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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This article originally appeared on iPolitics.

The man sitting at the head of the table has a face that should be on money.

It is calm, etched with wrinkle lines of infinite patience, utterly immune to honeyed words. Grand Chief Stewart Phillip has heard more vows than the parsons in Reno’s drive-thru wedding chapels — most of them destined to be broken by the politicians who made them. Yet behind the softness, the weary eyes suggest something else. These are undefeated eyes.

I am in the downtown Vancouver boardroom of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs and the gentle voice is saying some very tough things.

“My wife and I were scheduled to march in the Chinese New Year’s parade in Vancouver, until we found out that Trudeau was going to be there,” he says. “No way was I going to meet him unless I was on one side of the barrier, and he was on the other.”

Even accounting for the usual gulf between the public and private rhetoric of First Nations leaders as they navigate the shoals and reefs of the relationship with Big White Government, the chief’s words are remarkably blunt.

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip and his wife Joan at the annual Paddle for the Peace. Photo: Carol Linnitt

Not long ago, his Indigenous people were among the strongest supporters of Justin Trudeau in the country. Although a big part of mainstream British Columbia also succumbed to Trudeau’s charms in 2015, it could be argued that the First Nations peoples showed the greatest enthusiasm of all. With good reason.

“Trudeau made serious and solid commitments. He said no relationship was more important to him than the nation-to-nation relationship with First Nations. He was so convincing that our people went out to vote for him in unprecedented numbers,” Grand Chief Phillip says.

It sounded a lot better than the previous decade under PM Stephen Harper, a time of slashed funding and open insults.

“We were virtually at war with the Harper government for ten years,” Phillip says. “Harper inflicted great hardship on our people, openly attacking our communities and leadership. I woke up to that ongoing battle every single day.

“Trudeau gave us hope.”

All that changed when the Trudeau government gave the green light to British Columbia’s massive hydro development on the Peace River, the Site C Dam.

Construction for the Site C dam along the banks of the Peace River. Photo: Garth Lenz

The project’s proponents, led by Premier Christy Clark, say the dam will bring prosperity and jobs. Critics argue that it’s a $9 billion white elephant (the costs of the project have tripled) that will do irreparable damage to the environment and impinge on First Nations rights. Grand Chief Phillip recalls the day he got the bad news.

“It was late Friday afternoon when Ottawa made the announcement. This did surprise us. This was the acid test, that they would provide these approvals. Treaty Eight people had travelled to Ottawa and laid out the facts. We told them that this would have adverse affects on native people and the environment.

“The truth is, Trudeau lied to us. He is very close to violating the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. I describe him now as a serial liar.”

His point-blank verbal blast at Trudeau is echoed by an iconic figure in Canadian public life and letters — author, scientist and broadcaster David Suzuki.

“I’m going to be much more outspoken in the coming election cycle. Trudeau is a liar,” Suzuki says. “For me, that’s the charge. He’s an out-and-out liar. I don’t think he deserves a second chance.”

Like Grand Chief Phillip, Suzuki didn’t always see it that way. In fact, he voted strategically for Trudeau in order get rid of the only politician he says he has ever “hated” — Stephen Harper. At first, it seemed like a sound strategy.

“Justin came in and it was such a huge relief after Harper. As a father of four girls, I loved his initial actions — gender equity, then Paris, and of course a big, big commitment to First Nations.

“What the hell is going on now? Site C, Kinder Morgan, he even snuck in the southern line! My daughter and both her two kids were arrested protesting this stuff. His grade today? F. He has lost all credibility with me.”

On a personal level, Suzuki’s most bitter disappointment was the PM’s flip-flop on electoral reform. As Japanese-Canadians born in 1909 and 1911, Suzuki’s parents had not been allowed to vote. Suzuki himself has voted in every election since he was 21 but never for the winner — until 2015. He sees the vote, and any promises about making it more effective, as sacrosanct.

“Those of us who voted strategically in the last election gave our votes to Trudeau in trust. He gave his promise that it would be the last vote under first-past-the-post. Then he walked away from his words. He even used Kellie Leitch as his goddamned excuse! Trudeau broke his word.”

Suzuki told me that Trudeau’s exculpatory mantra of protecting the environment while at the same time proceeding with massive energy projects — the have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too approach — is not “real change” but more of the usual political chicanery.

“Obviously we can’t meet the targets set out in Paris. Pipelines have to have at least twenty-five to thirty years to get back the investment of building them. All Trudeau has done is just punt the problem down the road. That’s what all politicians do.”

But with Trudeau’s Site C approval, the federal government did do something it had never done before — or at least it did in the opinion of Harry Swain, who served as chairman of the federal/provincial panel reviewing the mega-project. In a low, musical voice that has advised dozens of politicians over the years, Swain voices his surprise at Ottawa’s approval of Site C.

“There are several significant adverse environmental affects in the Site C project. Up until now, Ottawa has never approved a project with more than one bad effect. This time the feds ignored species at risk, birds, rare plants, turtles and amphibians.”

Harry Swain, chair of the joint review panel for the Site C project. Photo: Jayce Hawkins

Swain spent 22 years in Ottawa and served as a federal deputy minister in two departments — Indian and Northern Affairs and Industry. He also headed up an inquiry into the Walkerton water crisis in Ontario, and authored an outstanding book on the 1990 Oka crisis.

After handing in his report on Site C, Swain came out against the project and started criticizing the premier who has made it the centrepiece of her re-election bid this May.

“Premier Clark tried to manipulate the review of Site C. She knew the demand projections for hydro very well — 2 per cent a year forever. Demand is flat. There is no reason on God’s green earth to go ahead with this thing, to accept the damage to the environment and the First Nations.”

Swain thinks the economics of Site C are particularly “awful.” The power isn’t needed provincially, and there is no customer elsewhere who has signed a contract. Selling the power at spot prices won’t justify the huge expense to taxpayers, who will end up with higher electricity bills and a stranded asset on their hands, he says.

As for BC Hydro, Swain says it will sink further and further into debt under the voodoo economics of deferral accounting and the dubious practice of forking over a billion dollars a year to the provincial government that it has to borrow so that the Clark government can balance its budget.

“If BC Hydro was a publicly-owned entity, they’d be scared shitless. U.S. utilities are losing customers, not gaining them. People are also conserving. In the long run, demand could be met off the grid from a variety of alternate energy sources.”

Nor does Swain agree with the view that, however bad the project may be, it would make more sense to finish it and learn from the gaffes — a view put forward by consulting economist Marvin Schaffer of Simon Fraser University. Instead, he cites the wisdom of an Arab proverb: No matter how far down the wrong road you go, turn back.

“Shaffer’s reasoning is right, but I think his facts are wrong. I would expect the committed/unavoidable costs to be around $3 billion by election day (the B.C. provincial election this May) on a project that will cost $9 billion.

“So is the $6 billion marginal cost justified by the spot market price of juice flogged to the Yanks? No. The present value of 20 years worth of power at $25/MWh is less than $2 billion, even at the low, low rates that BC Hydro is touting. So we’d be better writing off the $3 billion as a loss and stopping the project.”

To Swain, Ottawa has simply endorsed a bad project for the wrong reasons. And that includes the dismissive way the Trudeau government discharged its duties to First Nations peoples.

“I was perfectly happy we were asked to gather all evidence touching the rights of First Nations and send it on to Ottawa and let them decide. I thought it would work out. It didn’t work out at all.”

The Site C controversy is all the more aggravating in Swain’s view because there is history to learn from on this file — the previously constructed Bennett Dam completed in 1968.

“When that dam was constructed, they didn’t even bother logging the valleys. It was low ground in the Rockies, animal runs. The politicians thought that Indians, like moose, go to high ground. That story is remembered by wise elders in First Nations communities on the Peace. They remember what an Eden the place used to be.”

Aaron Hill is the executive director of the Watershed Watch Salmon Society. He is gravely concerned about the direction the Clark government has taken British Columbia, imperilling the natural environment with dubious mega-projects. He had hoped that the election of Justin Trudeau federally would inject rational analysis into the assessment of those projects.

“I thought Trudeau was going to bring in evidence-based decision making,” said Hill.  “Petronas’ Pacific Northwest LNG will be the largest climate polluter in Canadian history. Trudeau promised to revamp the environmental assessment regime, yet this climate bomb was decided using Harper-era legislation.”

Hill’s principal interest is in the protection of wild salmon stocks. Salmon is a sacred subject here. How sacred? The tall young man mentions a 2011 Angus Reid poll which found that salmon are as culturally important to the people of B.C. as the French language is to the people of Quebec.

It was the collapse of the world famous sockeye salmon run on the Fraser River that prompted Prime Minister Harper to appoint B.C. Supreme Court Justice Bruce Cohen to hold an inquiry.

Remarkably, before Justice Cohen could finish his 1,100 page report, the Harper government made legislative changes to the Fisheries Act that were highly detrimental to marine conservation. The judge harshly criticized the Harper government and publicly expressed his opinion that Ottawa should have waited until it saw his report.

As happy as Aaron Hill was with the recommendations of the Cohen Report, he is sharply critical of the Trudeau government’s handling of the wild salmon file. True, the PM did include in his mandate letter to the minister of Fisheries that the Cohen recommendations should be implemented.

Juvenile salmon near Flora Banks, proposed site of the Pacific Northwest LNG terminal. Photo: Tavish Campbell

In fact, though, some of the report’s 75 recommendations are missing their second set of deadlines, and several key proposals haven’t been touched. Part of the reason for this glacial pace is a built-in conflict of interest inside DFO noted by Justice Cohen: The department is responsible both for fostering the success of aquaculture and protecting the wild salmon environment.

“Last August, (federal Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc) offered a progress report on implementation of the Cohen recommendations. It was minor progress and a lot of excuses about not implementing certain others. At the very least, we have to keep salmon farms off wild salmon migration routes. Gutting wild salmon, they’re going to have to wear that.”

Hill is careful to give credit where the Trudeau government has made some progress. Ottawa has hired more fisheries scientists. There has been progress on enforcing compliance. And, most important of all, some infrastructure money has been invested to restore salmon habitat on the Fraser River. But on some other huge issues, Hill says the Trudeau government simply hasn’t gotten the big shapes right.

“There has been a 20 per cent reduction in coast-wide stock assessment in B.C. In fact, stock assessment hit its lowest point in the history of DFO in the first year of Trudeau. As for Ottawa’s ocean spill clean-up plan, which is just cover for all the environmentally bad resource decisions, it is sleazy and laughable. You simply can’t clean it up. Trudeau promised to do things differently. So far, no.”

Hill and other members of the Pacific Marine Conservation Caucus — a network of NGOs involved in fisheries issues — are still waiting for their first meeting with Minister LeBlanc.

“We asked three times for a meeting,” Hill tells me. “They said they couldn’t schedule it. So we offered to go to Ottawa. Still no meeting. It is hard for the West Coast to stay on Ottawa’s radar.”

Another person who thought Trudeau days would be better days is Wade Davis. Like Suzuki, Davis is a Renaissance man: Harvard-trained anthropologist, explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic, internationally acclaimed author of fifteen books (including The Serpent and the Rainbow) and now a professor at UBC.

Davis is a legendary defender of both Indigenous Peoples and the environment. When I asked him about the Red Chris mine, an open-pit gold and copper operation that is the sister project to the infamous Mount Polley development, he didn’t mince words.

“Putting a mine on Todagin Mountain is like drilling for oil in the Sistine Chapel.”

Davis received an Honorary Degree from McGill University where Gerald Butts, now the PM’s principal secretary, is a governor and member of the executive committee. He told Butts that he would do anything to get Trudeau elected. Like a lot of Canadians, Davis was seized with a sense of an urgent need to get rid of Harper. Butts eventually took him up on the offer.

“I was asked by Gerry to introduce Justin and his campaign here in B.C. I agreed. I totally believed in their vision.

“I didn’t expect a political regime to ignore the national economy, or agree with everything I said. But I believed what Trudeau said about social licence. I believed they would act justly with First Nations peoples. What shocked me … one by one, every mega-development that the B.C. people took issue with, they endorsed.”

Adrift in a debris field of broken Liberal promises, Davis thought he knew what Trudeau was really doing. The Liberals needed Alberta for a national carbon policy, which would give them a chance of meeting their Paris commitments. Alberta Premier Rachel Notley needed a pipeline, the Holy Grail being a pipeline to tidewater. The way Davis and others see it, Trudeau was horse trading in what he took to be the national interest. B.C.’s environment was a bargaining chip.

“Trudeau made a Faustian deal with Alberta. I could understand him throwing a bone to Rachel Notley. But he supported all of these projects. That’s not about bone-throwing. That’s about an ideological commitment to resource industrialization. And he’s done it in some of the most pristine places in B.C. I just don’t believe the Liberal party would make that kind of trade-off if it involved the Muskoka Lakes or the Niagara Peninsula.”

Davis lives on Bowen Island at the mouth of Howe Sound, where Woodfibre Natural Gas Ltd. has been green-lighted to build a $1.8 billion LNG plant near Squamish. Both the provincial and federal governments approved the controversial plan, despite the prospect for serious pollution spikes.

Howe Sound. Photo: Moss via Flickr

But there was another problem with the LNG project that Davis was convinced would be of interest to the Trudeau government. Despite the fact that LNG should be perfectly safe, the U.S. Coast Guard had scientific evidence that led them to route LNG shipments away from population centres. That precaution is now part of the standards developed in the U.S. regulating the shipment of LNG. There are no such standards in Canada.

“We tried to show the feds. We had the documents from the Sandia Lab experiments in the U.S. to show that in the event of a spill, liquified gas could mix with water vapour. As the heavier-than-air cloud disperses and spreads out, it mixes with the surrounding air, reducing the concentrations of natural gas. When those concentrations come down to 15 per cent, the cloud is highly flammable. If it exploded, it would be devastating.

“That was never considered in the provincial review of the project. We tried to arrange meetings with the feds, McKenna and MP Pam Goldsmith-Jones. No meetings. We were blown off.”

Davis also wonders why the governments would risk an accident in the most beautiful fjord in B.C. (and the waterway that leads to Whistler) after the Sound was finally cleaned up following an earlier resource disaster.

The Sound around Britannia Beach had been fouled by the largest metal pollution event in North America from the now shuttered Britannia copper mine. At one time, the mine sent 600 kilograms a day of dissolved metals into the pristine waters.

“For the sake of a tiny group of men, we are going to re-industrialize after cleaning it up? Trudeau said he believed in social licence. What does social licence mean if the voices of your society come together with a single clarion call that is then completely ignored when it comes to public policy?

“You ask me if I would introduce Justin again here in B.C. To be honest with you, I wouldn’t.”

Few people have more skin in the game of fighting Site C than Ken Boon. He and his family have farmed a section of land in the Peace River Valley for three generations. There is fifteen feet of alluvial soil under his boots, not to mention a huge aquifer.

Of the 640 acres Boon owned, all but ten were expropriated last December to make way for the Site C hydro project. The way Boon sees it, building this dam is a huge roll of the dice, depending as it does on future energy needs, pricing and fast-developing alternatives to being on the grid.

“Investing in a large dam now is kinda like locking into a forty-year contract on your flip-phone.”

Boon and other landowners in the Peace River Valley were appalled by their own premier’s reckless alliance with the corporate sector, which both contributes to her party and benefits from her government.

“Trying to figure out what why Christy Clark is doing all this is like trying to get into the head of serial killer. She just puts on a hard hat, surrounds herself with big, yellow equipment, and tells her base she’s the jobs candidate. Meanwhile, none of her projects makes sense.”

Boon was convinced the provincial government’s failure to seriously factor the environment into their development decisions would be offset by the election of Justin Trudeau. Surely the feds, with their commitment to sustainable development, would put the brakes on the Wild West approach of Christy Clark and company?

So the farmers and landowners were overjoyed when the new PM appointed B.C. native Jody Wilson-Raybould as justice minister. Combined with Trudeau’s promise of real government-to-government dialogue with First Nations, Boon and the others believed Site C would be stopped by Ottawa now that one of their own was sitting around the cabinet table.

“We had great hopes for Trudeau and Jody. When she was leader of another First Nations group here, she attended two or three Paddle for the Peace annual events. She was videotaped talking about the destructive nature of flooding 83 acres in the Peace River Valley.

“Now she refuses to answer questions in Parliament. Just another example of a political party in government going rogue. Trudeau is doing exactly what he said they wouldn’t do. A downright sad thing.”

In the opinion of former Liberal cabinet minister David Anderson — still the longest-tenured federal environment minister in Canadian history — Trudeau’s approach to resource development and the environment comes from a profound misunderstanding of British Columbians.

Tankers illuminate the Burrard Inlet near the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain terminal in Burnaby. Photo: Chris Clogg via Flickr

“I don’t think that Trudeau understands the people’s attachment to this coast. If I were him, and I thought this could hurt the coast, I wouldn’t do it. Yet he wants to increase tanker traffic sevenfold. You can’t tell me that kind of increase out of the port of Vancouver is not increasing risk. Trudeau should be called on this misstatement of fact that is actually worthy of Donald Trump.”

The route these tankers will take through Burrard Inlet is ominous — through the two Narrows of Vancouver Harbour, into the Salish Sea, in and around the Gulf Islands, and through the Straits of Juan de Fuca, crossing ferry routes along the way. When you add to that the LNG tankers from Squamish coming down Howe Sound to the Salish Sea, it isn’t difficult to imagine a doomsday scenario.

The nature of what a major oil spill can do to the environment was indelibly branded into David Anderson’s memory by the 1989 Exxon Valdez catastrophe in Prince William Sound.

“Ottawa should remember how huge disasters happen. The captain of the Exxon Valdez was drunk. He gave a conflicting order — avoid the ice and steer to port when you’re west of Bligh Reef. After this terrible spill, the clean-up equipment was hidden under snow. When things go terribly wrong, it never works out according to plan.”

Anderson not only disagrees with Ottawa’s decision to approve the $6.8 billion Kinder Morgan project (which he says he probably would have resigned over), he also doesn’t put much stock in the environmental conditions Trudeau has placed on the approval.

In the case of Kinder Morgan, there are 157 conditions. Liberal MP Joyce Murray is trying to rally the 17 members of the B.C. Liberal caucus to ensure full compliance with all of the conditions. Anderson isn’t comforted.

“Here’s the reality. If construction goes on, they will inevitably arrive at a condition they can’t meet. Trudeau says Ottawa will stop them. They won’t.”

In part, Anderson bases that conclusion on what the Liberals did when they had a chance to make Kyoto work:

“They said we’d never reach our targets. But that wasn’t the problem. The problem was we never tried. We could have been ahead of the curve. What we did was foolish. We had the opportunity for fairly major change, we had an industry buy-in, and we blew it. It’s like deja vu all over again.”

Anderson still remembers how Trudeau the Elder took British Columbia by storm in 1968, winning 16 out of 23 seats. After 1972, the Liberals were left with just four. In Anderson’s estimation, although Justin Trudeau jumped from just two B.C. seats in 2011 to 17 in 2015, he could share the same fate as his father.

“That’s because Trudeau has so clearly put the interests of the government of Rachel Notley over the interests of coastal British Columbians. Notley needed a pipeline and a lifeline. She got four of them. It’s not a win-win for Ottawa — it’s win-lose.”

Is it possible for Trudeau to avoid his father’s fate on the West Coast? Anderson looks in the direction of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, fading now as dusk falls.

“Trudeau is just one year into a four year stint in government. Something might happen. But right now, he is at serious risk of losing significant seats in British Columbia. Justin is more like Prince Harry or Prince William — idolized. But the show-biz types can fall dramatically fast, you know.”

After an hour or two of talking, the tall, gaunt figure with the striking blue eyes rises to leave. When I am alone again, I make my way down to the rocks on Ten Mile Point by the water’s edge.

The buffleheads and mergansers retreat in silent convoys at my approach. An otter raises its slick, black head for a look-see, then slips beneath the pewter surface of the water as if he was never there.

Out in the Strait, a huge tanker shows its silhouette, framed by a low island and the Olympic Mountains. Even from this distance, you can see the ocean foaming as its bow cuts through the water. Grand Chief Stewart Phillip’s words return to me, sadder than ever:

“When you yearn for some light, especially after the darkness of the Harper years, even a glimpse of it will suffice. ‘Sunny ways’ sounded so good. Now we know that a new sun has not risen in the East — just another politician.”

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A powerful alliance of B.C. First Nations and Southeast Alaska natives has been forged in the aftermath of the Mount Polley dam collapse and tribes, who have not worked together for generations, are aiming to put the brakes on B.C.’s border mining boom.

Tears flowed after a May meeting in Vancouver when Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) president Grand Chief Stewart Phillip and vice-president Bob Chamberlin agreed to support the newly formed United Tribal Transboundary Mining Work Group in its bid for Alaskan — and particularly tribal — input into B.C.’s decision-making process on mines along the Southeast Alaska border.

“We are bringing together the tribes from both sides of the border and building a relationship. We can make more noise together than when we are separated by a border that has not been part of our tradition,” said Mike Hoyt, leader of the Teeyhittaan clan from the Stikine River.

It was a historic meeting that could be a catalyst for change, according to Phillip. [view:in_this_series=block_1]

“It was very significant, coming together with our brothers and sisters in Alaska. I think it was a long time coming,” he said.

The Transboundary Work Group, made up of federally recognized tribes, conservation groups, fishing advocates and community leaders, will collaborate with B.C. First Nations to let the provincial government, mining companies and investors know their concerns about mines being approved near the headwaters of Southeast Alaska’s most important salmon rivers, said Jennifer Hanlon, environmental specialist with the Central Council Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska.

“We want them to know (the mines) are a concern for indigenous people. We’re talking about our salmon, our health and our lands. Hunting and fishing are still the backbone of our economy,” Hanlon said.

The group wants the issue sent to the International Joint Commission, the body designed to resolve U.S./Canada water and air disputes. The commission operates under the Boundary Waters Treaty that forbids either nation from polluting waters flowing across the boundary.

“Alaska needs a seat at the table when it comes to deciding whether mining projects in B.C., with the potential to pollute our waters, should go forward and, if they do, how these mines should deal with their waste, which has a high likelihood of flowing downstream into transboundary rivers,” says one of the group’s briefing notes.

Phillip said when the U.S. and Canadian groups got together there was a “robust discussion” about B.C.’s deregulation and lack of environmental oversight.

The Canadian contingent offered little comfort as they described federal and provincial legislative changes that Phillip believes have gutted the environmental assessment process and removed protections for the vast majority of lakes and rivers.

“Clearly the Harper government is squarely in the corner of big business, big corporations and big oil. They facilitate and fast-track major resource projects at the expense of the environment, wild salmon and marine life,” Phillip said.

However, there are differences of opinion among bands about the extent of mining that is acceptable in northwest B.C. and some First Nations have signed agreements with companies opening mines near the Alaska border.

Among the more controversial is a co-management agreement between the Tahltan Nation and Imperial Metals, owners of the Red Chris mine and Mount Polley. Tahltan decided to ratify the agreement even though only 12.9 per cent of members voted and elders had previously set up a blockade.

Differences of opinion are inevitable, Phillip said.

“If we were to wait for a unified front, the only ones to benefit would be the mining industry, corporations and government. It doesn’t happen anywhere in the world,” he said.

After the Mount Polley dam breach the B.C. First Nations Energy and Mining Council, like UBCIC, called for major mining and mineral exploration reforms and a larger role for First Nations in environmental assessment and permitting, dam monitoring and water testing.

The council also wants companies to put forward security bonds that represent the true cost of cleaning up a disaster.

“Performance bonds that are required to mitigate and monitor projects in perpetuity are insufficient in major breaches such as the Mount Polley disaster,” said council CEO Dave Porter.

“Mining companies that bring these projects forward should bear the financial burden of mitigation of these potential damages.”

A report on tailings facility failures, released by the council in June, pointed out that mining usually takes place on traditional lands and, if there are dam failures, First Nations are disproportionately affected.

“The principle of free, prior and informed consent must be applied in advance of mining operations, from exploration through all phases of development, including post-closure,” says the report.

Energy and Mines Ministry spokesman David Haslam said the report provides government and industry with a greater understanding of First Nations perspectives on mining and tailings storage and will help inform the upcoming review of the Health, Safety and Reclamation Code for Mines.

Mines Minister Bill Bennett told the Globe and Mail that First Nations will have an equal seat at that table with industry and organized labour.

The review is part of  government’s response to the report from the expert panel looking into the Mount Polley dam collapse. The panel emphasized the need for change and said that business as usual was not an option.

For Alaskan natives, the bottom line is forcing companies to put in all the safeguards needed to avoid another Mount Polley-type disaster, even if that means no mines beside salmon-bearing rivers or their tributaries.

The relationship with the rivers runs deep, said 84-year-old Ethel Lund, who was born in Wrangell and remembers trading up and down the Stikine River with Canadian First Nations when the king salmon were running or when the eulachon — a small oily fish colloquially known as hooligans in Southeast Alaska — filled the river.

“The Stikine River is very precious to us,” Lund said.

“I worry about the mines and the pollution and I think about the tremendous impact it could have on our communities and waterways. There really is a need for communication between Canada and Alaska to try and work it out, because we are going to be most impacted,” she said.

However, it is not easy to make tribal voices heard, even in Alaska, Hanlon said.

“We have 13 tribes working together to try and protect our ancestral lands and we’ve not been consulted by the B.C. government or the mining companies or even the state of Alaska,” Hanlon said.

But some are optimistic the relationship with the Alaskan government will improve as Lt. Governor Byron Mallott, a member of the Tlingit Nation, becomes increasingly involved.

Mallott, who visited B.C. to see the Mount Polley spill firsthand and to meet with Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett, said in an interview with DeSmog Canada that he hopes to add tribal interests to the government-level task force.

Richard Peterson, president of the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Tribes of Alaska, said the relationship with the tribes has been on a better footing since Mallott’s election late last year and he is optimistic that, with the help of Canadian First Nations, a game plan can be developed to protect the rivers and a way of life that dates back thousands of years.

“I think this is one of the most serious things we face right now,” Peterson said.

“I know we have an uphill battle, but, when we are arm-in-arm as indigenous people, we can do it.”

Image Credit: Rivers Without Borders

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On the banks of the Peace River on Saturday, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip told hundreds of opponents to the Site C dam that he will be handcuffed if necessary to stop BC Hydro’s mega project from moving ahead. 

“From this point forward we have to really focus our efforts on how we’re going to physically stop this project from happening,” Phillip said during a speech at the 10th annual Paddle for the Peace. “The provincial cabinet recently approved permits to allow construction to begin. That’s where the rubber is going to hit the road.”

An emotional Phillip said B.C. is on the eve of an uprising after the government has repeatedly dealt in “bad faith” with First Nations.

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip has vowed to be arrested to stop the Site C Dam.

“If push comes to shove, I for one — being a grandfather of 14 grandchildren who I absolutely adore — I am more than willing to be arrested as long as that will contribute to stopping this project,” he said.

“I know when that moment comes I will not be alone.”

The Last Paddle for the Peace?

About 300 boats took to the water Saturday in what could be the last Paddle for the Peace — held on a stretch of the Peace River that will be flooded if the $8.8 billion Site C dam is built.

Construction is due to start on the dam any day now despite a pending Treaty 8 legal challenge, due to be heard by the federal Supreme Court on July 20.

“This is a watershed moment in the province of British Columbia and in this country,” Phillip said. “We simply can not — we can not allow this to happen.”

Beth Steiner, 8, helps bag lettuce at her parents market garden stand in the Peace Valley. The land the Steiners grow everything from corn to watermelons on will be flooded if the Site C dam is built.

Calls for a moratorium on construction on Site C have gained strength recently with the Greater Vancouver Regional District board, representing 23 local governments and 2.5 million people, voting to ask Premier Christy Clark for a two-year moratorium on construction.

The Peace River Regional District — which includes Fort St. John, the city that would see the most economic activity from the dam — voted on Thursday to write a letter to Clark to request that all construction on Site C be stopped until active court cases regarding the project have been completed.

The B.C. government has been criticized for pushing ahead with the project while ignoring repeated calls for an independent review of costs and demand — a recommendation made by the government’s own panel.

David Suzuki: ‘We Fundamentally Failed’

Famed environmentalist David Suzuki changed his schedule to join the paddle on Saturday (and helped rescue some capsized canoeists while he was at it) because the fight for the Peace Valley is near and dear to his heart. During a keynote speech, he told the crowd about his involvement with stopping the Site C dam for the first time in 1981.

“Thirty-five years later, guess what? We’re fighting exactly the same battles all over again,” Suzuki told the crowd. “What we thought were victories were not victories at all, because we fundamentally failed. We failed to shift the way we see our place on the planet.”

Ranchers Dick and Renee Ardill know the drain of the 34-year fight against the dam all too well. When the dam was first defeated, Dick was a spry 54-year-old. Now he’s 88 and grasps his truck for balance as he walks.

Dick Ardill has spent his 88 years ranching in the Peace Valley. His parents homesteaded the land in 1910.

His daughter Renee is sick of telling their story.

“I’m tired of the whole thing,” she told DeSmog Canada during a break from baling hay. “I’m tired of the stupidity of it.”

“You have to just keep going on and doing your job and, if we lose and they build the thing, we’ll worry about that when the time comes. In the meantime, I’m hoping that someone comes to their senses.”

While the recent rejection of the Peace Valley Landowners Association legal challenge was disappointing, it’s not the end of the world, Renee says.

“The battle goes on.”

Injunctions Will Be Filed to Stop Site C Dam Construction

“This is the tenth year we’ve done this and if BC Hydro and B.C. have their way we won’t be doing it any more,” said Roland Willson, chief of West Moberly First Nation, before canoes were put in the water.

West Moberly Chief Roland Willson.

In an interview with DeSmog Canada, Willson said he’s holding out for the courts to make the right decision.

“The dam is a direct infringement of our treaty rights,” he said.

Willson said injunctions will be filed to stop any construction that will cause “irreparable harm.”

Farmer Ken Boon, who hosts the Paddle for the Peace on his land, says the early construction plans look like a soft start.

“I’m still confident this dam will not be built,” Boon said. “All we’ve got to do is win one court case.”

Ken Boon is confident the Site C dam will not be built.

Boon’s land will be flooded if the dam is built, but he has yet to be approached by BC Hydro about moving.

“I’m pretty sure they’re expecting a lot of these to go to expropriation if things carry on,” he said.

As it stands, Boon and his wife Arlene still aren’t thinking about moving.

‘We’re Being Mowed Over’

Shawna-Marie Phillips is less optimistic. If construction moves forward, a 3,000-man camp will be located one kilometre from her organic farm and ranch.

Sometimes it feels like she’s yelling into the void and nobody’s listening, she said.

Given that the Site C dam is the most expensive public project in B.C. history, yet only one reporter from a major news outlet attended Saturday’s event, Phillips could be forgiven for feeling out of sight and out of mind.

“I feel like we’re being mowed over,” she said.  “I get a feeling that this is the last time.”

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The Treaty 8 First Nations have received notice from BC Hydro that work on the Site C dam could start as early as July 6 — despite court proceedings still being underway.

Treaty 8 First Nations have applied for judicial review of the federal government’s decision to grant an environmental assessment certificate, arguing the Site C dam infringes on their treaty rights. The joint review panel’s report on Site C found the dam will result in significant and irreversible adverse impacts on people in the Treaty 8 communities.

The federal appeal begins the week of July 20, 2015. But Treaty 8 First Nations say that BC Hydro has ignored requests to put construction on hold until the outcomes of the court proceedings are known. BC Hydro did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

“The provocative activities that the B.C. government is recklessly trying to advance are irreversible, and will leave an irreparable and permanent scar on the land,” said Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs. “These deliberate actions will also indefinitely scar B.C.’s relationships with First Nations.”

The 1,100-megawatt Site C dam would be the third dam built on the Peace River. It has been proposed for more than 30 years and with a price tag of $8.8 billion, it is the most expensive public project in B.C. history.

The project has been controversial due to its impact on farmland, infringement of treaty rights and concerns about the costs of the project.

The First Nations Leadership Council — comprised of the executives of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, the First Nations Summit and the B.C. Assembly of First Nations — issued a press release Thursday stating the council will “fully support the Treaty 8 First Nations to address this injustice and to prevent damage to the Peace River Valley.”

Treaty 8 says BC Hydro intends to begin blocking off the main channel of the Peace River with booms this summer. BC Hydro also intends to clear 735 hectares of trees and vegetation.

“If construction begins, it will be understood as a clear message that this government has absolutely no respect for the Treaty 8 First Nation people, and is blatantly disregarding constitutionally recognized aboriginal title, rights and treaty rights,” Phillip said. “Further, rushing ahead of the courts to build this project is an irresponsible and negligent use of tax dollars.”

Robert Phillips of the First Nations Summit political executive said the provincial government seems to have tunnel vision when it comes to building the Site C dam.

“By denying the Treaty 8 First Nations their day in court, the government is making an outright statement that they are above democratic rights and the judicial system,” Phillips said. “This approach is unacceptable and an affront to the cultivation of constructive government-to-government relations between the provincial government and B.C. First Nations.”

Close to $50,000 has been donated toward the Treaty 8 legal fight through Victoria-based charity RAVEN.

The B.C. government has argued the Site C dam is the most cost-effective way to meet the province’s electricity needs and has rejected repeated calls for an independent review of costs by the B.C. Utilities Commission.

Harry Swain, the chair of the joint federal-provincial panel that reviewed Site C, criticized the B.C. government’s actions on the dam in March 2015, in comments called “unprecedented” by environmental law experts.

Photo: Grand Chief Phillip Stewart of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs at last year's Paddle for the Peace on the Peace River.

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A third hydroelectric dam proposed for the Peace River would flood 83 kilometres of the Peace Valley in between Fort St. John and Hudson's Hope, B.C. Dubbed the "Site C" dam, if built, it would put more than 3,800 hectares of Agricultural Land Reserve farmland — an area nearly twice the size of the city of Victoria — under water.

DeSmog Canada recently visited the Peace Valley for the ninth annual Paddle for the Peace, which attracted hundreds of paddlers from across North America. While we were there, we met with the farmers and ranchers who stand to be impacted if the dam is built.

Check out our photos below and learn more by reading our in-depth series on the plight of the Peace Valley and the Site C dam.

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I round a bend on Highway 29 just west of Fort St. John and a magnificent river valley opens up before me.

At the bottom of the winding road, farmers' fields stretch as far as the eye can see along the banks of the mighty Peace River.

This is the same valley explorer Alexander Mackenzie paddled through in 1792, noting in his journal that the valley was so rich in wildlife that in some places it looked like a barnyard.

“Ninety per cent of the people who take that drive remember it for a lifetime,” says local rancher Leigh Summer. [view:in_this_series=block_1]

Today, the highway toward Hudson’s Hope is dotted with trucks carrying canoes and kayaks, all converging upon one spot: the Halfway River bridge, where the 9th annual Paddle for the Peace will launch.

The Paddle is an annual pilgrimage for people who want the valley to be protected from BC Hydro’s proposed Site C dam, which would flood 83 kilometres of the Peace River and 24 kilometres of its tributaries. The two-hour paddle takes place on a section of the river that will be flooded if the dam is built.

Highway 29 between Fort St. John and Hudson’s Hope is home to several billboards with slogans like “Keep the Peace,” “Site C Sucks” and “Save the Peace Valley.”

With the federal and provincial governments expected to make their decisions on the project this fall, there’s an undercurrent of tension at this year’s Paddle as farmers, ranchers and First Nations wait to see what will be next in their decades-long fight to stop the dam (the project was first rejected in 1982).

The people of this area know a thing or two about dams given that the Peace River is already home to two major ones.

Leigh Summer was just 14 years old when his family’s ranch was flooded by the W.A.C. Bennett Dam in 1967. His grandparents homesteaded that land in the 1920s and his mother was born there.

“We were told it was going to be good for the economy, so we took it in stride,” Summer says while sitting in his boat with his family during Saturday's Paddle for the Peace.

The W.A.C. Bennett dam stretches two kilometres across the head of the Peace canyon and creates Williston Reservoir, B.C.’s largest body of freshwater.

“I think the Williston Lake has paid dividends to the province,” Summer says. “But I think the time has come to realize that it’s a decent energy, but it’s a thing of the past.”

Now, 47 years after being flooded out for the first time, Summer's ranch is at risk again — this time from BC Hydro’s proposed third dam on the Peace, dubbed “Site C.”

With a price tag of $7.9 billion, the Site C dam is the largest infrastructure project in Canada and would produce about 5,100 gigawatt hours of electricity each year. But the demand for the power has been questioned by economists and by the joint review panel that reviewed the project.

The panel's report, released in May, was inconclusive, saying both that the dam could provide cheap, reliable power for B.C. and that the demand for that power is not clear. The panel asked the provincial government to refer the project to the B.C. Utilities Commission to analyze the costs — something the province has yet to do.

“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,” the report says.

If the dam is built, Summer would be one of dozens of families who will impacted by flooding, slope instability and road re-alignments. His family could end up with a road through the field in front of their house. He finds it galling how BC Hydro talks about this being the Crown corporation's last chance to build a big dam.

“Why is this the last if this is such a good thing? They are admitting that hydro electricity was good in the 19th and in the 20th century. We’re in the 21st century … we have to either look to conservation or other forms of energy,” he says. “It’s so archaic. Building this dam isn’t even progress for the province.”

Leigh, his wife Darcy and their three young children spend most of the summer enjoying the Peace River. Their youngest son, a fifth generation Peace Country boy, is even called River.

Leigh Summer's family ranch was flooded by the W.A.C. Bennett dam in 1967.

River Summer spends a lot of time on the Peace River with his parents and two older sisters.

“I’m just sad at what they lost already with the two valleys,” Darcy says. “When you see pictures and when you do research on that, it was just beautiful, it was so magnificent. To think that we’re going to keep destroying it.”

This stretch of the Peace valley between Fort St. John and Hudson’s Hope is the last intact part of the river in British Columbia.

“Why can’t we leave a piece of the Peace intact for future generations?” Leigh says, his daughter sitting in his lap. “Let them have a choice. If we flood it, we take that choice away from them, from ever seeing what the Peace River was like.”

Out of sight, out of mind for the voting majority

For those trying to stop the Site C dam, one of the biggest challenges is that this part of the province — a 14-hour drive from Vancouver — is out of sight, out of mind for the voting majority of the province.

A September 2013 poll commissioned by BC Hydro found only four in 10 British Columbians had even heard of the Crown utility’s proposal to build a third hydroelectric dam on the Peace River.

“That’s what this event is all about,” says Roland Willson, chief of West Moberly First Nation. “There are people who are making a decision about this valley who have never even been here.”

Roland Willson, chief of West Moberly First Nation.

“There is nothing better in the world than to be able to put your boat on the water or go stand knee deep in the water and catch a fish and eat that fish. And drink the water. That in itself is something that’s worth saving,” Willson says.

Because the Peace River is the only river to break the barrier of the Rocky Mountains between the Yukon south almost to Mexico, it has provided a gateway for wildlife and people for thousands of years.

Although few British Columbians make it up to the Peace region nowadays, Fort St. John is the oldest non-native community in British Columbia, established as a fur trading post in 1794 — and First Nations have been here more than 10,000 years. Indeed, the Peace got its name from a peace treaty signed between the Danezaa people, called the Beaver by the Europeans, and the Cree signed in 1781.

As I float down the river in one of about 250 boats taking part in the Paddle, First Nations drummers start to sing alongside. At just that moment, an eagle swoops overhead.

About 250 boats were on the water for Paddle for the Peace on Saturday July 12.

“We’re prepared to take any means necessary to stop this project in support of the Treaty 8 First Nations leadership,” Grand Chief Stewart Phillip told Desmog Canada at the Paddle. “I really hope that this project is buried once and for all.”

People aren’t the only ones who will be impacted if the dam is built.

“Site C will make a major contribution toward severing that Rocky mountain chain that goes all the way from Yellowstone to Yukon,” says Sarah Cox, senior conservation program manager for the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative.  

“The science shows that vulnerable species like grizzly, wolverine and lynx will be greatly impacted to the extent that populations may not be recoverable,” she says. “It’s hard to imagine that the beauty of this valley will be completely flooded and underwater.”

Last week, the Sierra Club BC, Peace Valley Environmental Association and Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative launched a new website, StopSiteC.org, where citizens can sign a petition to voice their opposition to the project.

'The Peace … has paid her price'

Doug Donaldson, the NDP’s aboriginal affairs and reconciliation critic, spoke to the crowd of paddlers before they hit the water.

“I think that this river and the Peace River Valley and you have given enough to the province,” he said.

A billboard protests the Site C dam above Bear Flats in the Peace Valley.

Organizers said BC Liberal representatives were invited to speak, but did not attend. Minister of Energy and Mines Bill Bennett has said he has not made up his mind about the dam yet.

For Leigh, who’s watching and waiting to see whether his family may be uprooted a second time by one of BC Hydro’s dams, the Peace has shouldered more than its fair share of the impacts of providing power for the province.

“The Peace River in British Columbia has paid her price for prosperity,” Summer says. “Do we have to completely destroy the whole Peace River in all of B.C.?”

He’s frustrated that the province has exempted the project from the review of the B.C. Utilities Commission, the independent regulator that turned the dam down in 1982.

“That’s wrong. We call ourselves a democracy; that’s not democracy,” Summer says.

“The truth would set us free here, but the truth never gets to the right people.”

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