28 Replies to “Is Coastal GasLink good or evil? Depends on who you ask”

    1. I have a close relative who worked for one of the telecoms. It was his job to build / expand their network across Canada. Every good location for a tower on a reserve happened to be on a sacred burial ground, until enough money was transferred to the chief and his cronies. Happened in dozens of cases, they probably networked to share the bribe rates.

  1. Different bands, the Haisla, who proposed this and whose land it will be built on have always been very industrious, from prior to European contact to present day. If more bands were like them there would be real progress on native issues.

    This is a win for the region and the Haisla 100%

    If the hereditary chiefs in the interior would stop perpetuating the poor Indian trope and get with the program even better things could happen.

    They enrage me, I don’t buy gasoline, food, even avoid stopping for any reason except for the bathroom on their “territory”

    1. you are absolutely correct. Chief Louie in Osoyoos is another example of a very good Chief. He tells his people to “get off your asses” and get to work…….He has done a lot of good things for the Osoyoos Band…

  2. I’m delighted they are taking every precaution to control greenhouse gas emissions. We will look back on those efforts fondly when we’ve all frozen to death in our occasionally heated, all-electric homes.

  3. I saw the same thing happen a couple of decades ago with the lumber industry in the north Ontario town where I grew up. The native bands blocked all timber development until most of the lumber companies were squeezed out of existence. Then they started their own, band-administered lumber company. White hard-hatted band members would roll up in company trucks to their band-owned bed and breakfast restaurant at around 9:30 in the morning, and then leave to inspect their operations at around 11:30, secure in the knowledge that the French Canadians they hired to actually run the operation had been up working since 6:00am harvesting trees and running the sawmill.

    Their business collapsed after a few years, and was taken over by an American company that simply pays them royalties. However, an industry that used to employ hundreds of people now employs around 70 persons. It has simply never recovered. Only one sawmill remains, and parts of it are shut down. It will likely cease operations soon, given the state of the economy.

    This same pattern has been repeated over and over in resource industries across Ontario. The native bands squeeze developers for all they can get until investors lose interest and walk away. The chiefs get their money, and the regular band members are eventually left with nothing. Of course it also kills thousands of jobs. Young people move out. Every once in a while the provincial government “invests” in a new development, itinerant workers move in for a while, and it inevitably dies.

    1. Similar to the idiots in the shithole world who nationalized foreign owned factories. They thought the factory was the source of wealth. Wrong! The factory was a cog in the wheel. Nationalization separated the factory from the raw material and the markets. The factory was worthless compared to skilled management.

    2. Up at Cold Lake, certain groups could fish all year long and limitless trout for family purposes only.

      We used to by fish out of season from them, at a lower rate than Safeway was in season…

  4. Summer and fall of 2022 saw an inordinate amount of mainland Chinese Business men visiting the coastal Gaslink sites. There is definitely a big Chinese investment in the line and no doubt the terminal. My understanding is that the majority of the gas is exporting to China. Hence, Trudeau and the lackey BC NDP’s gave the go ahead. RCMP fell into line and stopped the protests. Follow the money. Trudeau govt likes the Chinese money more than the environment.

  5. Is there no hope that Canada’s apartheid system will ever end? “Indigenous” doesn’t equate to “entitled” in any dictionary for good reason – all but a select few of the world’s peoples accept that as cultures change the rights that accrue from a paradigm die with the paradigm.

    1. Thanks to the SCOC, apartheid has been inverted rather than eliminated. No non-native organization can engage in the resource sector without partnering (you bring the capital, they bring their 1/16 or better racial purity and Indian industry blessings), or successful consultation, (blessings conferred through graft, grift, “employment” or other form of favour to a level approval by a bureaucrat ). Reconciliation essentially means race based agreements where the benefits to the non-Indian parties exceed the burden of those benefits given over to Indian bands all thanks to the power of the state and Crown ownership. IOW, if you want to do anything on Crown land, meet your new boss/partner. Reason 649 why capital is fleeing the deranged dominion.

  6. I’m curious to know where they’re going to send the product given the tanker ban on the Pacific coast. Or do the orcas know what’s in the tankers and who is contracting for them?

  7. The tanker ban will only apply to oil tankers or some such nonsense. The NG will get to it’s customers now that the natives are partnered up. I think it’s great because the environmentalists and the government can’t stop it now because it’s racist. There are at least three mines in northern BC that have similar deals and any threat to them at all is considered racist. I love it. Besides, all the money will come back to the region eventually anyway. They aren’t going to hide in their mattresses.

    1. It’s some pretty fly political jujitsu. I like to think the LNG will be a kind of ‘gateway drug’ or rather gateway fossil fuel for BC. Give it time and they’ll be moving oil. The local elections several months ago prove BC is shifting right and maybe was never that lefty in the first place.

  8. Many of the tribes like O&G and mines just fine including the Haisla as noted above. The opponents are a mix of ‘hereditary “chiefs”‘ and eco-hadists using Native Indian concerns as a skin-suit.

    1. Yes, some 20 years ago, IIRC, the big American enviro-tranzies adopted a policy of buying indian tribes to be anti-oil and development. This was an actual written policy of theirs.

  9. Attitudes change once the parties involved realize the amount of potential graft they might receive.

  10. So in the 10,000 years before white man showed up, the indigenous people invented…

    1. Nothing. Were they even mesolithic? They used wood and bone tools mostly here. They should be grateful they are no longer starving and freezing and dying in the winter. They don’t care about being able to read and write, apparently; though to operate a TV, truck and gun are all very useful skills taught to them.

  11. Ah but it’s Red Indian Gas, and the Red Indians are Guardians of the Environment™ and Keepers of the Sacred Wampum.

    Will the Gauardians of the Evironment tribe make war against the Hallowed Wampum Gatherer tribe?

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