Letters to the editor

Here are two letters I wrote to the editor of The Calgary Herald, which may be published (but probably not).  It is difficult to write anything critical of natives because political correctness is soooooo rampant when it comes to the subject:

Dear Editor,

It should not be surprising – or even in doubt – that the courts have ruled the BC pipeline can proceed, in spite of opposition from some First Nations.  The Canadian constitution states that projects in the national interest, i.e., railways and pipelines for example, take precedence over provincial and territorial law – including “Indigenous Law”.  

Indigenous people live on Crown Land given for their exclusive use.  However, such lands are not “owned” by the Indigenous peoples.  All Crown Land – Indigenous or otherwise -- is owned by The Crown and subsequently delegated for use as the Canadian government and its citizens decide.  With more than 600 Indigenous tribes in Canada, allowing some to restrict development would severely impede any project deemed in the national interest.  If “Hereditary” chiefs are included, numbers double.  Were every band, every elected chief and every hereditary chief to decide to block or obstruct every project, chaos would cripple progress.

That is not the way forward, given Alberta’s gloomy economic forecast.

__________________________________________________

Dear Editor,

For the B.C. Coastal GasLink pipeline project to have received approval, the company would have had to have met every stringent legal and environmental condition and regulation imposed upon it.  Otherwise it would not have been approved by the courts.  For the Wet’suwet’en First Nation to continue to oppose this project ignores the fact that oil and gas generate much of the wealth required to fund Canada’s First Nations. 

In other words, what’s in the ground is where the money comes from.  You have to get it out to convert it into funding.