To the editor:
You can’t even hang a tire swing over a creek these days without needing a government permit, and building something a bit
more sophisticated, like an alternative energy project, means you need to get more than 50 approvals, permits, licences and reviews.
The regulations governing the use of British Columbia’s rivers are extensive and they are strict, and the review processes are as detailed and as rigorous as they are laborious and time-consuming.
That’s why I was so impressed to hear NDP president Moe Sihota endorsing the province’s environmental review process on the CBC a while back. He was encouraging a
phone-in caller to trust in the environmental review process because, as he said, it works and he helped write the rules when he was a government minister.
There’s been so much rubbish printed over the past few years about rivers being destroyed, sold and/or drained away into nothingness; all of it either false or incredibly misleading. The same goes for the frequent, but ridiculous, claims that there aren’t any regulations or reviews governing the use of B.C.’s rivers.
Sihota’s endorsement of the regulations and the review processes is, therefore, a welcome bit of truth for a change.
Kevin Lee
Vancouver
