Paddle for the Peace… for the 11th Time
Prince George, B.C. – While BC Hydro is celebrating the fact that more than 1,000 British Columbians are now working on the Site C dam project, preparations are set for the eleventh annual Paddle for the Peace a protest aimed at stopping construction.
(at right, past Paddle for the Peace event, image courtesy PVEA)
Organized by the Peace Valley Environment Association (PVEA) and the West Moberly First Nation , the event is set to go tomorrow.
Peace Valley Environment Association spokesperson, Andrea Morison says even though the Site C project is under construction, the protest movement is gaining attention and momentum “Ever since construction commenced, we’ve had more people join the campaign. We’ve had a number of large organizations get involved, such as Amnesty International, Green Peace Canada and a number of NGO’s have come up to the plate. We have the 267 leading scholars from across Canada send a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau telling him to stop this project, so the support is bigger than its ever been even though the construction has already started.”
There are still issues before the Courts on Site C, not the least of which is the action launched by the West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations who claim their Aboriginal Rights have not been properly considered. That matter will be heard in mid September.
Morison says it is the issue of Aboriginal rights which may be the one argument that will convince Prime Minister Trudeau to make sure necessary permits for the project are not issued. She points to the recent ruling on the Northern Gateway project, which said First Nations consultation was insufficient, and sent the matter back to Federal Cabinet for consideration.
As has been the case in the past 10 such events, participants are invited to bring canoes, kayaks or rafts for an hour and a half paddle on the Peace River from the Halfway River Bridge ( on highway 29) to Bear Flat.
The protest paddle is not limited to the activities on the Peace River, as solidarity paddles have been set for Kits Beach in Vancouver, the Kootenay in Nelson, and in Sechelt at the Porpoise Bay Provincial Park.
Those who oppose the dam cite a number of issues for stopping the project including loss of heritage for First Nations, threats to wildlife and loss of prime farmland.
Comments
yeah, you want credibility, for all the participants, best you go off line, otherwise, your nothing but hypocrites!
Here is a source of those nice green eagle slicing wind generators that the greenies bow to.
ht tp://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html
Interesting that here is BC one cannot get generation information of the bird slicers in BC let alone how many birds killed.
Hey in the states these bird slicers can get permits to kill eagles.
Where are the protests from all those foreign funded NGO’s on the wind generation environmental disasters.
Bunch of hypocrites, follow the money.
‘No green power, no green power, no green power’
What do we want? ‘GREEN POWER!’, When do we want it ‘NEVER!’
Talk about a misguided gang of hypocrites.
“Aboriginal Rights have not been properly considered”.
What no natives live in the affected area and I sure do not see any natives any where moving back to their traditions way of life.
Amnesty International, Green Peace Canada and a number of NGO’s What the hell, when were they elected?
What are those canoes and kayaks made out of, unicorn farts?
Hey where are the protests about the best farmland in BC being removed, fraser valley for development.
This protest just shows how our education system has been taken over by the liberal left indoctrinating our children.
I’m sure there are some nice looking Kevlar canoes in the Paddle for the Peace flotilla. Although the loopy left would like to believe otherwise, Kevlar is made from poly-para-phenylene terephthalamide, a long-chain polymer that’s derived from the petrochemical industry.
I can guarantee that everyone participating in the ‘event’ will arrive by car but they won’t think for a second about what their car is made of. That’s steel derived from mined iron ore, aluminum derived from mined bauxite, plastics and rubbers derived for the petrochemical industry, etc.
The hypocrisy of the ‘Oppose Everything’ crowd is mind boggling. They’re very happy to use man-made products derived from mined materials and electrical inputs for their own benefit but conveniently ignore how those products are manufactured.
They will also arrive by jets, carbon spewing jets!
After all, I am sure that Saint Suzuki will once again grace the event with his eminent presence, as will that perpetual whiner, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip!
We certainly can’t expect that these hypocrites ride horses all the way from down south up to the Peace!
Speaking of the Peace, if the participants of the “Paddle for the Peace” event really want to do something impressive, they should forgo the drive to the Halfway River starting point and instead they should paddle upriver from Bear Flats, and then float downstream back to Bear Flats! That would reduce the amount of driving which is good for the environment, right?
Better yet, why not paddle UPSTREAM, all the way from Fort St. John! Now that might impress me!
Seamutt, your comment about no natives living in the affected area is interesting!
Chief Roland Willson of the West Moberly First Nation is a very vocal opponent of the dam. He of course says that his people have been in this territory forever!
Yet in a book called the “Peace River Chronicles”, a book that contains 81 eye-witness accounts from the first exploration in 1793 of the Peace River Region of British Columbia including the Finlay and the Parsnip River Basins, there apparently is an account from a Frank Oberle ancestor, Frank Oberle being the former mayor of Chetwynd and former MP for the Prince George-Peace River Federal riding.
I’ve not read the book but have been told that the Oberle account speaks of arriving in the Moberly Lake area many, many years ago and of how there was nobody else around, no people, none anywhere to be found!
Funny thing is, these accounts were written records from many years ago, even hundreds of years ago, records that were written without any purpose other than to tell how things were at the time! If Chief Roland Willson’s people were there forever, how come the Oberle account makes no mention of them in the Moberly Lake area? What nefarious reason might Oberle have had to write that there was nobody else around?
Keep that book as history is known to mysteriously change.
Apparently that book is not on the required reading lists of any of our First Nations school, nor is it held in any First Nations libraries!
I see the usual extreme right wing insanity cases are out in force presenting the usual ludicrous argument that a person using a car or canoe should not be opposing Site C. The argument is on par with the one that states a person cannot criticize the quality of a book or a film unless they have written one or made one themselves.
Right wing nutters on this site just can’t get it through their skulls that people do not have to support projects they don’t believe in just because they use man-made products.
Left wing nut can’t get it through their thick skulls that we are tired of being told what we can and can’t do, by people that do whatever the heck they want to do!
You should be used to people that do whatever the hell they want to. After all the SoCreds have been running this province for the last 15 years and the Conservatives ran the country for the last 10.
Oh Snap. That’s right it was and is your guys doing whatever the hell they want so it was and is ok.
How was the former Provincial NDP Government and how are the current Federal Liberals any different, any different at all?
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