No matter your race, ethnicity, nationality, personhood or corporation, if you are willing and able to hack and destroy an ecosystem you will have Ms.a Clark at your back.
At Fish Lake, Christy is the champion of Taseko Mines. I watched Christy at a golf course in Qualicum Beach rally her followers with a pretty smile and unwavering support for Prosperity, a mine with the rare distinction of having been rejected by a federal environmental review.
In supporting Prosperity Mine, Christy stands opposed by over 100 First Nations bands, the Union of BC Indian Chiefs and the people whose homeland it has been for thousands of years.
So devastating would the proposed Prosperity Mine be to their way of life that Tsilhqot’in elders have sworn they will die before they see Prosperity built.
Christy’s disregard for the needs of First Nations who protect lakes, fish, and cultural identity contrasts sharply with her support of First Nations whose concern for Mother Earth is overshadowed by their need for cash.
Near Nanoose Bay on Vancouver Island, the logging rights to DL33 a red-listed public forest, a mature remnant of a Coast Douglas Fir, critically endangered and globally imperiled ecosystem, was handed over to the Shaw’naw’as (Nanoose) First Nation.
Under these circumstances the Clark government drips with so much concern for First Nations that they are willing to overlook their solemn commitments as signatories to the International Convention on Biological Diversity and destroy yet another ecosystem so that a native band can hire an outside logging contractor to supply TimberWest with these valuable trees that it couldn’t otherwise get access to.
A cynic might question the meaning of Ms. Clark’s smiles, but as she trashes cultures and ecosystems with equal abandon, she is truly an equal opportunity destroyer.
Phil Carson
Qualicum Beach
