poverty for cheap labour, and recreates it.

I think Ed Deak's thesis re national, provincial and local self-reliance to get things done and produce things WE need ourselves, I suggest "co-operatively" over Ed's preference for "private enterprise", but certainly over reliance on "OFFSHORE", be it corporate generated "tourism" of the privileged into pristine and cute backwaters etc that underscore the poverty of the locals, or reliance on corporate resource rip-offs, rapes and run etc. As it is, tourism is just part of the rip off, another aspect of it, and impoverishment game of locals the end outcome, in my experience of it.

My advice to the Tahltans would be.... and I appreciate that I am but an outsider to their lived reality... keep up the fight, whatever it takes, for control of your remaining lands and resources... to be maintain control of their development in order to ensure it serves your own "self reliance" and well being, not the corporate fat-cats.

And good luck with it, whatever you decide.