This is not a threat – just a warning to both senior governments. Something is happening in this province that I’ve warned about for a couple of years – let me explain.
For years governments have brought in environmental policy, especially as it relates to fish, rivers, wildlife areas and the like which divides the environmental community.
In the fishing area, the federal government, in particular, has encouraged all manner of interest groups – some based upon geography, some on species of fish, some professional fishermen, some sports, and on it goes. Divide and rule.
With wildlife issues, it’s been much of the same approach.
Starting about five years ago something happened that I and others in the environmental field noticed and reported on – a great number of what I will call well-off people from West Vancouver who had fought to save Eagleridge Bluffs from the rape the tractors of the uncaring and stubborn Transportation minister, Kevin Falcon; who went en masse to Delta to help local people fight the desecration on their area, also by the same Transportation Minister who, incidentally, has complained that we’re not like China, which couldn’t care less about the environment and brooks no dissent.
The “better-off” communities getting seriously involved in environmental issues was demonstrated by the good citizens of Tsawwassen fighting the overhead power lines, a battle that again brought people from other communities into the ring. These were not the first times environmental groups have helped one another but it showed that environmental concerns had crossed, for want of a better word, “class” lines.
Then, Delta did the unbelievable – it voted in an independent MLA who defeated the Attorney-General of the province – didn’t you notice that, Premier?
The good folks in the Kootenays have risen as one against the Glacier-Howser private river power project and have made it plain that it just is not going to happen!
All around BC, people are rising against their political masters and saying, “No damned way.”
The BC government has seemed anxious to piss off as many citizens as they can, as their policies destroyed our salmon and traumatized our rivers. They clearly didn’t give a fiddler’s fart for our wilderness or farmland – our precious “Supernatural BC”, as Grace McCarthy aptly named it.
In my travels around the province doing speeches, I noticed people there I would not have expected. The mail I get is short on the old chants of days of yore and long on impatience with both senior governments – and they’re deadly serious about stopping them.
Now we have both senior governments in favour of pipelines across our wilderness, carrying Tar Sands sludge, called “bitumen” in polite society, and putting this highly toxic petrochemical into huge tankers to move it down the world’s most dangerous (and perhaps most beautiful) coastline.
Very early we’ve seen how the feds will fight – as dirty as the shit in their much loved pipelines. They have set up a federal panel review but, get this, you only have until next week to file your intention to attend but they’re not going to tell you when and where the hearings will be held until sometime in 2012! This is the sort of merry little trick the Private Power bastards work – hold the obligatory, fixed, in-advance hearing at as inconvenient a time as you can, in a place too small for the expected crowd and as far as possible from where most people live.
Now let’s issue the fair warning to both governments. Premier Photo-op and Prime Minister Harper – he who so nicely rewarded the worst polluter in BC history with the softest and most pleasant diplomatic post in the world – listen carefully!
The public of BC is no longer disputing amongst themselves. All of us now support one another, speak at each other’s gatherings and in every way possible, help each other fight our battles, shoulder to shoulder. We will no longer be divided and, to put it plainly – there’s going to be hell to pay.
Yes, there will be civil disobedience and lots of it if these pipelines are approved or there is one more river dammed. For example, with the Enbridge Pipeline, if the governments are sufficiently unfeeling and arrogant to proceed, there will be agro virtually every meter of the way.
It’s clear that BC First Nations, many of them hard-up, will be a huge part of the battle.
I might just add for Premier Clark: You’re toast unless you have a Damascus-like conversion – and I say that without a care about when you hold the next election. I also warn you that the polls you will get do not ask the right questions – I know because I’ve been questioned. You and your economic pals at the Fraser Institute are passé – you’ve disgraced yourselves from that deadly day in 2001 when you were elected, and unless there is a miraculous change, you will get your comeuppance on the next chance we have to send you back into radio, where you won’t have a government’s ass to kiss as before.
No one I know in the environmental movement wants trouble but that can’t and won’t stop us if you don’t stop ravaging our province. People now understand that pipelines and oil tankers are not risks at all but dead certainties.
You see, Premier, no one believes a single word you or the corporations say.
I’m with you, Rafe. I worked in the offshore oil field as a marine supervisor and I can attest to the fact that oil companies, and I mean all of them, don’t get a sweet ____ for the environment or our government. They will get their way any way they can. They truly believe in the words; “Our first responsibility is to our stockholders.” We need to fight them and keep fighting them. Maybe we can force them to become good citizens of the world and still keep their “stockholders” happy without raping the world.
Watch NY Stock Exchange on October 10 as well as participate on October 15 in Global Revolution.
2700mile pipeline to Texas from Raped Alberta sands
is the worst thing humans have done since the bomb dropped on Hiroshima…
Where are all the REAL Canadians? Sure one started the thing that is going on in NYC called OCCUPY WALL STREET…but when are we going to take over the corrupt ones in Ottawa; show them the gate and return to good honest living?
Really: the people rule…so let us 99% get up off the couch and take down the super rich overpaid ugly 1% before Christmas?
All concerned citizens & existing protest groups simply must unite & stand together. Regardless of the topic, the root cause is the same “Out of Control Governments”. At this time we have all sorts of protest movements complaining about this topic / that topic, practically every topic under the sun, most all justified. On most occasions demonstrations only contain people devoted to a particular topic or cause “this must end” or we all are going to loose. All groups must support each other, show up at other citizens protests, stand united, don’t be a one trick pony. It is so simple and people do not seem to get it, they even get insulted if you remind them. People Stand UP together as a united group “Is the only way” any progress is ever going to be made in changing the way things are.
to continue going the way you have always gone you will continue getting results you have always gotten, dont know who said that but it is so true. revolt in the most harrowing way possible is the only answer to create change for the better….dictatorship has been around for as long as man has and to change the concept is to change one self and the rest will join rather then follow.the minute a tier structure is created is the minute control is given.natives for thousands of yrs never had a standing higher then thier own other then respect for those that gave more…
Warms my heart to see positive reinforcement of something i long hoped to see happen. The coming of the Rainbow Warriors as predicted by First Nations peoples. A people black,white,yellow and brown, all standing together to oppose those that will render the earth a quick death.
Stand tall you all, friends from Ontario will stand with you!
I do support your efforts and agree with the tenor of this article.
My notes aim at a different level.
“….our precious “Supernatural BC”, as Grace McCarthy aptly named it.”
I don’t see that slogan as apt, Rafe. To me “Supernatural” is an expression of alienation from nature, just like “the best place on earth.”
To me “natural” is natural, there is no more and no less, So Supernatural is as synthetic as plastic.
If we use the beauty of something as an argument, we have an obligation to take care of it.
I did not have the sense that taking care of beauty was a priority for Social Credit nor the Liberals, nor perhaps to west coast culture.
If we really appreciated nature, we would not build car dealerships and self-storage boxes along highways to block natural vistas.
Actually, we would need fewer of either.
Yep – not just happening here…maybe the effectiveness of representative democracy has run its course. or maybe it was never that effective in the first place?
http://democracyandpoliticsnow.blogspot.com/
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible ……
will make violent revolution inevitable.”
~ John F. Kennedy
This is sooo not about party politics..thanks Rafe! We have to stand together in solidarity and get clear by looking at what we don’t want (which is not sustainable) and focus on what WE DO WANT…and create it!!!
The People all over the world have had enough..and Canada…previously home to divisive politics, internecine warfare and the like…is undergoing a sea change. The solidarity that exists between the People in other cultures such as in Latin America, some European countries, and some Asian and African societies is coming to North America.
We will soon have a critical mass and be able to return the lands and our human rights to the People.
Working in solidarity with all Peoples in this country, we can create a prosperous, progressive, respectful, healthy and happy society for all.
A society where our resources are shared equitably and all peoples and all species will be able to live our lives in peace.
Peace. Love.
Roslyn Cassells
The Americans already have invaded us, they’ve just done it carefully behind the scenes, so they wouldn’t upset the peons who live here. Shhhh! North American integration is well underway.
Our border patrols will soon be merging, the Canadian Bar Association announced last month that it signed an agreement with their U.S. counterpart to work together. Our national census information is collected and compiled by Lockheed Martin, an American firm. Here in BC our health care data is collected by Maximus, another American company. It’s all gone but a few slim pickin’s, our country.
Yup, we are facing one ugly future in BC.
I think I may have found the missing link you all have been looking for.
Take a look at this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnGp1jcf01Y
Big oil, Harper and the BC Liberals say BC has to open up, to allow the dirty oil sands and the dirty Chinese tankers into our province.
The BC citizens have been, thieved from, lied to, deceived and cheated, for over a decade now. Harper was in the BC HST scam. He had the gall to say to Christy, no HST, no ship building contracts. Stuff your ship building contracts Harper. The contracts will go to American company’s, who will bring their own workers with them. They did so, for the smelter tear down in Port Kitimat.
Harper and the Campbell/BC Liberals, are the most corrupt, lying s.o.b’s in Canada. Enbridge, Alberta and big oil, can go to hell too. The dirty tar sands, are an abomination, on the face of Canada. The filthiest energy on the planet. The horrendous eco damage in the north, can ever be cleaned up.
This planet is in dire danger from burning fossil fuels. Our oceans are dying. They are on an, overdose of carbon monoxide. The acid is eating the shells off the crustaceans. The coral is bleaching white. If the oceans die, we die. And still, the brain dead idiots are forcing fossil fuels.
Keep the dirty crap out of BC.
The Campbell/Clark, the BC Liberals and Harper, have destroyed this province financially. The BC citizens are sick to death of Harper and The BC Liberals greed.
This province belongs to the BC people, and the First Nations people, who were the first people in this province. BC does not belong to the Campbell/Clark BC Liberals, nor to Harper, what-so-ever.
We will join the First Nations people, to stop the atrocities of greed by our governing officials.
The First Nations people were forced onto reserves. Now they are having to constantly fight, to protect their food sources on their own damned land. The land they were forced on, is theirs.
If it takes civil disobedience, so be it. We all know China bought a huge chunk of the tar sands. Harper, Campbell and the BC Liberals planned to force this abomination, on the First Nations and the BC people, whether we liked it or not.
The jobs will not be for Canadians, but for Americans. The contracts won by the U.S. will bring their own workers, as they did for the smelter tear down in Port Kitimat.
As far as the U.S. invading Canada??? Just think of all the other country’s, that would love to get their hands on Canada?? That would be WW111, right there and then.
And, don’t think for one moment, the world isn’t watching Canada. All the other country’s know exactly what Harper and Campbell really are. Just as Canadians know what, Prime Minister Cameron is. A jelly fish, with no backbone.
If we were to overcome the avalanche of money to buy our whore/politicians and special interests (jobs jobs jobs) and stop develoment of the Tar Sands the Americans would invade us. The most we could hope for is forcing our Corporate Overlords to refine the bitumen on-site and ship refined oil via a safer alternative.This isnt going to happen because Canadians have Republicans in ottawa and victoria and a sufficient number of stupid voters to keep them there