british columbia – Page 3

As BC’s coastal mountain glaciers recede the effects alter ecosystems. Can human engineering begin to compensate? Second in a series.

Pacific white-sided dolphins cruise Knight Inlet. The fjord that receives the melting waters of the Klinaklini Glacier has been home to First Nations for millennia. Photo: Knight Inlet Lodge.

[Editor’s note: To read the first instalment of The Big Melt, a special Tyee series, go here.]

When William Glendale was 10-years-old, his logger father was away for work so much, he bought his son a boat and a .30-30 rifle. “My father told me, ‘When your mom wants fish, go fishing. When she wants meat, go get her a deer.’” Sixty years later, no one knows Knight Inlet better than William Glendale — a Hereditary Chief with the Da’naxda’xw/Awaetlala First Nation, whose traditional territory includes the upper portion of the inlet. (The Mamalilikulla and Tlowitsis First Nations have territories overlapping the inlet out towards Johnstone Strait.)

Knight Inlet is the deep glacial fjord that receives the melting waters of the Klinaklini Glacier on B.C.’s central coast. As long as the Klinaklini Glacier has existed, Glendale’s forebearers have lived in its proximity.

But their future is cast in shadow by research led by B.C. glaciologist Brian Menounos, a professor at University of Northern British Columbia and a Hakai Institute affiliate. As the first story in this series explained, their findings show that the last two decades have been disastrous for western North America’s mountain glaciers, particularly for those on the south and central Coast Mountains, including the Klinaklini Glacier — the largest glacier in western North America south of the Alaskan border.

In 2018, Menounos and his collaborators published research that revealed that glaciers across western North America are melting faster than previously assumed, and that melting had accelerated about four-fold in just the last decade.

The 470-square-kilometre Klinaklini, like many glaciers of the south and central Coast Mountains, is expected to lose at least 70 per cent of its total ice by the end of the century, and as this happens, an ecosystem that has evolved in tandem with the glacier will be upended.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Oil Tanker Spotted in Risky Active Pass Alarms Activists

May 10, 2021

Oil Tanker Spotted in Risky Active Pass Alarms Activists

Officials promise no repeats. But advocates say the incident raises new concerns about regulation of tankers in BC’s waters.

Narrow, twisting and busy Active Pass is no place for oil tankers, say advocates. But a loaded tanker travelled through the busy pass last month. Photo by Ruth Hartnup, Creative Commons licensed.

On a calm Friday afternoon in late April, avid naturalist Barry Swanson was watching Active Pass from his home on Galiano Island, keeping an eye out for the pod of southern resident killer whales that swim by every couple of days.

Instead of orcas, he was shocked to see an oil tanker traversing the narrow channel.

The MV Kassos was sitting low in the water, its hull heavy with petroleum products bound for Los Angeles.

Swanson is the co-founder of the non-profit Salish Sea Orca Squad, a group that works to raise awareness about the region’s killer whales. In an interview with The Tyee, he says he was very concerned to see dangerous cargo being shipped through the narrow waterway.

Active Pass sits between Mayne and Galiano Island. The channel is deep but narrow — 302 metres wide at its skinniest — and features strong currents, rip tides and a blind corner, according to Fisheries and Oceans Canada. It’s also a route favoured by BC Ferries, connecting Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay and the mainland to the Southern Gulf Islands.

It’s extremely unusual for an oil tanker to take Active Pass instead of the neighbouring Boundary Pass, favoured by almost all other commercial routes for its wider, calmer waters. Swanson says he’s never seen an oil tanker take the pass before.

“When you have a tanker travelling through these waters… there is always tremendous danger with dangerous goods being spilt in any amount. It would be a disaster for that to happen,” Swanson says.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Old-Growth Forest Logging Approvals Are Soaring in BC

May 4, 2021

Old-Growth Forest Logging Approvals Are Soaring in BC

Companies are rushing to get permits before protection comes for critical areas, advocates say.

In the year since the government received a report recommending increased old-growth protection, approvals jumped 43 per cent. Photo by TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance.

New mapping released today by the Wilderness Committee indicates the province approved significantly more old-growth logging over the past 12 months than it did the previous year.

According to the report released today, the province approved logging in 84,669 hectares of old-growth forest over the past year compared with 59,228 hectares the year prior.

Advocates speculate that the 43-per-cent increase could signal the forest industry’s push to secure harvestable timber as the province promises tighter restrictions on old-growth logging.

“The reason we ran the comparison was because I was expecting a little bit of an increase, or at the very least a flatline,” said Torrance Coste, national campaign director with the Wilderness Committee.

Even then, Coste said he found the increase surprising.

He said the decision to map cut-block approvals in old-growth forests was based on hearing concerns about the rate of logging from around the province.

The organization said that based on mapping of publicly available government data in the year leading up to April 30, the old growth approved for logging over the past 12 months is equivalent to an area slightly larger than E.C. Manning Provincial Park.

Coste said several factors could contribute to an increase in old-growth logging permits. An eight-month strike by coastal forestry workers in 2020 and ongoing mill closures and curtailments may have led to a decrease in permits in the prior year.

In addition, he said the recent spike in lumber prices could contribute to an increase in logging.

But he also speculates that the forest industry is preparing for additional restrictions on old-growth logging.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

With ‘Piecemeal’ Budget, BC Is Headed Towards Climate Failure, Critics Say

April 25, 2021

With ‘Piecemeal’ Budget, BC Is Headed Towards Climate Failure, Critics Say

Province’s investments are ‘very, very small compared to the challenges.’

BC’s budget is a ‘missed opportunity to invest in things like a worker transition, electrifying the transportation sector and protecting our strongest environmental assets like old growth forests,’ says Green Leader Sonia Furstenau.

This week’s B.C. budget has set the province up to miss its climate goals, according to critics.

The province has pledged to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to 16 per cent below 2007 levels by 2025 and 40 per cent below by 2030. But Tuesday’s budget doesn’t create a clear path to hit that goal, advocates say.

The most recent data on B.C.’s total emissions is from 2018, when B.C. emitted a net 66.9 million tonnes of greenhouse gasses, 6.2 per cent above 2007 levels.

The climate plan calls on the province to cut that to 53.3 million tonnes by 2025.

But emissions seem to be going up, not down, says Andrew Gage, a staff lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law.

Over the next few years, the budget predicts that carbon tax revenue will increase. Dividing that revenue by the carbon tax rate shows the province expects increasing emissions for the next two years.

In 2020/21, greenhouse gas emissions covered by the tax totalled 41 million tonnes. That’s projected to increase to 44.1 million tonnes this year and 44.4 million tonnes in the next year, before declining to 42.3 million tonnes in 2023/24.

Those numbers don’t tell the whole picture, cautions Gage, because only 70 per cent of emissions are covered by the carbon tax. But planning on increasing emissions until 2023/24 gives the province very little time to course correct and slash emissions to hit its 2025 goal, he said.

“The fact that carbon-taxed emissions continue to rise until two to three years before 2025 raises questions about how we will meet that target. Particularly with LNG Canada coming online in 2025,” Gage said.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Blockaders

March 26, 2021

The Blockaders

As logging resisters near month eight in Fairy Creek, a judge may order their surrender. Inside their last stand for old growth. A Tyee special report.

Members of the Fairy Creek Blockade occupy a logging road, preventing loggers for Teal-Jones timber company from moving into one of Vancouver Island’s last old-growth watersheds. Photo by Ken Dawson.

Simon Frankson emerged from his sleeping bag at 4 a.m., just in time to join the fray.

The day before, a balmy afternoon in early August, he and about a dozen campers had studied a satellite photo of the area: a mountainside sheathed in deep green cedars and Douglas fir trees, many of them hundreds or thousands of years old, in a watershed known as Fairy Creek in the southwest corner of Vancouver Island. The telling grey stripe of a logging road was creeping up from the left side of the image. It was the same kind of road that has, over the past century, made way for logging companies to cut down 80 per cent of the ancient forest on an island larger than Belgium.

When Frankson and the campers had arrived the night before, things already looked different than in the photo. The stripe had grown into a web of roads advancing up and across the slope. One more day and the machines could crest the ridge above them, opening up yet another valley to industrial logging.

Now Frankson was rubbing the sleep from his eyes and readying himself for his first shift as an old-growth forest blockader. Out of the blackness, the harsh headlights of a four-by-four came swerving around a switchback toward the camp. Frankson jumped up to join the line of bodies rushing to stand their ground…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Serena Renner , Zoë Yunker , TheTyee.ca, canada, british columbia, protest, logging, old growth forests, fairy creek,

Youth Climate Activists Aim to Rally Support for Indigenous Land Defenders

March 22, 2021

Youth Climate Activists Aim to Rally Support for Indigenous Land Defenders

The Sustainabiliteens hope to show solidarity with TMX protesters.

Young activists from across Metro Vancouver will gather outside Environment Canada’s downtown Vancouver offices today in support of Indigenous land defenders. Photo by Jamin Mike.

Best known for their ability to draw massive crowds in support of climate justice, the Sustainabiliteens are taking a different approach for today’s global day of youth action by drawing attention to the work of Indigenous activists fighting the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion project.

Along with hundreds of young people across Canada and many more worldwide, the Sustainabiliteens, a group of high school-aged activists from across Metro Vancouver, will be gathering outside Environment Canada’s downtown Vancouver offices at 10 a.m.

In addition to calling for an end to the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project, the group will be acting in solidarity for the first time with Indigenous land defenders, particularly the Tiny House Warriors and Braided Warriors, who have faced arrests for their actions and allege brutality on the part of arresting police officers.

“In the past, Sustainabiliteens hasn’t done the best job of standing in solidarity with Indigenous peoples,” said Tavie Johnson, a member of the group, which she says is largely made up of white people.

“Traditionally the environmental movement and the conservation movement have been very whitewashed, and we know that we can’t have climate justice without racial justice and Indigenous sovereignty and Indigenous rights. All of those are extremely interconnected.”

While the Sustainabiliteens drew over 100,000 students, workers, parents and elders to strike for the climate in September 2019, this time they want people to stay home and watch their livestream on Instagram or Facebook accounts because of the pandemic.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Katie Hyslop, TheTyee.ca, protests, oil and gas industry, sustainability, trans mountain pipeline, british columbia

Governments Are Making Taxpayers Subsidize Corporate Cleanup of Oil and Gas Wells

March 20, 2021

Governments Are Making Taxpayers Subsidize Corporate Cleanup of Oil and Gas Wells

Companies are responsible for dormant wells, but the public is helping foot the bill.

Oil and gas companies are required to clean up their old wells. But governments have decided taxpayers should subsidize them as part of the pandemic response. Photo by Larry McDougal, the Canadian Press.

The B.C. and Canadian governments have promoted a $100-million fund to clean up dormant oil and gas wells in the province as a “win-win” for the environment and the economy.

But the biggest winners may be the major oil and gas companies that own the sites.

“To find out the major recipients of this are companies that are perfectly able to clean up their own mess is not surprising, but disappointing,” said Peter McCartney, climate campaigner with the Wilderness Committee environmental group.

“It’s another subsidy,” he said.

McCartney received information on the grant recipients from B.C.’s Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation in response to a freedom of information request that he shared with The Tyee. The document provides details on the first $50 million to be distributed in the province.

A quarter of that money, $12.4 million, is dedicated to cleaning up sites where Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. is the permit holder. The corporation, based in Calgary, is worth $45 billion.

The second biggest share, $7.9 million, is for Petronas Energy Canada Ltd. sites. The Canadian subsidiary’s parent company is owned by the Malaysian government.

Media contacts for CNRL and Petronas didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Other prominent companies among the 41 permit holders listed include Enerplus Corp., Ovintiv Canada ULC, ExxonMobil Canada Energy, Husky Oil Operations Ltd., Imperial Oil Resources Ltd., Cenovus Energy Inc., Painted Pony Energy Ltd., Tourmaline Oil Corp. and Whitecap Resources Inc.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

the tyee, oil and gas industry, andrew macleod, british columbia,

BC Promised to Protect Old Growth. How Is It Doing?

March 15, 2021

BC Promised to Protect Old Growth. How Is It Doing?

Greens and environmental groups criticize lack of progress, but others defend efforts to make big changes.

Logged old-growth red cedar in Kwagu’ł First Nation territory in northern Vancouver Island. Photo by TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance.

Six months after releasing a major report on managing and protecting old-growth forests, British Columbia is either at a turning point, a standstill or both, depending who you ask.

Katrine Conroy, the minister responsible, says change is underway but takes time. Environmentalists give the progress so far a failing grade.

One of the report’s authors, Garry Merkel, captures the uncertainty when asked if there has been noticeable change. “‘Yes’ is the short answer, but ‘no,’ depending how you look at it.”

Merkel is a professional forester with 45 years of experience and a Tahltan Nation member. He and Al Gorley, a professional forester whose similarly wide experience includes a stint as chair of the B.C. Forest Practices Board, wrote A New Future For Old Forests: A Strategic Review of How British Columbia Manages for Old Forests Within its Ancient Ecosystems.

In the report they made 14 recommendations that would totally overhaul the management of old-growth forests, starting with grounding the system in a government-to-government framework involving both the provincial and Indigenous governments.

Their second recommendation was to “prioritize ecosystem health and resilience” so that the health of forests comes first. It would mean a shift from seeing forests primarily through a financial lens where ecosystem health is viewed as a “constraint.”

Building on that base, other recommendations included protecting more old forests, improving the information available to the public about forest conditions and trends, and planning for an orderly transition of the industry away from a reliance on old growth.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Andrew MacLeod, TheTyee.ca, british columbia, government, old growth forests, logging,

‘A Monstrous Monument to Greed and Stupidity’: Critics React to Site C Decision

March 2, 2021

‘A Monstrous Monument to Greed and Stupidity’: Critics React to Site C Decision

BC Liberals accuse NDP of mismanagement; Greens warn public to brace for higher costs.

Premier John Horgan confirmed today that construction of the Site C dam will once again go ahead. ‘I know there are a lot of British Columbians who have never accepted this as an appropriate way for BC Hydro to go,’ he said. Photo via the BC government.

Premier John Horgan’s announcement today that the government will continue with the Site C dam despite massive budget increases and delays brought criticism from opponents and supporters of the project.

“We’ve seen mismanagement of this file,” said Tom Shypitka, the BC Liberal critic for energy, mines and low carbon innovation. “It’s a sad day for the taxpayers, but it’s a good thing to see Site C proceed for the future of British Columbians.”

Horgan announced the government will continue with the project even though the budget has grown to $16 billion, an increase he blamed largely on unexpected geotechnical issues and delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is now expected to be in service in 2025.

The Site C budget was $7.9 billion in 2010. When the NDP decided to continue construction in 2017 they increased the budget to $10.7 billion.

Shypitka said the cost of the dam has doubled since the NDP came to government and that the oversight committee it put in place in 2018 has clearly failed. “Under their watch, this project has gone off the rails. That’s on the NDP government.”

He rejected the idea the BC Liberals should have been more diligent before starting the project. It’s unclear how much of the delay and cost escalation can be blamed on the pandemic and how much was due to the NDP’s mismanagement, he said.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How the Wet’suwet’en Solidarity Actions Changed Their Live

January 28, 2021

How the Wet’suwet’en Solidarity Actions Changed Their Lives

A year later, three Indigenous youth behind the 2020 BC legislature protests say the real work still lies ahead.

A year after he first took a stand on the steps of the BC legislature, Kolin Sutherland-Wilson and his wife are expecting their first child. Photo by Rodney Mitchell.

It was the first week of Kolin Sutherland-Wilson’s final semester at the University of Victoria. But he wasn’t there. Instead, on a chilly January morning in 2020, he sat alone on the front steps of the British Columbia legislature, dressed warmly and holding signs that called on provincial leaders to stand with the Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs opposing the Coastal GasLink project in their traditional territory.

For a week, he spent all day on the steps. MLAs and staff who passed by barely glanced at him.

But soon friends, classmates and community members joined him. The growing group took on bigger actions — a ferry blockade and a sit-in at the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum resources. That ended after 18 hours of occupying the building, with Sutherland-Wilson and 11 others finally carried out by Victoria police.

As the RCMP enforced an injunction on behalf of Coastal GasLink on Wet’suwet’en territory 700 kilometres northwest of Victoria, the group of Indigenous youth and allies known as the Indigenous Youth for Wet’suwet’en ramped up their efforts. In early February, the Indigenous youth locked themselves arm-in-arm at the entrance to the legislature — surrounded at one point by a thousand allies — and stayed overnight for 17 days. They forced the cancellation of B.C.’s throne speech ceremony for the first time in history.

The fountain in front of the building ran red with dye. Words written on upturned Canadian flags declared “Reconciliation is dead.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How BC’s Fossil Fuel Fights Link to a String of Wins in the US

January 18, 2021

How BC’s Fossil Fuel Fights Link to a String of Wins in the US

A thin green line with global impact. Latest in a series on creating a zero-carbon bioregion.

Familiar mood, different Vancouver. Protesters block an oil-carrying train in Vancouver, Washington in 2016 — part of a two-decade movement spanning Alaska to California. Photo: Alex Milan Tracy, AP.

On a brisk December morning in 2012, Montana ranchers in cowboy hats walked alongside members of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe in traditional regalia through the streets of Seattle in search of a good breakfast. After eating, they headed to Seattle’s convention centre to square off against multinational companies aiming to move coal on trains through the Pacific Northwest to be loaded on ships bound for Asia.

Their partnership went the distance. Three years after that hearing, the proposed Washington coal terminal was dead. Those trains bearing Montana and Wyoming coal never rolled.

Opponents’ victory in that case was emblematic of how environmentalists, Indigenous Peoples, ranchers, politicians, doctors, fishermen and even windsurfers worked for a decade to fend off more than 20 proposals to ship fossil fuels across the Pacific Ocean, from near Prince Rupert, British Columbia clear south to San Luis Obispo, Calif.

While readers of The Tyee will be aware of ongoing resistance in B.C. against extracting and transporting fossil fuels, this is the story of how such efforts have for years crossed borders to connect with activism up and down the West Coast. The range of projects fought, from shipping coal and oil by train to pumping gas and oil through pipes, is a reminder of how sprawling and persistent the fossil fuel industry’s global export agenda is. And it demonstrates the power of grassroots organizing.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Cascadia Was Poised to Lead on Climate. Can It Still?

January 11, 2021

Cascadia Was Poised to Lead on Climate. Can It Still?

BC, Washington and Oregon all aimed to slash emissions. After epic battles, they failed. First in a series on creating a zero-carbon bioregion.

Aji Piper, now 20, was 15 when he joined a lawsuit against the US government for failing on climate change. Here he wears a mask during one of Washington’s climate-driven smoke emergencies. Photo by Alex Garland.

With dozens of people killed by wildfires in the western U.S., millions of acres scorched and choking smoke spreading far into British Columbia, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee lit up the news wires in September. “These are not just wildfires,” Inslee asserted at a press conference from Olympia, “these are climate fires.”

Two days later on George Stephanopoulos’ Sunday-morning ABC News talk show, the recent presidential candidate recounted a poignant visit to a town nearly wiped out by the fires. “The only moisture in Eastern Washington was the tears of people who have lost their homes,” said Inslee. “And now we have a blowtorch over our states in the West, which is climate change.”

Just days after his return to the national stage, however, the question in a Seattle courtroom was whether the state he’d run since 2013 should be sanctioned for helping to fuel and light that torch. On Thursday, Sept. 17, an attorney representing Inslee and the entire apparatus of Washington state government stood to tell three masked judges behind a plexiglass shield that courts could not hold the state legally responsible for its part in the climate crisis: The part where it expanded highways. The part where it licensed power plants and factories to emit many tons of greenhouse gases. Where it set building standards that would keep residents’ stoves and furnaces and water heaters polluting the atmosphere for decades to come.

Last Days for BC’s Apple Industry?

January 10, 2021

Last Days for BC’s Apple Industry?

COVID-19 and bad weather have hammered Okanagan orchardists. But low prices are the biggest threat to their survival. First of two.

Not only does Sukhdeep Brar have to spend more time and effort to pick the apples on his farm this year, thanks to COVID-19 and bad weather, he also has to sell the apples for much less due to retail consolidation and competition from Washington state. Photo by Jeff Bassett.

Between COVID-19, labour shortages and bad weather, Sukhdeep Brar has had a rough year growing apples. But as giant grocery chains drive wholesale prices down to pennies a pound, he says the struggle to keep apple production in B.C. started long before this COVID-19 pandemic.

HOW BC HELPS WASHINGTON GROWERS

British Columbia’s apple growers point to a bitter irony in their competition with Washington state apple producers.

In 1964, Canada and the U.S. ratified a treaty to manage the Columbia River — the Pacific Northwest’s largest river which flows through B.C., Washington and Oregon on the way to the Pacific Ocean.

Over the next decade, three dams were built in B.C. and one in Montana to help with flood control and hydropower generation. B.C. is entitled to a share in the benefits of the increased power production in the U.S., an entitlement worth about $120 million a year.

But the current provincial government has acknowledged pre-treaty consultations with local communities and First Nations were “inadequate to non-existent by today’s standards.”

The treaty led to the flooding of fertile farmland in B.C. On the other side of the border, in Washington state, it brought a stable supply of water that could be used to irrigate vast swaths of agricultural land, including apple-producing areas.

India’s Farmer Movement, Indigenous Land Defenders and Hidden Histories

January 4, 2021

India’s Farmer Movement, Indigenous Land Defenders and Hidden Histories

The protests may be half-a-world apart. But they’re both based on a spiritual connection to the land.

A mural in East Vancouver depicts Indigenous people paddling out to the Komagata Maru in 1914 provide food for those onboard. Photo submitted.

When 250 million workers joined the largest strike in human history last month to support the Indian Kisan Andolan, or Farmer Movement, the connection to Indigenous land protests in British Columbia might not have been instantly evident.

But the two struggles have much in common in their resistance against neoliberal nation states and the corporations that influence them. They also share a hidden history that aligns the struggles in a unique field of solidarity.

Indian farmers are fighting the central government over three bills that effectively hand the agricultural market to large corporations, letting them set prices, and turn formerly independent farmers into contractors under corporate control.

Punjabi farmers have taken their protests to the border of Delhi and created blockades on highways, while farmers from other parts of India are doing the same.

The majority of Punjabis in India follow the Sikh faith. Agriculture is central not just to Punjab’s economy, but also to its culture. During the march to Delhi, police brutalized the farmers with water cannons and batons. Despite this, the farmers practiced a central tenet of the Sikh faith, langar (free kitchen) and made food available to both protestors, bystanders and police.

In B.C., a different but connected battle is being waged. Hereditary Chiefs from the Wet’suwet’en Nation have opposed TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline across northern B.C. since it was proposed. This resistance has led to demonstrations and railway blockades across Canada.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Hope for the Best from Canada’s UNDRIP Law. But Expect More of the Same

December 29, 2020

Hope for the Best from Canada’s UNDRIP Law. But Expect More of the Same

Like BC, the federal government is better at talking about Indigenous rights than it is at actually respecting them.

The BC government’s claimed commitment to adopting United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples didn’t stop it from ignoring the rights of the Wet’suwet’en. Photo by Amanda Follett Hosgood.

After years of false starts, the federal government has taken a tentative step towards implementing the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by introducing Bill C-15.

Is this really a game changer for Indigenous Peoples in Canada? I have my doubts, as do others.

There are two reasons for skepticism.

First, Bill C-15 focuses on high-level, aspirational commitments rather than on delivering concrete, immediate change to Indigenous Peoples.

If passed into law, Bill C-15 will require the federal government to take measures to ensure the laws of Canada are consistent with the declaration, and to prepare and implement an action plan to achieve its objectives. While enacting sweeping changes to federal legislation will undoubtedly take time, the federal government’s focus on these future promises conveniently allows it to sidestep the realities that Indigenous people face on a daily basis.

Governments pour promises on Indigenous people like a winter rain. Rather than witnessing real change, we are too often left with cold disappointment.

Maybe it’ll be different this time. But, if the experience of British Columbia’s UNDRIP legislation is an accurate predictor, we should all dress for more cold rains.

Passed a little over a year ago to great fanfare, the B.C. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act has failed to live up to its promise. Instead, the provincial government has continued with its dreary, self-serving narrative based on the denial of Indigenous rights.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Tag Archives: british columbia

Content

Post categories

Economic Links

Energy/Resource Links

Environmental Links

Geopolitical Links

Liberty Links

News Links

Other Links

Survival Skills

Post Archives by Category

Post navigation

Latest Posts