Forget a UN seat, it’s the protests that require action
By Letter to the Editor on February 25, 2020.
Democracy is the rule of the majority. Never will we have 100 per cent approval. In British Columbia, a legally approved LNG project is being held hostage (illegally) by a few protesters. Shockingly, protesters being interviewed by a newscaster did not know what products are carried through the LNG pipeline. Oil or bitumen was their standard answer.
Wow! Wow! Why don’t you know what you protest? Something to do because you don’t work. Why protesters in B.C. from all across Canada and the U.S.? What do they have in common with the hereditary Indigenous leaders? Hard to find an employer who gives paid leaves for weeks or months so you can join a protest. How do these protesters pay for their food, lodging, travel? Paid protesters?
Indigenous bands (all 20 out of 20) who have approved this project are concerned that they will lose the economic benefit of the LNG pipeline. The Mohawk band has now blockaded our rail system to protest the LNG pipeline. The threat to our economy is real. Missing Indigenous women, Indigenous people in jail, Indigenous children in foster care and land claims are now being introduced as reasons for the Mohawk blockade.
Hello! Let’s get real. It is an LNG pipeline that is being protested. Throwing the kitchen sink into the mix will not bring a resolution. Our illustrious prime minister has disappeared, this time on his ridiculous attempt to win a UN seat. Millions of taxpayer dollars thrown into the wind to win a UN Security Council seat that the majority of Canadians do not want. Sad!
Forget the UN seat and make some attempt at being a prime minister. Sitting on your hind end hoping conversation will somehow end the problem is like wishing on a falling star. Enforce the law and arrest the protesters. Please, please, no catch and release. Illegal protests like this will never end unless there is a cost to the protesters.
Propane is running out in Eastern Canada, groceries are not being delivered, commodities sit on rail sidings and farm incomes are being impacted. Try this in any other country and see what happens. The world is laughing at us.
Dale Brooks
Lethbridge
10-9
Despite disagreement for those from the Wet’suwet’en nation, themselves, on corporate resource activity, what is really at issue here is the failure of successive Liberal and Conservative governments, for over 100 years, in not dealing with/recognizing the inherited rights of the heredtary chiefs on unceded territory.
It is no small thing, because if, the rights would be honoured the way they should be, it could mean, the cancelling of the GasLink pipeline or perhaps, the consideration of the alternate route that some of the hereditary chiefs proposed.
It is not surprising then, to see the deer-in-the-headlights look on Justin Trudea’s face lately, because this has come to a head on his watch. He has had much to say about reconciliation, but, reconciliation, also could mean that the future of corporate resource activity on unceded territory such as this, will not be under control of the federal, or any government other than indigenous government.
This is huge, and would be for the authoritarian Conservatives as well, maybe even more so.
The question could be: What will be done about the rights of hereditary chiefs so that this does not happen again?
Canada has always been very stupid in general about how it uses resources. They take out the raw resources, what is actual wealth, like timber, water, coal, and so on, and sell it for money.
Not just any money either, but for the lowest price possible.
A handful of people get wealthy. Most canadians never see a dime of that wealth in their lifetime.
Though, the trees are going, the water too, and soon the animals.
Then they’ll strip mine the mountains.
All for a few bucks, which is just pictures of the queen when you think about it.
What a waste of time and life.
the writer does an amazing job at expressing the ignorance of the simple redneck, and leans on the usual bigot fallacies as support. the writer clearly does not understand the complexities with regard to who truly has the authority to speak for the various indigenous groups. the writer fails to acknowledge that band councils were imposed upon the peoples by the heavy handed and quite unacceptable indian act. moreover, the writer does not appear to even understand what democracy is (as if we even really have one, but that is another discussion). enough said to state that democracy in canada has little to do with a rule of the majority. for all the well expressed lack of knowledge and understanding – well done!
ty to so.ab and u.b for providing the true perspective.
to piggyback on uncle buck’s theme, perhaps we can say canada has the too long held distinction of being the only so-called first world nation to operate as, and to accept being treated as, a developing nation backwash. let us praise our lazy, sellout, corrupt business and political “leaders” (coattail riders) for ensuring we create little whilst giving away a lot.
and here is to alberta’s business/political “leadership over the past 40 years at least: thanks for making alberta the equivalent of the world’s largest abandoned mining town disaster.
Dale Brooks is obviously not informed of the fact that LNG is the result using the most aggressive and dangerous method of extracting gas – Fracking.
Calling it Liquefied ‘Natural’ Gas is a way of hiding what it really is and the consequences which mean contaminated aquifers and water systems. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/26/fracking-the-reality-the-risks-and-what-the-future-holds