Companies will await outcome of Supreme Court hearing, slated for Nov. 30
Nader Hasan, lawyer for the Clyde River opponents to seismic testing, says he’s pleased the companies who want to conduct seismic testing off Baffin Island have agreed to postpone their plan until next year, pending a hearing at the Supreme Court of Canada in November. (FILE PHOTO)
By LISA GREGOIRE, reposted from NunatsiaqOnline, Apr 1, 2016
The companies which want to begin a five-year seismic testing project off Baffin Island’s east coast have agreed not to begin this summer while they await the outcome of a hearing before the Supreme Court of Canada.
This is the second time the seismic proponents have agreed to postpone their project for legal reasons.
In 2015, when seismic opponents from Clyde River took their case to the Federal Court of Appeal, the companiesagreed to halt plans set for the 2015 open water season while they awaited that outcome.
They have now agreed to postpone their plans again until 2017.
Nader Hasan, lawyer for Jerry Natanine, the Hamlet of Clyde River and the Nammautaq Hunters and Trappers Organization, who are against seismic blasting in the Arctic at this time, said he received news from the proponents’ lawyers April 1.
“I wasn’t surprised but I was pleased,” Hasan said April 1 from his Toronto office.
“I wasn’t surprised because they did have the good sense to agree to postpone testing for 2015 when the matter was before the Federal Court of Appeal, so there was precedent. Still, nonetheless, I was very pleased.”
Hasan also said that the Supreme Court has set a tentative date for the hearing: Nov. 30, 2016.
The hearing, at the downtown Ottawa Supreme Court building, will take at least a full day, Hasan speculates, and perhaps more given the interest the case has garnered and the number of intervenors expected to join in.
The Clyde River case will also be heard in conjunction with another case involving Aboriginal rights, resource development and the National Energy Board.
The Chippewas of the Thames First Nation, near London, Ont., have appealed to the Supreme Court to stop the expansion of an Enbridge pipeline through their traditional territory.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear those cases jointly on Nov. 30.
Unless there is a publication ban of some sort, Supreme Court hearings are usually streamed live from their website so it’s likely northerners who wish to watch the hearing unravel in real time will get a chance to so — if they have a good internet connection.
The consortium of seismic companies — Petroleum Geo-Services Inc., Multi Klient Invest AS, and TGS-Nopec Geophysical Company ASA — want to conduct seismic testing in Baffin Bay and Davis Strait to identify hydrocarbons beneath the seabed.
They currently have the right to do so thanks to an OK from the National Energy Board but their project has been hung up in legal battles for nearly two years.
That’s because communities on Baffin’s east coast, including Clyde River, are concerned that seismic testing is unsafe for marine animals, that it could jeopardize a crucial food source and that local people weren’t properly consulted prior to the NEB giving the companies approval.
Hasan said the postponement has saved him the trouble of opting for his other two options: applying to the court for an order forcing the status quo to remain until the hearing was held, or asking the court for an expedited hearing before the 2016 open water season.
“This is an important development,” Hasan said.
“Every day that seismic testing doesn’t happen is another day Arctic wildlife survives. And another day when the people of Nunavut don’t have to worry about the loss of an important food source, and a way of life.”
The Nobel-winning professor says the Trans-Pacific Partnership is a badly flawed trade deal.
Economist Joseph Stiglitz says the Trans-Pacific Partnership benefits big business at the expense of working people, driving down the bargaining power of workers. (FETHI BELAID / AFP/GETTY IMAGES file photo)
By MIKE BLANCHFIELDThe Canadian Press, reposted from TheStar, Apr 1, 2016
The controversial but not-yet-ratified trade agreement could tie the hands of the Trudeau Liberals on two key parts of its agenda — fighting climate change and repairing relations with aboriginal people, the Nobel-winning professor warned Friday.
Stiglitz said he relayed some of his concerns to Freeland personally in January, when the two were attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
He would have elaborated further in another meeting in Ottawa — where he spoke Friday — had Freeland been in town to hold one, he added.
Canada’s trade department did have someone on hand at the University of Ottawa to hear the Columbia University professor excoriate the Pacific Rim trade agreement that includes the United States and Japan, and covers 40 per cent of the world economy.
Stiglitz said the deal benefits big business at the expense of working people, driving down the bargaining power of workers, including their wages.
“Chrystia Freeland is an old friend. So I try to explain some of these ideas to her,” he told The Canadian Press in an interview.
He said he and Freeland were “were in several meetings” together in Davos, and he believes he got his message across.
“I think they’re genuinely concerned,” Stiglitz said of the Liberal government. “It’s obviously a very sensitive issue. I think that they don’t want to commit themselves. But they’re saying, they’re open, they’re listening.”
Freeland’s spokesman Alex Lawrence said the government is keeping an open mind about the deal and is following through on its promise to consult widely with Canadians.
“Many Canadians still have not made up their minds and many more still have questions,” Lawrence said.
The House of Commons trade committee is studying the TPP — a process that Freeland has said could take up to nine months.
Lawrence said the committee would travel across the country as part of its outreach to Canadians.
After that, Freeland has promised that only a vote in Parliament would ratify the deal, which was negotiated under the former Conservative government.
Canada signed the sweeping, 12-country treaty in February, something Freeland called a “technical step” that doesn’t mean ratification.
Stiglitz said he told Freeland to “take your time, see what happens.”
Both Democrat and Republican U.S. presidential hopefuls have come out in opposition to the TPP because there’s been a groundswell of public opposition to the deal, he added.
He suggested that lessens the need for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to feel pressured by U.S. President Barack Obama to ratify the TPP. During his first meeting with Trudeau in the Philippines last fall, Obama spoke strongly about the need for countries to swiftly ratify the TPP.
Stiglitz said he’s sure Trudeau might be feeling some pressure from Obama, who rolled out the red carpet for the Canadian prime minister last month during a glitzy visit to the White House.
“But they have to remember, he’s a lame duck … and Trudeau’s going to be there for a long time,” said Stiglitz. “Trudeau’s going to have to work with people who have said … ‘We’re against it.’”
In his speech to anti-TPP forum known as the Trade Justice Network, Stiglitz said the deal would cost Canada jobs and weaken the government’s ability to make regulations, including those meant to protect the environment. That’s because the agreement’s investor-state dispute settlement mechanism allows companies to sue governments over any regulations that reduce their profits.
“For your government, this is really absurd because your government is making a big deal about climate change,” he said, adding that the TPP “will tie their hands in dealing with climate change.”
Stiglitz said the TPP could curtail the Trudeau government’s plan to reset relations with aboriginal people. He cited the fact that South Africa has had to withdraw from investor dispute agreements that have limited its ability to address the legacy of apartheid.
“You have a First Nations problem. And if you’re going to say, ‘We’re going to try new things to try to alleviate it,’ you can’t do it anymore, if it’s in the form of a regulation,” Stiglitz said.
“You’ll be sued.”
Stiglitz also cited minimum wage laws, affirmative action programs and environmental impact assessments as areas where Canada and other TPP countries could also face similar problems.
The 40 to 0 vote shows just how out of step Canada’s Palestinian policy is.
By Michael Harris, reposted from iPolitics, Mar 31, 2016
“Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.” — John Milton, Areopagitica, November 23, 1644
Despite a damaging request from the Trudeau government for the United Nations to “review” the human rights appointment of a distinguished Canadian law professor, Michael Lynk has been confirmed by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) as the new Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories.
Professor Lynk told iPolitics that he had received “a letter from the President of the UNHRC informing me that I have been appointed, subject to me sending him written confirmation, which I will do shortly.”
Within hours of Lynk’s appointment last Thursday, Foreign Minister Stéphane Dion took to Twitter asking the UN to review its decision. He wanted the UNHRC to ensure that the Western University law professor was qualified for the unpaid, voluntary and highly sensitive post. Canada has no role or authority in making the selection of the Special Rapporteur, and Professor Lynk was chosen unanimously by a 47-0 vote at the UN.
Dion’s statement came on the heels of denunciations by the pro-Israeli UN Watch out of Geneva, and in Canada by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. Criticisms of Professor Lynk included allegations of “anti-Israeli activities” and “hostility against Israel.”
One of the charges against the 63-year-old academic was that he had drawn comparisons between Nazi policy and Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories. In 2005, Professor Lynk addressed a United Nations International Meeting on the Question of Palestine, and in particular the construction of a wall by Israel, where he did indeed make a reference to the Nazis. Here is the full quote from his paper:
“Settlement implantation projects have been prohibited by the international community because they invariably result in indigenous civilian dispossession, environmental destruction, apartheid-like social and legal structures, segregated labour markets, political instability and significant human rights violations. Above all, they are condemned in international law because they abrogate the right of the indigenous peoples to self-determination … Illustrative examples from history include the British settlement of Scottish and English Protestants into Catholic Ireland, the French in Algeria, the Dutch and the British in South Africa, the transfer by the Nazis of German-speaking people’s into newly conquered lands during the Second World War, the Soviet Union’s infusion of Russians into the Baltic republics and the export of Moroccan settlers into the Western Sahara.”
All of these “settlement” schemes dragged a scorpion’s tail behind them. Professor Lynk’s sin appears to have been to perpetrate history, supplying context for an Israeli/Palestinian conflict which has gone on longer than apartheid lasted in South Africa. Accordingly, the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) quickly came to his defence, demanding that Dion apologize and withdraw his request that Lynk’s appointment be reviewed.
“It is deeply disturbing that you chose to publicly question Professor Lynk’s credibility based on allegations that have been shown to be inaccurate and taken out of context. I would have expected you and your Ministry to have conducted more diligence before issuing a statement that has caused harm to Professor Lynk’s reputation,” wrote the organization’s executive director, David Robinson.
In its letter to Dion, CAUT praised Lynk as a “highly respected legal scholar” whose academic work has been cited in cases heard before a variety of courts and tribunals, including the Supreme Court of Canada.
To ensure that Dion received the message, Robinson’s executive assistant, Margaret McGover-Poitie, sent a note saying: “Please advise if you have difficulties opening the attachment.” Her fastidiousness may have been the result of the cone of silence emanating from Dion’s office since the story hit the media — with one exception.
It’s hard to find much ‘responsible conviction’ — to invoke the fuzzy new buzz phrase for Canada’s post-Harper foreign policy — in Dion’s treatment of Michael Lynk. The minister’s cavalier tweet was an offence to fair play.
Although Joseph Pickerill, Dion’s director of communications, told the Globe and Mail that his office “independently” reviewed (alleged) evidence of Michael Lynk’s (alleged) bias against Israel, no one in the office contacted the professor for a response. When asked by iPolitics if Dion’s office had contacted him since his appointment blew up into a controversy, Lynk replied: “Nada from Dion. Letters are apparently going to Dion, which I have not instigated.”
It’s hard to find much “responsible conviction” — to invoke the fuzzy new buzz phrase for Canada’s post-Harper foreign policy — in Dion’s treatment of Michael Lynk. The minister’s cavalier tweet was an offence to fair play, as well as a shabby attack on the competence of the UN itself. It couldn’t have come at a worse time, given the huge challenges facing the UN in attempting to monitor events in the Occupied Territories and advance peace talks.
Just this week, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions denounced an Israeli soldier who was caught on camera shooting in the head at close range what news reports described as a wounded and motionless Palestinian man. The man was accused of stabbing an Israeli soldier in Hebron. “The images carry all the signs of a clear case of an extrajudicial execution,” Christof Heyns said in a statement.
Rupert Colville, the spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (a post once held by a Canadian, Louise Arbour), expressed concern “about the apparent extrajudicial execution” of 21 year-old Abed al-Fattah Yusri al-Sharif earlier this month.
Nor were these UN officials the only ones deeply troubled by the videotaped killing. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the head of the Israeli Defence Force, Moshe Yaalon, both denounced the shooting. Yaalon said the matter would be handled with “utmost severity” and PM Netanyahu stated that “what happened in Hebron does not represent the values of the Israel Defence Forces.”
But that’s not how an Israeli military court saw it. Despite the condemnations from the PM and the head of the IDF, this week the court called the videotape evidence against the soldier “inconclusive”, fuelling anger in the occupied West Bank. In the past six months, rage against the continued failure to advance a peace plan based on a two-state solution has exacted heavy casualties on both sides — 198 Palestinians and 30 Israelis dead.
Here’s how legendary Israeli journalist Gideon Levy described the societal implications of the shooting. Under the headline “Never Have So Many Cheered Such a Vile Murderer”, Levy wrote in Haaretz:
“This must be stated clearly. Perhaps for the first time in the history of the state, an abhorrent murder whose only obvious justification seems to be a hatred of Arabs and contempt for their lives, has become a heroic act. A murder that required no courage, a cowardly act of the highest order, has become heroic in the eyes of the masses, simply because it ended with a dead Palestinian bleeding on the road to the sound of their rejoicing.”
Luckily for free speech, Gideon Levy works for a newspaper. Had he been a TV reporter, a law passed in the Knesset in the middle of the night back in September 2015 would have silenced him. That law forbids journalists from “expressing personal opinions, giving grades and affixing labels.”
Israeli journalists were not impressed. Broadcaster Esty Perez of Israel Radio tweeted: “A democratic state that prohibits in law that journalists working for the public broadcaster express opinions exhibits the weakness and panic that characterizes weak dictatorships. Handcuff me. I expressed an opinion.”
Knowingly or not, Stéphane Dion has allowed spin by interested parties to cast doubt on genuine scholarly achievement by a gifted academic who just might be able to make a difference in a terribly troubled part of the world.
As a former academic himself, Dion should know that the academic freedom of people like Michael Lynk must be part of the solution to what troubles the planet — not a political calculation or a problem to be evaded. It is Professor Lynk’s duty to communicate ideas and facts developed over years of scholarship, however inconvenient they may be to political parties or government authorities.
That last point was illustrated in spades by the heroic work of an academic that laid bare the deadly water crisis plaguing the families of Flint, Michigan. It was Virginia Tech professor of civil engineering Marc Edwards who exposed the crisis and showed how completely the state government had betrayed the people of Flint. Academic freedom revealed the problem, which is the first step to finding a solution.
And so, back to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The Liberals — and Dion personally — promised not to perpetuate the one-sidedness of the Harper government’s approach to this Gordian knot. A good way to show that they mean what they say would be to support Professor Lynk’s evidence-based approach to bringing about a two-state solution through legal means.
Giving the Netanyahu government a reason to keep Michael Lynk out of the Palestinian Territories by raising doubts about his competency does the opposite.
How strange it would be if the man who heroically gave Canada the Clarity Act in the face of withering personal attacks chose to opt for the John Baird howling-monkey partisanship of the bad old days. SOURCE
Michael Harris is a writer, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He was awarded a Doctor of Laws for his “unceasing pursuit of justice for the less fortunate among us.” His nine books include Justice Denied, Unholy Orders, Rare ambition, Lament for an Ocean, and Con Game. His work has sparked four commissions of inquiry, and three of his books have been made into movies. His new book on the Harper majority government, Party of One, is a number one best-seller and has been shortlisted for the Governor-General’s Literary Award for English-language non-fiction.
Readers can reach the author at [email protected]. Click here to view other columns by Michael Harris.
BMW i3 using CCS at Fastned Quick Charging Station In The Netherlands
By Jay Cole, reposted from InsideEVs, Mar 31, 2016
The Netherlands isn’t kidding around when it comes to an emission free future.
Plug-in electric car sales in the Netherlands (data source: EV Sales Blog) – December 2015
If followed through on (via a Labour motion for the Cabinet’s support), in 2025 only sustainable, zero-emission cars will be available to be purchased.In a majority vote, the lower house of Dutch parliament supported a motion to no longer allow new sales of petrol or diesel cars from 2025. The action was brought by the PvdA, which would bring forward Netherland’s commitment to full electric transportation by decades.
We assume those still individuals and businesses requiring petrol vehicles (that are yet to be offered via a plug) will have to rely on the used segment of the market from this point on.
While there is obviously a lot of disagreement over such a radical plan, PvdA leader Diederik Samsom thinks the plan is completely feasible.
Reports the NL Times on the reaction from opponents:
Coalition partner VVD finds the motion overambitious and unrealistic. VVD Minister Henk Kamp of Economic Affairs thinks that at most 15 percent of all sold cars can be completely electric in 2025. Party leader Halbe Zijlstra thinks the plan contradicts the Energy Agreement. “It seems crazy to get this plan to work. I think we’ll have to withdraw from the Energy Agreement”, he said.
Which is refuted by PvdA leader Diederik Samsom, who disagrees.
He (Sampsom) thinks the plan is completely feasible – technology in this area is advancing at a rapid pace and other countries are already ahead of the Netherlands. The plan also has nothing to do with the energy agreement, according to him. “That agreement runs until 2023, we are free in what we do after that. We are ambitious, perhaps other parties are less so”, he said, according to the broadcaster.”
Last year in Paris, eight US states and five countries (one of which being the Netherlands) joined the International Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Alliance, pledging to make all new passenger vehicles sales electric by 2050.
In 2015, the Netherlands saw over 43,000 new plug-ins purchased, out of some 449,347 registrations, good for a 9.6% market share.
We could only imagine the reaction if the US, or other major auto producing country, also made a commitment such as this.
By Naomi Ages, reposted from the HuffingtonPost, Apr 1, 2016
It’s been a great week for the movement calling out Exxon’s colossal climate denial operation, but the world’s largest private oil company isn’t having as much fun. First, the Rockefeller Family Fund (RFF) announced it would divest from fossil fuels, and specifically from Exxon. Then, the Securities and Exchange Commision (SEC) ruled against the corporation, siding with Exxon’s shareholders. Finally, two more U.S. attorneys general announced they were opening their own investigations into Exxon’s climate denial, and it looks like a lot of others are close to doing the same.
The Terrible, Morally Reprehensible Conduct Leading to Divestment
On March 23, RFF announced it would divest from all fossil fuels. Going even further, it instructed its advisors to “immediately…eliminate [its] holdings of ExxonMobil.” Why? Because of Exxon’s “morally reprehensible conduct.” Let that sink in for a minute. The heirs of John D. Rockefeller, the founder of Exxon and really, the modern oil industry, decided that Exxon’s climate denial was so egregious that they couldn’t keep their money in the company any longer. And rather than quietly divesting, they released a statement explaining exactly why they were doing it. RFF’s decision on Exxon signals that the fossil fuel era is at its end, and we are moving towards a future powered by renewables.
The Horrible, Zero Transparency Attitude Towards its Own Shareholders
Later that same day, the SEC (which has been criticised for its weak climate-related disclosure guidance) stunned the financial community by ruling against Exxon. For years, Exxon had beat back shareholder proposals asking it to disclose business plans to adapt to a world that limits emissions. Instead, Exxon denied that world would ever exist. This year, however, the SEC not only decided that Exxon’s investors could vote to ask Exxon for those plans, they also held that investors could vote on the moral imperative of keeping climate change to two degrees. That world means fossil fuels stay in the ground. That world means the fossil fuel industry has to acknowledge climate change is happening and that emissions are causing it.
The Very Bad Climate Denial Operation Faces Legal Investigations
On March 29, business-as-usual for Exxon and the fossil fuel industry took another blow, when 17 attorneys general announced, with an assist from Al Gore, that they were teaming up to take action on climate change. For Massachusetts and the U.S. Virgin Islands that meant confirming that they are investigating whether Exxon’s colossal climate denial operation broke laws. The two officials join their counterparts in New York and California, who started their own probes earlier. New York’s attorney general Eric Schneiderman criticized the “morally vacant forces” contributing to climate denial, and called out the fossil fuel industry for “putting profits over needs of the American people and the integrity of financial markets.”
The fossil fuel industry took it on the chin this week, from denial to divestment. Exxon now faces investigations by four US attorneys general in total - a situation that is starting to look a lot like the legal cases that took down Big Tobacco for lying about the link between smoking and cancer. Climate denialism fed fossil fuel industry profits for years, but that isn’t the world we live in anymore. Fossil fuel companies will be held to account for climate change, to investors, to public officials, and to the world.
Prime Minister Trudeau’s commitment to stand up for women’s rights is put to the test by the assassination of Honduran environmentalist, Berta Cáceres.
Earlier this month in New York, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called himself a feminist and declared in front of an international audience his commitment to stand up for women’s rights.
His first real test is how Canada will respond to the March 3rd assassination of prominent Honduran feminist and environmental defender Berta Cáceres. Despite more than three weeks of global outcry over her death, the Canadian government has chosen to say very little beyond a very short and meek statement issued by Canada’s Ambassador to Honduras.
We can, and must do better. Now is the time for Canada to show concrete global leadership on women’s rights. Calling for the protection of women at the front lines of struggle is crucial to the bigger picture of ensuring women’s rights.
We saw this first-hand in 2012 when we accompanied Nobel peace laureates on a fact-finding mission to Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras. We met hundreds of women, including Berta Cáceres, who were daring to stand up against violence, racism, and unwanted development projects in their communities.
We also heard about many more women who couldn’t be with us, including, as just one example, the terrible story told to us by two teenage girls of their mothers, who had ‘been disappeared’ for speaking up about a forest in their community that stood in the way of an industrial project. Women speaking out are seen as threats to big business and the status quo, and they are often killed. Many we met were organizing, marching and calling for ni una más! – not one more.
When we listened to Berta Cáceres, leader of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), we were struck by the power in her voice and her analysis of how unchecked pursuit of foreign investment is stripping her, and her people—the Lenca—of their land and identity in Honduras.
As an environmental defender in Honduras, Berta’s work put her up against strong, corporate interests protected sometimes ruthlessly by the state. Honduras is considered to be the most dangerous country, per capita, to be an environmental activist.
Since the coup d’etat in 2009, an estimated 100 environmental defenders have been killed, and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders says that women activists are considered to be particularly at risk. Berta Cáceres was no stranger to threats and violence and she continued to speak out until armed men gunned her down in her home.
Our voice in Honduras matters. Honduras is a burgeoning market for Canadian investment, which our government has vigorously promoted. After the 2009 coup d’etat, Canada signed a free-trade agreement with Honduras and pushed the Honduran government to adopt a new mining law that would benefit Canadian investors.
The law sidesteps the rights of Indigenous communities, so Berta’s death is an important reminder that we have a responsibility to ensure that Canadian investment is not synonymous with human rights abuses.
In the wake of Berta’s murder the cry of ni una más can be heard in all corners of the globe. Environmentalists, labour and women’s groups are calling for justice which can only come through a thorough, impartial and international investigation. In Canada, sixty organizations have signed and sent a call for action to the Canadian government asking for such an investigation and the protection of Berta’s family and COPINH members. We echo this call.
As Canadian environmental activists, we have worked for the water and the the land against the expansion of destructive industries within Ontario’s Niagara Escarpment and the Alberta tar sands.
Not unlike the women of Central America, we have organized, marched and called for our government to halt the exploitation of the planet for capitalist gains. But if our sisters can stand up for what is right while facing threats and actual assassinations, we surely cannot sit idly by and allow this business to carry on, protected by ruthless international actors operating with complete impunity.
We sincerely appreciate Prime Minister Trudeau’s attempts to build a name for Canada on the women’s rights stage. To do this he must use Canada’s political and economic weight to push for serious action for the protection of the women risking their lives to protect our Earth.
Canada’s significant economic investments in Honduras and around the world must prioritize lives and justice over profit margins. That starts with ensuring that Canada’s industries uphold the rights of Indigenous people to free, prior and informed consent in accordance with international laws.
On March 6, Berta Cáceres was not buried, but was planted, in her community of La Esperanza, Honduras. From the depths of the Earth, as Berta’s colleagues say, she will nourish our hope for a world where our land is respected and Indigenous peoples flourish. As Canadians, we call on our country to demand justice for Berta and use its influence to build a safe, secure future for women defenders worldwide.
Berta Cáceres, In Her Own Words is based on a 2012 interview with the Honduran environmental activist and co-founder of the Council of Indigenous People’s Organizations of Honduras (COPINH).
Tantoo Cardinalis an actor, environmental activist and a member of the Order of Canada. Sarah Harmeris a musician and environmental activist. Both Cardinal and Harmer were part of a Nobel Women’s Initiative fact-finding mission to Honduras in 2012 to investigate violence against women.
Site C protester Kristin Henry has been camped outside BC Hydro’s office in downtown Vancouver since March 13, 2016, with little more than tea to keep her going. Photo by Elizabeth McSheffrey.
British Columbia Premier Christy Clark “will have blood on her hands” if she continues to move forward with the Site C Dam, said protester Kristin Henry on the 19th day of her hunger strike against the controversial hydroelectric project.
She uttered the words only hours before her hospitalization late Thursday evening, when the 24-year-old’s heart rate dropped to “concerning levels,” according to her protest’s Facebook page. Henry has survived only on water, tea, and vegetable broth since March 13. She admitted to feeling exhausted, dizzy, and light-headed, speaking with National Observer earlier that day.
Construction of the $8.8-billion “clean energy” dam started last summer on the Peace River of northeastern B.C., a river that flows right through the heart of Treaty 8 Territory belonging to the Doig River, Halfway River, Prophet River and West Moberly First Nations. Upon completion, it will produce enough power to light up roughly 450,000 B.C. homes per year, but its reservoir is expected to destroy more than 100 kilometres of river valley bottoms along the Peace River and its tributaries.
These First Nations say it would flood their burial grounds and other culturally important sites, and disrupt vital hunting and fishing activities.
“I don’t plan on living in a world that has the Site C Dam in it,” Henry said from her encampment outside BC Hydro’s office in downtown Vancouver. “I’m hopeful the government will come and engage with me because I think it would show a lot about the society we’re living in if they don’t.”
Beyond a short conversation with the CEO on Day 3 of her hunger strike, Henry said BC Hydro has ignored the presence of the campers on their doorstep. The company did not respond to National Observer’s request for comment in time for publication of this story, but in a Wednesday news release, said:
“Site C will provide clean, reliable and cost-effective electricity in B.C. for more than 100 years.”
“It’s a horrible project and Christy Clark said it herself — she’s trying to get it‘past the point of no return,’” Henry explained. “I think it’s pretty disgusting that they’re doing irreversible damage to Treaty 8 territory while the legality is still being challenged.”
B.C. Premier Christy Clark addresses clean energy in the province at the 2016 Globe Series in Vancouver on March 2. Photo by Elizabeth McSheffrey.
Beseeching the prime minister
The B.C. and Yukon Territory Building and Construction Trades Council (BC Building Trades) has already filed a lawsuit against BC Hydro for terms in the provincial Crown corporation’s request for proposals that prevent union members from striking during the construction of the Site C dam or recruiting other non-union members into unions.
The Blueberry River First Nations has also launched a court case against the province, alleging its Treaty 8 rights have been violated by decades of development on the territory. The lawsuit could impact construction of the dam as well as the expansion of mineral, oil and gas extraction in the province’s north.
A breach of Indigenous rights should be enough to put the project to rest, said Henry, whose group of out protesters have now appealed to the federal government for help.
“This is a matter of human rights and it is time the Government of Canada afforded Treaty 8 First Nations the same human rights afforded to the rest of its citizens,” reads an open letter to Prime Minister Trudeau that has been sent to his office more than 1,000 times by protesters across the country. “Mr. Trudeau, will you keep your promise?”
The letters are currently being circulating outside the BC Hydro office in downtown Vancouver, where Henry said most residents who approach their occupation have never even heard of the Site C Dam to begin with. All it takes is a few moments of explanation, she added, before someone hastily signs a copy in opposition.
“We don’t need the energy but we need everything that the project’s going to destroy — the valley, the farmland, the water,” she insisted.
An artist rendering of the Site C Dam near Fort St. John, B.C. Graphic courtesy of B.C. Hydro.
A symbolic hunger strike
The Site C Dam received federal and provincial environmental approval in October 2014, but the Joint Review Panel evaluating the project found that it would have significant adverse effects on rare plants, fish and fish habitat, put the fishing activities of local First Nations at risk, and threaten several species of birds, butterflies, and bats, and the western toad.
At least 63 endangered, red-listed, blue-listed, at risk, threatened, and of special concern animal species call the Site C area in the Peace River Valley home, according to the project’s protesters, and Henry said her hunger strike is against something far bigger than a single hydroelectric project.
“I’m sick of putting my health on the line to fight our government to do what’s right for us, not industry,” she explained, clutching her water bottle tightly. “The world can go in two directions — they can work with us, respect us, work with nature and we can have a bright future, or they can oppress us and destroy the environment.
“I think Site C is kind of this point — they can make that decision and go one way or another.”
Green Party leader Elizabeth May applauded Henry’s bravery but encouraged her to heed the advice of her doctors on her health. The federal Green Party leader was scheduled to meet her at the camp on Friday, an appointment she kept despite the 24-year-old’s hospitalization.
She said Kristen is needed alive and well in the fight against the “disastrous” Site C project.
Praise from Green Party
“It’s not too late to stop it,” said May, speaking with protesters outside the BC Hydro building. “That’s why I’m grateful to Kristen and all of you here for making the point that it’s not too late.”
The Green Party leader said the riparian zones can still be repaired and the clearcut trees can still grow back. Provincial and federal permits have already been issued for the dam, but more federal permits are required under the new Liberal government to make it a fully operational project.
May joined protesters in Vancouver in calling on the prime minister not to issue a single one of them, lest he break one of his most vital election promises:
“Activities that are treaty-protected will be violated,” she explained. “If the Liberals buy into that and allow it to continue, they will have violated their most fundamental commitment from the election campaign, the Throne Speech and the mandate letters from each of the ministers.”
In 2001, May also went on a hunger strike to successfully pressure the federal government to clean up toxic waste in the Cape Breton Sydney Tar Ponds. She said the commitment Henry has made by putting her health on the line represents the Site C views of thousands of Canadians, and prayed for her speedy recovery.
Green Party leader Elizabeth May greets Peace River Valley farmer Sage Birley at the protesters’ camp outside BC Hydro on Fri. April 1, 2016. Photo by Elizabeth McSheffrey.
