Northern Mayor Says Community Open For Business
Fort Nelson, B.C. -Northern Rockies Mayor Bill Streeper says his community is open for business.
In an open letter, Streeper apologized for the actions of First Nations at the recent shale gas and LNG summit hosted by the Fort Nelson First Nation. Chief Sharleen Gale evicted provincial officials from the meetings after news broke that the BC government had exempted gas wells from automatic environmental assessments.
Streeper calls the actions “discriminatory exploitation” and has attempted to distance the Northern Rockies Regional Municipality from the event. He says the NRRM was not involved in the invitation-only summit, nor did municipal officials have anything to do with booting the officials out.
He says the NRRM gives “great importance” to economic development based on environmentally responsible shale gas and LNG development.
“To all those persons and their organizations who were told they were unwelcome at BC First Nation LNG Shale Gas Summit in the NRRM Recreation Facility, we offer our sincerest apology and regret,” said Streeper. “We are very proud of our community, our region and our beautiful facility. We recognize all of the government, industry and individual economic contributions that helped us rebuild the heart of our community and we welcome everyone to utilize our facility. Please know everyone is welcome in our Regional Municipality.”
The province quickly reversed its decision after an uproar from First Nations.
Comments
It’s about time to cut the hand off that feeds the F.N.
Well there should be an environmental assessment done when mining, gas, forestry etc. A little environmental consciousness is a good idea.
The Federal and Provincial governments have been stripping environmental protection all over the place, perhaps people need to agree with the First Nation and try to work together to protect our environment.
I do what I can to limit my personal negative impact on the environment.
So you are saying there is no environmental assessments done?
The Government tried to sneak one by and didn’t work, the environmental assessments are needed for all major projects. Like to believe industry was not on side with this or aware,
“It’s about time to cut the hand off that feeds the F.N.”
==================================
Yup. How dare the FN’s expect governments to honour their obligations as outlined by the Supreme Court of Canada.
Watch now they’ll get a bigger pay check. Maybe they could use it all on environment
Hmmm thier $50,000,000 must be gone so time to negotiate again need more whine money opps (wine).
Mighty white of the mayor to speak for and correct the first nations expression of discontent.
Good cop-bad cop. Nothing wrong with that. They both have leadership positions and legal constitutional rights.
I think they both did what they had to do for all the right reasons.
No sound from the F.N. folks when they built the Alaska Highway. My, how times have changed. Eh wot?
Comments for this article are closed.