A massive Greenpeace ship will depart the Port of Vancouver on Tuesday with a cross-Canada Aboriginal delegation. The delegation seeks to raise alarm about the potential surge in U.S. oil tankers set to ply past British Columbia’s coastlines in the future, should Shell's Arctic oil drilling plans go full steam ahead.
The prospect of a liquefied natural gas industry in B.C. would be a game-changer for aboriginal communities, Premier Christy Clark said on Wednesday. But she sidestepped the question of what happens if some of those communities continue to say no to the developments.
Instead, Ms. Clark’s announcement about a major step along the path toward securing the Pacific NorthWest LNG plant – a proposal already rejected by the Lax Kw’alaams – left the door open to pushing the project through, despite the province’s preference to avoid a confrontation over aboriginal rights and title.
From the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, what unfolded in B.C. last week must have looked strange.
While the Lax Kw’alaams First Nation was voting against a $1.1 billion offer of cash and land to support Petronas’ $11 billion Pacific NorthWest LNG (PNW) project in Prince Rupert, some members were reportedly giving a tentative thumbs-up to the Eagle Spirit Energy refined oil pipeline proposal.
A senior aboriginal leader in British Columbia says First Nations will continue to oppose oil and gas developments in the province even if it means rejecting billion-dollar payouts – as long as environmental protections are not guaranteed.
A natural gas benefit offer worth more than $1 billion has been rejected by a First Nation on B.C.'s northwest coast, but not everyone thinks it will necessarily scuttle the project.
Pacific NorthWest LNG was proposing to build a pipeline and terminal in the Lax Kw'alaams Band territory just south of Prince Rupert.
Band members were asked to vote on a $1.15 billion offer over 40 years in exchange for their consent for the project.
The vote in Vancouver on Tuesday was the third in a series conducted by the First Nation that rejected the project.
VICTORIA - West Moberly First Nations Chief Roland Willson held up a frozen bull trout Monday and said the large fish is contaminated with mercury.
"Typically, you'd be proud of this fish," he said. "But we can't eat this."
Willson and members of the McLeod Lake Indian Band, located in northeastern British Columbia, arrived at the legislature in Victoria with more than 90 kilograms of bull trout packed in two coolers.
Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian theologian and writer known for his work among the poor and the excluded, is credited with coining a phrase that is as true as any you'll ever hear: ''The opposite of poverty is not wealth -- it is justice.''
It is a phrase that has also been attributed to Bryan Stevenson, founder of America's Equal Justice Initiative and a man Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called, without qualification, ''America's Nelson Mandela.''
A major energy project seeking aboriginal support for a plan to export B.C. liquefied natural gas has run into strong resistance from a First Nations group worried about the plight of salmon.
The Lax Kw’alaams band is weighing the promises of LNG prosperity against the perils of losing a traditional way of life that relies heavily on salmon and other marine food and resources.
VANCOUVER —The province hopes to start construction of the $8.8-billion Site C dam this summer, but that might be optimistic, say academic experts following the project.
It all depends on whether a court-ordered injunction is imposed in either of two cases in B.C. Supreme Court involving the controversial hydroelectric megaproject.
“I think the chances are that Site C will see the light of day, with perhaps some delays,” said Werner Antweiler, an associate professor specializing in energy economics at the University of B.C.’s Sauder School of Business.
The B.C. government has devised a unique solution to head off conflict between a First Nations community and the developers of a proposed a coal mine, using its Crown corporation BC Rail to buy and hold coal licences during talks with the Tahltan Nation on managing the resource.
