100 Mile Free Press - May 9, 2012

To the editor:

Expecting a piece that would at least acknowledge the wide range of stakeholders and concerns associated with the proposed Prosperity Mine, I instead found the Free Press April 25 cover story, headlined Prosperity meeting packed Valley Room, to read more like a Taseko Mines press junket than an example of competent journalism.

The article amounts to little more than pro-mine propaganda: 10 paragraphs solely devoted to re-enforcing the rhetoric of a mine representative, including suggestions as absurd as that of Taseko Mines caring about the interests of British Columbians over those of its own shareholders.

This was followed by reactions mostly from individuals who, as owners of The Hills Health Ranch or Cedar Crest apartments, presumably hope to make direct financial gains should the mine proceed.

After reading the article again several times, I couldn’t find a single sentence that wasn’t completely aligned with the interests of the Prosperity mine.

The inarguable bottom line is Prosperity’s overarching purpose is to make its shareholders lots of money through the exploitation of B.C.’s natural resources. Local residents seldom factor highly in this sort of capitalism.

The format of the meeting, one that attempted to keep community members, such as Gordon Hoglund, from expressing their concerns publicly, clearly demonstrates that Taseko Mines was not trying to engage in an earnest discourse with meeting attendants, but rather to manipulate them to suit its own goals.

Undoubtedly, other 100 Mile residents, including the ones who prevented Mr. Hoglund from meaningfully participating in the community “meeting,” also hope to cash in through some abstract promise of trickle-down profit sharing.

Though they selfishly ignore the aboriginal, environmental, and long-term socioeconomic implications of the Prosperity proposal, it is their right to so.

However, it is completely unacceptable for the 100 Mile House Free Press to publish articles that stoop to a similar level of bias.

Canadian, non-editorial journalism is based on fundamental guidelines of fairness and impartiality. This article is an example of a blatant violation of these ethical standards in the name of the shortsightedness and greed that is not the solution to the Interior’s economic problems, but rather the root cause of them.

Andrew Packham

100 Mile House

Williams Lake Tribune - March 23, 2012

Winnipeg Free Press - January 29, 2012

December 22, 2011 - Alberni Valley News 

To the Editor,

No matter your race, ethnicity or corporation, if you are willing and able to hack and destroy an ecosystems you will have Premier  Christy Clark​ at your back.

At Fish Lake Clark is the champion of Taseko Mines. I watched her at a golf course in Qualicum Beach rally her followers with a pretty smile and unwavering support for Prosperity, a mine with the rare distinction of having been rejected by a federal environmental review.

Clark’s disregard for the needs of First Nations who protect lakes, fish, and cultural identity contrasts sharply with her support of First Nations whose concern for Mother Earth is overshadowed by their need for cash.

Near Nanoose, the logging rights to DL33—a red-listed public forest, a mature remnant of a Coast Douglas Fir—was handed over to the Shaw’naw’as First Nation.

Under these ciircumstances the Clark government drips with so much concern for First Nations that they are willing to overlook their solemn commitments as signatories to the International Convention on Biological Diversity and destroy yet another ecosystem, so that a native band can hire an outside logging contractor to supply TimberWest with these valuable trees that it couldn’t otherwise access.

Phil Carson,

Qualicum Beach

http://www.albernivalleynews.com/opinion/letters/136121633.html

Vancouver Sun - December 17, 2011

Re: Environmental reviews need streamlining, Editorial, Dec. 10

The Vancouver Sun’s editorial about streamlining environmental reviews comes across as boosterism for industrial growth at all costs.

Proponents may “have long complained” about delays in the assessment process, but their whining is misplaced. The record of both provincial and federal assessments show that in almost all cases the significant delays are caused by proponents.

For a recent example, the just approved Joslyn oilsands project had a delay of 1.5 years during its assessment because the proponent did not initially provide all the information required by the review panel and had to go and do more work. It is a common story.

Green party leader Elizabeth May is quite right to be worried by the recent changes made by the Harper government which do major damage to the rigour of the environmental assessment process and the capacity of the review agencies to do their job effectively.

Taseko’s Prosperity mine did not “hang in limbo” for 17 years. Prosperity is such an egregiously destructive project that three successive federal ministers refused to even allow it to enter the federal assessment process. The company was told by the ministers not to even think about entering assessment until it had a mining proposal that did not destroy Fish Lake. No wasted time there.

TONY PEARSE, Mayne

Stockwatch - November 29, 2011

by Mike Caswell

Taseko Mines Ltd.’s case against a group of blockaders continued in the Supreme Court of British Columbia on Tuesday, with Tsilhqotin Nation lawyer Jay Nelson arguing that the B.C. government failed to properly consult the Indians before granting Taseko a work permit. He said that failure was part of a pattern by B.C. that goes back to the province’s initial approval of Taseko’s Prosperity mine. As he sees it, the province pressed through that approval without waiting for the Tsilhqotin to fully present their views, a problem it repeated with Taseko’s present work permit.

Mr. Nelson is arguing for an injunction that will prevent Taseko from working at Prosperity until after a judicial review of the company’s work permits is complete. His argument is one of two that the judge must consider, with the other being an application by Taseko for an injunction against a roadblock that kept the company from accessing the site on Nov. 12, 2011.

The dispute stems from work that Taseko is trying to perform as part of its second attempt at getting the Prosperity mine approved. The project, which the company touts as being able to provide 71,000 jobs over its 23-year life, stalled last year after the federal Ministry of Environment refused to give it the go-ahead, even after it received clearance from B.C. Taseko has since modified its proposal, removing a contentious plan to drain a small body of water called Fish Lake. It still, however, faces opposition from local Indians.

Cultural connections

Mr. Nelson took the entire day Tuesday presenting his arguments on behalf of the Tsilhqotin, explaining to the judge the failures of the Ministry of Energy and Mines to properly consult his clients before issuing the work permit. One of the issues, as he sees it, is that the provincial government did not recognize the views of the Tsilhqotin Nation in the initial application to build a mine at Prosperity. In December, 2009, B.C. found that the impact of the mine on the environment would be negligible.

In making those findings, the province failed to consider the importance of the lands to the Tsilhqotin Nation, Mr. Nelson argued. It did not attend any of the meetings that the federal panel held, during which the Indians presented most of their material. The result of the federal hearings was the finding that the Tsilhqotin Indians have a “spiritual connection” to the area around the mine, which they call Nabas. The federal panel heard all manner of evidence. It included people who testified that medicine from the area was powerful and small children who simulated the death of fish by taping figures to their heads and flopping on the ground.

The province’s approach, which was not done by an independent panel like the federal model, resulted in the flawed finding that the mine would have minimal effects on the Tsilhqotin, Mr. Nelson argued. The government simply looked at the number of lakes in the area, of which there are more than 20, and found that losing one would be minimal. It took the same approach to hunting, finding that the mine would affect about 3 per cent of the area available to the Tsilhqotin.

Moreover, the provincial approach failed to appreciate the cultural importance of the region, Mr. Nelson contended. The assertion that the Indians can go elsewhere for their ceremonies does not work, given the amount of logging and ranching in the area. “Essentially, there isn’t a whole lot of elsewhere,” he said.

Mr. Nelson further contended that the province failed to take into account the impact of 20 years of exploration on the area when it issued Taseko’s work permit. “At some point you have to look at what is the effect of repeating this work,” he said. He pointed out that reclamation, or returning the ground to its original condition, does not return the land to a pristine state. “When you cut those trees down, they’re gone,” he told the court.

Another problem, as Mr. Nelson sees it, is the government’s failure to communicate its decisions regarding Taseko’s most recent work permit in a timely manner. Going through a series of letters between the Tsilhqotin Nation and the Ministry of Energy and Mines, he contended that the government did not notify the Tsilhqotin that it had approved the work permit until weeks before Taseko was to start work. The Tsilhqotin, in response, demanded the rationale for the decision and requested a meeting. The government replied by regular mail, unlike earlier communications which were via e-mail, and the message arrived so late that nobody read it until after the roadblock. The net result of this was to exacerbate the conflict on ground, Mr. Nelson said.

Finally, Mr. Nelson argued that there was no indication Taseko would suffer irreparable harm if the work was delayed to allow a judicial review of its permit. While the company contends that it is losing $10,000 per day in standby time, there is no evidence to substantiate that claim, he said. Moreover, the company was on notice before it attempted to access the property that there was an outstanding dispute with the Tsilhqotin.

Even if the company is suffering some harm, the judge should consider that the Indians could suffer irreparable harm as well if the company goes ahead. Their application for a judicial review of the work permit would be moot, depriving them of access to justice, according to Mr. Nelson. There is no dollar amount that could compensate them for this, he told the court.

The hearing resumes Wednesday.

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The lawyer says “There is no dollar amount that could compensate them for this, he told the court.”

I’m sure that if Taseko were willing to go along with the shakedown; I’m sure that there is an amount of money that would placate them in the short run.

Posted by Pale Face at 2011-11-30 10:51

Time only runs one way. The argument that every location where there is a mine or pipeline is sacred ground threatens the credibility of all First Nations. The courts are turning against this kind of legal argument. The lawyers should pay heed to this. What a situation. The taxpayer pays federal taxes to the government which then pay a bloated Ministry of Indian Affairs, who then pays local bands who then use it is blockade roads and take away jobs for taxpayers. And after all of that, there is still so much poverty in First Nations communities it makes you weep. The environmentalists who are paid by lobbyist from Europe or the States convince or bribe leaders in the community to take away jobs that could change the lives of the very people who are protesting development. @#$%ing sad.

Posted by Future Threatened by the Past at 2011-11-30 11:43

Interesting comments from Pale Face and Future. Until 1983 in BC most First Nations children were taken from their parents and placed in Residential schools where they were often abused and were strictly forbidden from either learning about or practicing many parts of their rich cultural heritage. One only needs to look at their art to understand how rich and complex their socitey was.

A quote from Gilbert Sproats (the namesake of Sproat Lake in Port Alberni and an early Governor of the area) book ,The Nootka: Scenes and studies of a savage life, is illustrative, ” upon my arrival at the village at the head of the inlet(Alberni Sound) I intstructed the savages that they had no need of their land as we would provide employment for them and therfore they shold move to other locations as deemed by us…..”

Later Sproat felt such guilt at the treament of the “Savages” that he recomended that they be alloted such tracts of land that they could continue to live off it.

“From 1876 he served as the joint federal-provincial appointee on the Indian Reserve Commission, where he argued that sufficient land be allocated to First Nations people that they could remain self-sufficient. This proved to be an unpopular position with the European colonists and led to much controversy, as well as Sproat’s resignation from the committee in 1880.”

The “Indians” as Caswell refers to, earlier known as “Savages” are residents of British Columbia who have a point of view and are merely exercising their democratic and constitutional right to disagree with another party. They seek redress through a court of law and given the almost unimaginable horrors they have been subjected to over the last 200 years this is tbhe least we can do. Pale Face, what would you do if your child had been taken from you and raped? Repeatadly? What would you do if your home was arbitraily taken away from you and you were placed on a Reserve with other beaten dysfunctional hopeless people?

The “shakedown” as you most erroneously refer to is the Tsilhqotin’s first attempt to assert their rights and to get adequate compensation for their lost land. If you have any doubts about these rights perhaps you should explain why we colonialists refer to this entire area of BC as the “Chilcotin”; obviously they were here first and that counts for a lot in British common law.

Posted by kyuquot at 2011-11-30 15:24

One native person that I knew and respected, was an elder in a Northern Alberta reservation. He had been a successful businessman and rancher. His comments to me (I990’s) were that the reservation school had been great for him. “Sure we got disciplined a lot, but probably not much more than the schools in town. I got a very good education, and I benefited from it.” That is nearly as close to a direct quote, as I can recall. As far as I am concerned many of the claims of abuse at residential schools are not valid. Time to live in the present, and lose the third world mindset.

Posted by Pale Face at 2011-11-30 15:40

You are wrong about the abuse at the schools…. what in the hell do you think Harper apologized for….??

In any case expect more court challenges as the First Nations of BC exercise their constitutional rights….

Posted by kyuquot at 2011-11-30 15:56

I have no doubt that there will be more court challenges. It’s not like it costs natives anything to sue companies and the various levels of government, on a whim.

I definitely, wouldn’t put my money at risk, on any mining “investment” in B.C.

Posted by Pale Face at 2011-11-30 16:37

From Wiki: “When the government revised the Indian Act in the 1940s and 50s, a slim majority of Indian bands, along with regional and national native organizations, wanted residential schools to stay open. Those who supported the schools wanted to keep the religious component as well. Motivations for support of the schools included their role as a social service in communities suffering extensive family breakdown; the significance of the schools as employers; and the seeming lack of other opportunities for children to receive an education. In the 1960s, when the government decided to close certain schools, some Indian bands pleaded to have them to remain open. In 1969, after years of sharing power with churches, the Department of Indian Affairs took sole control of the residential school system.”

Posted by Pale Face at 2011-11-30 16:48

It has been well demonstrated with many forms of life that if you cannot assimilate into your current surroundings, then you cease to exist. The dinosaurs learned that the hard way. It is time for the Tsilhqotin “nation” to join the modern world.

Canadian society and culture is made up of persons from virtually every other country in the World. All of those people have not only learned to adapt to the Canadian lifestyle, but at the same time have managed to preserve much of their own culture. They don’t have to rely on large amounts of Government funding such as the $9.8 BILLION dollars that is paid out through the Dept. of Indian and Northern Affairs.

In addition, a lot of these people have brought their families and given up everything they possessed just to come to Canada because it clearly is the “best place in the world to live”. I have travelled to, and worked in, more than 80 different countries so I know which is the best place to live. I am not a wealthly person money wise. I am more than 65 years of age and still have to run my company business in order to live and eat. the Government doesn’t give me anything other than periodic demands to pay more taxes.

There are many times the various levels of Government make laws that I don’t like and do things I don’t like to do, but for the greater good of our society, I accept them.

If others were to put as much effort into doing something useful and benefical as they do into “whinning” they might actually achieve something without offending a bunch of other persons.

Bruce Dunne

http://www.stockwatch.com/News/Item.aspx?bid=Z-C:TKO-1906703&symbol=TKO&news_region=C

Carrier Sekani Tribal Council - November 23, 2011

News Release

Carrier Sekani Unaware of Mining Act Changes

Dakelh Territory, Prince George, British Columbia. Canada. The Carrier Sekani Tribal Council is astounded that the BC government is proposing unilateral changes to the Mining Act without any consultation and accommodation of First Nations title and rights. It appears that the Clark Liberal government has done away with any relationship with First Nations. Now the only way to become informed about legislation that will impact our territories is to read it in the media.

CSTC Vice Tribal Chief Terry Teegee stated, �The ghost of the old colonial relationship is re-emerging causing unrest among our people. Mining investors should be advised that the land question in British Columbia is unresolved and that only First Nations can bring the certainty needed for projects to proceed.� Investors should look around and see the conflicts with the proposed Prosperity Mine, Mt. Klappan, Gething Coal, Enbridge Gateway, etc. and see that projects cannot proceed without the free, prior and informed consent of First Nations.

Tribal Chief David Luggi noted, �The combined territories of our member First Nations accounts for 7.8 million hectares, about 8.3% of BC and twice the size of Vancouver Island, most of which is seeing an increase in mining exploration.� The CSTC has several active, proposed and abandoned mines including Endako (molybdenum/active), Pinche Lake (mercury/closed), Kemess South and North (gold, active/proposed), Mt. Milligan (gold/copper-active/proposed) and Bralorne (gold/abandoned).

�The CSTC First Nations are actively working with resource extraction projects that demonstrate sustainable and equitable benefits, without compromising our rights and those of our future generations�, stated Tribal Chief Luggi. �Companies need to talk with us before they submit any applications to the BC and federal government. The Crown needs to talk with us about how we can share the wealth from our territories, otherwise no one will benefit.�

The recent BC Jobs Plan: Canada Starts Here announced by the Premier in September calls for 8 new mines and 9 expansions by 2015. The way the BC government is going about by announcing projects without working in partnership with the impacted First Nations will result in litigation and further conflict. Tribal Chief Luggi further stated, �We are calling upon the Premier to convene a First Nations government to government table to discuss the development agenda on our homelands. Without such engagement most of the proposed mines will be mired in legal conflict for many years.�

-30-

For more information please contact:

Tribal Chief David Luggi: Office (250) 562-6279 e.222. Cell: (250) 640-6622

Vice Tribal Chief Terry Teegee: Office (250) 562-6279 e.223. Cell: (250) 640-3256