The German word schadenfreude immediately sprang to mind for Victoria lawyer Robert Janes when he heard the surprise news that the federal government will not contest an interim injunction application by a Treaty 8 First Nation seeking to halt work on the Site C dam.

Janes said there are many officials in Ottawa who believe the B.C. government is deliberately putting Ottawa in an untenable position on the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion championed by Alberta and the federal government.

“That has probably not created a lot of willingness on the part of the federal government to bail B.C. out of the fight that B.C. has chosen to have with the Treaty 8 First Nations,” said Janes, a litigator with extensive experience representing First Nations.

“I’m sure there are many federal politicians and officials having the feeling of schadenfreude or, as the German say, happiness in the misery of others, as they look at B.C. in this situation. But that of course is purely speculative.”

The decision leaves the B.C. government to stand alone in court this July fighting West Moberly First Nations, which brought the injunction application pending a full civil trial that aims to terminate the Site C project on the grounds that it infringes on treaty rights.

The question of whether the Site C dam infringes on treaty rights has never been tested in the courts, and a favourable ruling for First Nations could shut down the entire Peace River hydro project.

Tim Thielmann, a lawyer for West Moberly First Nations and Prophet River First Nation, said Canada’s position appears to be unprecedented.

Thielmann said he is not aware of any other case in Canada in which a government has elected not to defend its own authorizations from being struck down by litigation brought by First Nations.

The Site C dam required multiple federal authorizations to proceed, including one permit that granted BC Hydro permission to cause “serious harm” to fish habitat.

“They [the federal government] say that they do not consent to the injunction,” Thielmann said in an interview. “But they do not oppose the injunction. What they say is they take no position. It’s the equivalent of abstaining on a vote.”

In taking no position, Ottawa has also elected to bring no evidence to the courts to defend against the injunction, leaving B.C. on its own to justify the $10.7 billion Site C project, Thielmann pointed out.

In response to the First Nations’ civil claim, the federal government said it anticipates BC Hydro will submit “further applications for authorizations to Canada in respect of various aspects of the construction of Site C,” raising the question of what position Ottawa might take on future Site C project authorizations if the Kinder Morgan debacle continues.

Contradictory positions from federal government

The federal move also shines a national spotlight on the B.C. government’s contradictory position towards First Nations, a position that Chief Roland Willson of West Moberly First Nations called “hypocrisy.”

“They’re playing hardball on Kinder Morgan,” Willson said in an interview. “They’re saying ‘let’s stop everything and let the courts decide,’ but here on Site C they’re just rolling ahead.”

“We’ve asked them numerous times to stop. That’s the part that’s hard to understand. They’re saying one thing for Kinder Morgan but totally saying the complete opposite on Site C. They’re speaking out of both sides of their mouth.”

Like the federal government, B.C.’s NDP government has pledged to advance reconciliation and to uphold the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which states that large resource projects such as the Site C dam must have the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous peoples.

“The irony here is that the [B.C.] premier himself has said that he will allow the courts to give direction to him before taking steps on Kinder Morgan that could be unconstitutional,” Thielmann said in an interview.

“The Site C direction he has so far chosen — to permit BC Hydro to destroy those lands and to fight the First Nations in court with teams of lawyers and endless resources — [means] that the First Nations ultimately never have that opportunity for the court’s decision on constitutionality before their rights are destroyed, before it’s too late. And that’s wrong.”

Janes, a principal with JFK Law Corporation, agreed that “it’s hard to reconcile” the B.C. government’s positions on the Site C dam and Kinder Morgan pipeline.

“Canada’s response really puts B.C. on the spot and highlights the inconsistencies of its position when it comes to First Nations,” said Janes, whose firm represents Alberta’s Mikisew Cree in an on-going challenge to the decision of the Federal Court of Appeal that First Nations are not owed a duty to consult when the Crown develops legislation.

Willson described the federal decision as “exciting” and said his nation is hopeful their injunction application now stands a greater chance of success.

“It’s also unnerving,” he said. “They cause a big fight and then they put their hands up and step back and say we’re not actually going to fight.”

Along with Chief Lynette Tsakoza of Prophet River First Nation, Willson called on the B.C. government to meet with Treaty 8 First Nations to discuss how to wind down work on Site C until the courts can rule on the question of treaty infringement.

“We remain ready and willing to discuss alternatives to Site C with the B.C. government,” Tsakoza said in a statement.

Willson said he believes the NDP government’s position would be different if the former B.C. Liberal government had advanced the Site C dam in the Vancouver area instead of in the province’s northeast, which some now refer to as an industrial sacrifice zone.

“Because it’s up north and it’s just affecting some First Nations and farmers, it’s no big deal. That’s the part that gets me upset. We don’t matter to them,” said Willson.

“And we don’t have the votes to make a difference. But this shouldn’t be about whether or not we can vote them [the NDP] in or vote them out; this should be about what’s right and what’s wrong.”

The federal decision is the second time in recent months that Treaty 8 First Nations fighting the troubled Site C project have had their hopes raised.

Instead of opposing an “interim, interim injunction” threatened by the nations’ legal team, in February BC Hydro decided to halt logging a 30-kilometre tract of old-growth boreal forest in a Site C transmission line corridor. That work remains suspended until after the injunction hearing in July.

B.C.’s Attorney General ministry referred questions about the federal decision to B.C.’s energy ministry.

In an emailed statement, the energy ministry said it is aware that the Attorney General of Canada received instructions to “take no position” on the injunction application brought by West Moberly First Nations.

“As this matter is before the Court, and out of respect for the judicial process, we have no further comment at this time,” said the statement.

A third Treaty 8 signatory, the Blueberry River First Nation, has launched a separate legal action claiming the cumulative impact of industrial development on its traditional territory, including the Site C dam, infringes on constitutionally protected treaty rights.

The Blueberry case, which is expected to stretch over 100 trial days, will also be heard starting in July.

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By Grand Chief Stewart Phillip and Ben Parfitt

One of the most important things that all Green and New Democratic Party MLAs agreed to in reaching their historic agreement to cooperate in governing together is their  “foundational” support of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The Declaration is absolutely unambiguous in stating the “urgent need” for governments to respect and promote the inherent rights of Indigenous Peoples to their lands, territories and resources.

Enter the $8.8 billion Site C hydroelectric dam, a project that former premier Christy Clark vowed to push past the point of no return, but that remains years away from construction.

If ever there was a project that impacts First Nation lands and resources and deserves to be a litmus test of the incoming government’s commitment to the Declaration, Site C is it. The dam would flood more than 100 kilometres of the Peace River valley and tributaries — resulting in irreversible losses for First Nations who have used and occupied those lands for thousands of years.

The West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations have been before the courts for years in a time-consuming battle to stop the project. But just last week, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected their final appeal. The Nations argued the governments failed to properly consult them about the project and that the dam’s continued construction would irreparably harm their rights to hunt, fish and trap on their territories as covered by Treaty 8.

These realities are well known to all elected MLAs, many of whom know that today marks the 12th year in a row that hundreds of people will canoe down the Peace River to protest the dam and the devastating consequences it will have on local First Nations, farming families and others. Some of those same MLAs have joined the protest paddle in years past.

The NDP and Greens say that the project will be referred to the B.C. Utilities Commission for a review that focuses on the economic implications of the project. But will the incoming government also consider Site C’s obvious impacts on First Nations of Treaty 8?

And will the government look more broadly at the pace of all industrial developments in the region and their impacts on Indigenous Peoples? Because as anyone who knows this corner of the province will tell you, it looks more and more like one giant industrial sacrifice zone.

Layer upon layer of environmentally devastating developments occur here. Nowhere else in B.C. do you see major hydroelectric, logging, mining and natural gas industry activities all happening simultaneously.

Water Usage in BC’s Northeast Requires Indigenous Consent #bcpoli #UNDRIP #IndigenousRights https://t.co/uLPj27gXwB

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) July 6, 2017

The “cumulative” impact of all this industrialization is jaw dropping.  

On the traditional lands of the Blueberry River First Nation, so many natural gas wells, roads, seismic lines, pipelines, water pits, clear-cut logging blocks and other government-sanctioned industrial developments are located that on three quarters of the Nation’s territory you are never further away than 250 metres from the nearest industrial development. Local populations of moose, which BRFN members are supposed to enjoy treaty-protected rights to hunt, are decimated.

If there is any good news, it’s that the BRFN has said enough is enough. With each passing day, it inches closer to a date in court where it is seeking damages from the province for the “cumulative” degradation to its lands and waters from decades of government-sanctioned industrial developments. If successful, the civil suit will send an important signal that governments will be held to account for their consistent failure to respect First Nations’ rights.

The BRFN’s actions underscore the need to do things differently. We believe that one place to start is by granting First Nations sufficient powers to shape if, where, when and how resource developments of all stripes occur on their traditional lands. Co-management, if you will.

The time is long past due to scrap a broken system where First Nations are relegated to the subservient role of simply being told to respond in a timely way to one development application after another. This fundamental reform would mark a significant turning point in how the provincial government works with First Nations in the region, and would inch it closer to living up to its commitment to support the UN Declaration.

If this year’s “Paddle for the Peace” helps in some small way to set the stage for such reforms, the region and all its residents will be the better for it.

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip is an Okanagan Indigenous leader and has been president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs since 1998. Ben Parfitt is a resource policy analyst with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and recent author of Fracking, First Nations and Water: Respecting Indigenous rights and better protecting our shared resources.

Image Credit: Fracking water storage near Hudson's Hope in B.C. Image from the CCPA report: Fracking Up B.C.

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Industrial activity has profoundly affected the Blueberry River First Nations in northern B.C. A recent Atlas of Cumulative Landscape Disturbance, by the First Nations, the David Suzuki Foundation and Ecotrust, found 73 per cent of the area inside its traditional territory is within 250 metres of an industrial disturbance and 85 per cent is within 500 metres.

In other words, in much of the territory, which once supported healthy moose and caribou populations, it’s difficult if not impossible to walk half a kilometre before hitting a road, seismic line or other industrial infrastructure. Local caribou populations are threatened with extinction mainly because of habitat disturbance caused by industrial activity and ensuing changes to predator-prey dynamics.

Scientific literature suggests that a natural functioning landscape with species including large predators requires a maximum density limit of 0.6 kilometres of linear disturbances — roads and seismic and transmission lines — per square kilometre. The report revealed Blueberry River has 2.88 kilometres of linear disturbance per square kilometre, totalling 110,300 kilometres — including 45,603 kilometres of seismic lines constructed over the past 10 years, nearly eight times the length of the Trans-Canada Highway from Vancouver to Halifax.

Foundation science projects manager Rachel Plotkin recently toured the area with Chief Marvin Yahey and lands manager Norma Pyle. They showed her clearcuts in caribou calving grounds, hunting camps dissected by pipelines and giant oil-processing plants where elders once picked blueberries.

“Development has extinguished our traditional way of life on wide areas of our land,” Yahey said, noting most of the damage has occurred over the past 30 years.

Plotkin said travelling across the landscape was surreal. “From far back, it looked like a forest ecosystem, though dotted with farmers’ fields,” she said. “But no matter which road we drove down, we saw signs of the extraordinarily high levels of industrial activity — a pumpjack peeking from amid the trees, a sign on the road warning of a high-pressure pipeline hidden below, a sour gas flare above the treeline, a forestry clearcut, a processing plant or a pipeline riser.”

As a last resort, Blueberry River First Nations brought a civil claim against the B.C. government in 2015, asserting that cumulative industrial impacts in their territory have displaced and prevented people from carrying on traditional activities assured to them by the Crown under Treaty 8.

The B.C. government responded to the report by saying it’s working on a cumulative effects framework. “We recognize the importance of assessing, monitoring and managing the cumulative effects of resource development,” B.C. Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation Minister John Rustad wrote in a statement to the Dawson Creek Mirror. “Several attempts have been made to get Blueberry River First Nations involved in Northeast cumulative effects (management) programs.”

This response is lacking on several levels. To start, it attempts to address an immediate ecological crisis by proposing that the community engage in ongoing, sometimes years-long processes. As Chief Yahey told the Mirror, “Despite raising these concerns directly with the premier and with provincial ministers, there has been no meaningful response to this critical threat. Instead, the province continues to approve major industrial undertakings in our territory, including major fracking operations and the Site C dam, willfully ignoring that each new approval brings our unique culture closer to extinction.”

For the ministry in charge of reconciliation to respond defensively rather than open doors to better co-operation with Blueberry River is troubling. Although the government says it recognizes the importance of managing cumulative effects, the report’s map of industrial activity reveals that if government has a sustainable management regime, it’s broken.

The people of Blueberry River recently shared with government their Land Stewardship Framework, which outlines a path to sustainable land management, protection and restoration. What they need from government now is immediate action to protect critical areas and to be included in decision-making. Process without interim measures can be a trap — a talk-and-frack situation.

No one should have to put up with such high levels of destructive industrial activity, especially when they aren’t given a say in decisions. When governments have committed to reconciliation with First Nations they need to change their decision-making regimes and recognize that First Nations have the right and responsibility to make decisions about how their traditional territories are managed, now and into the future.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Science Projects Manager Rachel Plotkin.

Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.

Image: Fracking site on Treaty 8 territory/Vancouver Observer

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The B.C. government has significantly accelerated the rate and scale of industrial development in the Blueberry River First Nations’ traditional territory over the past four years despite knowledge of alarming impacts, says a major science report released today.

“Our very life, our way of existence, is being wiped out,” Blueberry River Chief Marvin Yahey told a Vancouver press conference. “It’s devastating. It’s really impacted my people, culturally but socially also. It puts a lot of stress on a community.”

The report, authored by Ecotrust Canada and based on B.C. government data, found that up to 84 per cent of the Blueberry River traditional territory in B.C.’s northeast has been negatively impacted by industrial activity.

Almost 75 per cent of the territory now lies within 250 metres of an industrial disturbance, and more than 80 per cent is within 500 metres.

“The industrial activity has really hammered our traditional territory,” Yahey said in an interview. “It affects our hunting, fishing, camping and teaching our children our way of life. The wildlife are vanishing. Our berry picking sites are being destroyed by pathways and pipelines.”

The 86-page study, commissioned by the Blueberry River First Nations and David Suzuki Foundation, is called the Atlas of Cumulative Landscape Disturbance in the Traditional Territory of Blueberry River First Nations.

It paints a bleak picture of the total impacts of all industrial development in the nation’s traditional territory, which covers more than 38,000 square kilometers in the Peace region. 

Since 2012, the B.C. government has authorized the construction of more than 2,600 oil and gas wells, 1,884 kilometres of petroleum access and permanent roads, 740 kilometres of petroleum development roads, 1,500 kilometres of new pipelines and 9,400 kilometres of seismic lines, according to the report. Approximately 290 forestry cutblocks were also harvested in Blueberry River traditional territory over the same time period.

The disturbance atlas found that almost 70 per cent of Blueberry traditional territory is now covered by active petroleum and natural gas tenures. There are 4,676 abandoned oil and gas wells in the territory.

Several proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) lines could also extend into Blueberry River First Nations traditional territory, including Spectra Westcoast Connector, Coastal GasLink, North Montney Mainline and Prince Rupert Gas Transmission Project, the report said.

David Suzuki Foundation spokesperson Rachel Plotkin called the findings both an “ecological crisis and a crisis of social justice.”

In 1979, a sour gas leak forced Blueberry River members to flee from their original reserve on the banks of the Blueberry River, with only the clothes they were wearing. 

“Everything we left behind was destroyed,” recounted Yahey. “Animals, pets, food, clothing.”

The nation was eventually moved to its current location just two kilometres away, 80 kilometres northwest of Fort St. John.

The 'Little Kuwait' of Northern B.C.

Yahey said people refer to the current reserve as “Little Kuwait” because of the flares from fracking that light it up at night. Community members have purchased sour gas monitors to ensure they will have time to evacuate if there is another sour gas leak and they have to haul in safe drinking water due to a drop in water levels they believe is caused by nearby fracking operations.

“We leave one area and go to another and it’s just as bad there today. We go to our hunting camps and [they’ve] been destroyed.”

The B.C. government ignored a September 2014 request from the Blueberry River First Nations for a cumulative impacts assessment and monitoring program that would guide decisions about land use and resource extraction, said Yahey.

“There has been no meaningful response.”

On the contrary, the chief said the province continues to approve major industrial undertakings, including the expansion of fracking operations and the $8.8 billion Site C dam.

In an e-mailed statement, John Rustad, Minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation, said the B.C. government is aware of the Blueberry River First Nations’ concerns regarding resource development in their traditional territory.

Rustad said the government has developed a cumulative effects framework that is being applied in northeast B.C. to improve natural resource decision-making, along with a “regional strategic environmental assessment project.” Blueberry River First Nations has been invited to join these initiatives, Rustad said.

“We also regulate all industries with rigorous environmental standards, and have programs in place to protect critical habitat for wildlife and water resources, and to ensure our air is clean,” said the minister’s statement.

Yahey said the government’s initiatives are not sufficient, and that there is “a hurry for B.C. to clear everything [and] wipe everything out without acknowledging our rights.”

In an effort to seek solutions, the Blueberry River First Nations used its own resources to develop a science-based Land Stewardship Framework. The framework, which Yahey calls a “path to yes”, identifies immediate action the provincial government can take to protect areas of importance to the Blueberry and to allow industrial development “without sacrificing ecological values.”

Critical Area Slated for Fracking

The Pink Mountain area, described by Chief Yahey as a “critical area” for Blueberry River First Nations traditional practices and an area the nation has been trying to protect, is one of many zones throughout Blueberry River territory that has been slated for shale gas drilling and fracking. Pink Mountain is currently the site of intense fracking operations by Progress Energy, a subsidiary of Malayasian-owned Petronas, one of the leading liquefied natural gas proponents in B.C.

Expansion of Pink Mountain fracking operations, leading to further landscape fragmentation, will occur if a proposed privately-built transmission line is built across Blueberry River territory to link the project with hydro facilities on the Peace River, including the Site C dam. In a controversial move, the B.C. government has excluded the proposed transmission line to Pink Mountain from independent review by the B.C. Utilities Commission.

Much of the development in the wildlife-rich Pink Mountain area is occurring in a region that, until very recently, had not been subject to the intense industrial development that characterizes the landscape further to the south in Blueberry River traditional territory.

The territory overlays the Montney basin, which contains the largest shale gas reserves in the province and some of the largest in the world. While much of the gas industry currently battles low prices, the Montney's gas resources contains a high content of valuable liquids that allow companies to continue to extract the gas profitably. 

The Blueberry River First Nations are not opposed to development but want to be included in plans, said Yahey. To that end, the chief described a lawsuit the nation launched against the province of B.C. in March 2015 as a “last hope.”

The ongoing lawsuit claims that the cumulative impacts from extensive industrial development, including Site C, violate Treaty 8, which the Blueberry River First Nations signed in 1900. 

The claim asserts that Blueberry River members can no longer access uncontaminated land and resources capable of sustaining traditional patterns of economic activity and land use, as guaranteed by the treaty. These include hunting, eating moose, harvesting berries and medicinal plants and teaching children their language while on the land.

“Our backs are against the wall,” said Yahey. “We’ve tried all the time to come up with a solution. This was our only way to get them to the table to protect our way of life.”

The disturbance atlas also demonstrates that the Peace region has received a disproportionate share of the province’s industrial activity and lacks protected areas compared to other regions of B.C.

Less than one per cent of Blueberry River First Nations traditional territory is conserved in parks and protected areas, compared to 14 per cent province-wide.

While 60 per cent of B.C. is classified as intact forest landscape, less than 14 per cent remains in Blueberry territory. And almost one-half of the total area in B.C. reserved for pipelines through tenures falls in the Blueberry River traditional territory.

Photo: Chief Marvin Yahey shows the new Ecotrust report at a news conference in Vancouver.

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In his first interview on the Site C dam, the chair of the federal-provincial panel appointed to review Canada’s largest current infrastructure project said the B.C. government was unwise to green-light the project without a review by the B.C. Utilities Commission and would have been better off to delay the decision by a few years.

“There’s a whole bunch of unanswered questions, some of which would be markedly advanced by waiting three or four years,” Harry Swain told DeSmog Canada. “And you’d still be within the period of time, even by Hydro’s bullish forecasts, when you’re going to need the juice.”

Swain, a former deputy minister of Industry Canada and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, spoke to DeSmog Canada on his own behalf, not on behalf of the panel. In a wide-reaching interview, Swain also described the province’s failure to investigate alternatives to the dam as a “dereliction of duty.”

The B.C. government gave the go-ahead for BC Hydro’s Site C dam in December and construction is scheduled to begin this summer. If built, it will be the largest public infrastructure expenditure in the province’s history. The dam is facing six legal challenges, including one that alleges that Cabinet erred in dismissing key portions of the joint review panel’s findings on the project.

The dam — which was first turned down by the B.C. Utilities Commission in the early 1980s — would be the third on the Peace River and would flood 83 kilometres of the Peace Valley, impacting 13,000 hectares of agricultural land. The project is opposed by B.C.’s Treaty 8 First Nations, several of which have filed lawsuits.

Swain’s panel made 50 recommendations to the provincial and federal governments, but stopped short of recommending for or against the project.

“The decision on whether the project proceeds lies with elected officials, not with the panel,” the 471-page report read.

“I’m still strongly of the view that review panels are advisors and governments get paid to make the decisions and live with the consequences at the next election,” Swain told DeSmog Canada.

But that didn’t stop him from outlining how he believes the government has acted prematurely.

“You shouldn’t take decisions before you need to,” Swain said. “That means you’ll have much more information when you finally have to take a decision. Building electricity facilities in advance of need only costs money.”

‘Wisdom Would Have Been Waiting’

The panel’s report predicted that in the first four years of production, the Site C dam would lose at least $800 million because BC Hydro would generate more power than the province needs at a cost of $100 per megawatt hour — when the market price for that power is currently $30 per megawatt hour.

“Wisdom would have been waiting for two, three, four years to see whether the projections they were making had any basis in fact,” Swain said. “And they would have been able to make a better-informed decision and not necessarily a more expensive one.”

In its report, the panel wrote that it couldn’t conclude that the power from Site C was needed on the schedule presented, adding: “Justification must rest on an unambiguous need for the power and analyses showing its financial costs being sufficiently attractive as to make tolerable the bearing of substantial environmental, social and other costs.”

Some of the questions that still need to be answered, according to Swain, include the real cost and availability of alternatives, how B.C. should use its Columbia River rights, how British Columbians will react to increased electricity prices (which could decrease demand) and how the province’s liquefied natural gas industry will develop.

Panel Instructed Not to Pass Opinion on First Nations Rights

Asked why the panel didn’t render a “yes” or “no” answer on the Site C dam, Swain responded: “We weren’t asked to.”

Further to that, Swain — who wrote a book on the Oka crisis — outlined the limitations of the review process as it related to First Nations rights.

“They said that we were to catalogue the assertions of First Nations regarding treaty rights and aboriginal rights. But we were not to pass an opinion on them. We were not to say whether consultation had been adequate and so on and forth. If you are forbidden to talk about that, you can not come to a conclusion about the overall project,” Swain said.

“The question is: well, if we had recommended anything, what would we have said? And I think the conclusion is probably pretty apparent from the text. We would have said something to the effect that it might be wise to wait for a couple years and see if some of the projections on which the project rests eventuated. However, they didn’t ask — nor did they wait.”

Decision to Skip Review by B.C. Utilities Commission ‘Not Good Public Policy’

In its report to the government, the panel said it did not have the information, time or resources to look at the accuracy of cost estimates and recommended that, if the project proceeds, costs should be examined in detail by the province’s independent regulator, the B.C. Utilities Commission.

“Knowing that the province had decided to exempt the project from the scrutiny of the utilities commission, we nonetheless felt that that was not good public policy and recommended otherwise,” Swain said. “They of course gave us the back of their hand.”

What did he think of the province ignoring that recommendation?

“I expected it entirely and I don’t think it was wise,” he added.

There were big financial questions — related to the borrowing of nearly $9 billion, the cost estimates for the project and the effect of rates on consumer demand — that the panel could not examine, Swain explained.

“That requires much, much more time and expertise,” he said. “Moreover it is a job that the utilities commission is specifically set up to be able to do.”

Government Documents Downplay Role of B.C. Utilities Commission

In documents obtained by DeSmog Canada via a freedom of information request, government spokespeople were prepped to respond to questions about why the project wasn’t referred to the utilities commission. The speaking notes were prepared for the Dec. 16 press conference announcing the B.C. government’s decision to move ahead with Site C.

“The BCUC does not actually have the capacity to do the kind of work that has been done by BC Hydro in analysing and reviewing the project, particularly the costs,” the speaking notes read.

“Well, whose fault is that?” Swain responded. “How about the owners of the utilities commission? It is their legislation that set it up to do specifically that job and if it hasn’t got the resources to do it, I think you’ve got to look back to the government.”

Swain noted that the government is essentially arguing that the proponent of the project, BC Hydro, should be relied on to review its own project.

“Is the answer therefore that such projects are only to be examined by the proponent?” Swain said. “Recall about the first thing that happened after they approved it was that they confessed, ‘Oh golly, the price is about a billion dollars higher than we thought.’ ”

Harry Swain in his Victoria home during an interview with DeSmog Canada. Photo: Emma Gilchrist.

The speaking notes obtained by DeSmog Canada also said: “The costs of Site C have been independently reviewed by KPMG and an independent panel of contractors — work that the commission would have contracted out itself regardless.”

When asked why, despite being well aware of the KPMG review, the panel still recommended a review by the utilities commission, Swain responded: “If you ask Lockheed Martin what the cost of the F-35 is going to be, they — the proponents — will give you a number. And if you believe that number, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I’d like to sell you.”

He noted that accounting firm KPMG was hired by the project proponent, BC Hydro.

“Consultants hired by the project proponent are being hired in part to demonstrate the reasonability of the work being done by the proponent,” he said. “The last thing that you’d expect would be for the consultants to BC Hydro to say ‘Oh golly, what an interesting error you’ve made.’ It just isn’t going to happen.”

And that’s at the crux of why the panel recommended the project be reviewed by the independent B.C. Utilities Commission — because its mission is “to ensure that ratepayers receive safe, reliable, and non-discriminatory energy services at fair rates from the utilities it regulates.”

“I think projects of that nature where the public purse — and the public interest much more broadly — is involved deserve a degree of scrutiny,” Swain said.

“I think the province was determined to go ahead with the project from the beginning.”

Read Part 2 of DeSmog Canada’s Interview with Harry Swain: ‘Dereliction of duty’: B.C.’s failure to investigate alternatives to the Site C dam

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The Blueberry River First Nation from northeastern B.C. has filed a lawsuit against the province for allowing “unprecedented industrial disturbance” to threaten “their way of life,” according to a press statement released Wednesday.

The suit will call into question the future of industrial development in the northeast region of the province, including the Site C dam and natural gas fracking projects intended to feed B.C.’s burgeoning LNG industry.

The First Nation argues their territory “has been ravaged by development.”

“Blueberry’s ancestors would not recognize our territory today. It is covered by oil and gas wells, roads, pipelines, mines, clear cuts, hydro and seismic lines, private land holdings, and waste disposal sites, amongst other things," Chief Marvin Yahey said. “The pace and scale of development have accelerated in the last 25 years, and are now at unprecedented levels.”

Video showing cumulative impacts of industrial development in Treaty 8 territory.

The Blueberry tribe entered into Treaty 8 in 1900, agreeing to open the territory to development as long as their way of life, which includes hunting, fishing, trapping and gathering traditional plants, remain undisturbed.

“There are vast dark zones throughout our territory where we are no longer able to practice our treaty rights,” Chief Yahey said.

“It is the cumulative impact of the thousands of provincially authorized activities, from water withdrawals, to major industrial projects such as the Site C dam, which have destroyed our way of life and threaten our continued existence as a people.”

An estimated 90.8 per cent of the northeast portion of Territory 8, the Beatton watershed, has been disturbed, according to a Global Forest Watch Canada study from 2012.

When considering areas outside the Beatton watershed, an estimated 66 per cent of the region is considered disturbed by industry.

Increasing oil and gas development threaten to disturb remaining undeveloped areas and “the Site C dam threatens to flood a vast portion of the southern territory,” the press statement notes.

“Despite the devastating impacts of oil and gas activities on Blueberry’s way of life, we have received few economic benefits from the Province. Under previous agreements, we received less than 0.1 per cent of provincial oil and gas royalties, even though the bulk of these revenues come from our territory,” Chief Yahey said.

The Blueberry First Nation said the province has made “no meaningful response” to the threat of industrial encroachment or the issue of cumulative impacts.

The province continues to approve major projects, Chief Yahey said, “without full appreciation that each new approval brings our unique culture closer to extinction. This is a grave situation that the Province continues to ignore."

“We fear things will only get worse with the LNG ‘gold rush’ we are witnessing in our territory today."

Image Credit: Vancouver Observer 

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