Hydro’s already been posting YoY decreases in energy output due to dropping water levels, it’s why we’re ‘buying’ back more and more energy from US downstream dams. One reason the Trump admin down south had been eye’ing the thompson river treaty, is because they know BC already isn’t energy independent, and they could use that leverage to further chop up the country - especially with a US fascist enthusiast in Alberta.
Osoyoos is a desert, and could likely use a new industry or two to bolster jobs in the area. Solar farms would make sense in the desert, other countries have built them on that terrain because it’s … got a lot of sun, and not a lot of precipitation.
The nation-building crap is a shitty predicament though. If rights aren’t suppressed, nothing will get built due to FN blocking everything for generally racist reasons (that we’re not allowed to call racist, or else we’re racist). What few Solar projects we seem to have on the go, appear to be mired in FN reviews / trying to placate numerous FN special interests. So if race-based benefits for racially defined special interests aren’t part of the projects, they don’t go forward. The few we have in the works, heavily favour FN communities, and involve huge spends by the govt.
And it seems clear that the main rights needing to be dealt with in terms of development problems, are FN things – just looking at the Aspen Solar project, which aims to develop a relatively small area of land near Merritt, they’ve gotten 7 different FN groups each wanting a piece of the pie, needing to have their specific special interests met, in order for the project to move forward. It’s been sitting in planning for over two years as they try to placate FN. In that sense, it’s reasonable for FN groups to be opposing the C5 legislation – though at the same time, a business needing to suck up to 7 different race-based groups and provide each with their own benefits in order to move forward on something like this is absurd. And to put it in context a bit, one of the bands holding it up has fewer than 400 band members, 85% of which live outside their traditional lands. So a tiny band that’s generally no longer in the area, is able to hold up a renewable energy project until they get paid. That’s also the size of group where a chief is like “Yo, the PM needs to respect my authority! We should be at the G7 meetings!”…
If the nation-building stuff helps to ‘streamline’ those issues by suppressing rights, not only will the FN likely start protesting, but the change’ll get used by primarily US-backed interests to extract Canada’s natural resources. So it’s lose-lose in many ways.
I think one of the issues is that “meaningful consultation” has been very wishy-washy. In practice though, it works out that every band that might have any right to consultation can tie up anything in interminable lawsuits. In trying to avoid clarifying what constitutes “meaningful consultation” we’ve sleepwalked into this current environment where nothing can be built.
I still remember the mess around the Wet’suwet’en “hereditary” chiefs infighting and vs. the elected band council.It doesn’t matter if you are pro-pipeline, anti-pipeline, whatever. It highlights what a mess “meaningful consultation” is. Who do you consult with? The traditional chiefs successfully ousted 3 traditional chiefs and won a court case saying they had to be consulted as well.
Extrapolate this across the country and it’s a nightmare for any project that wants to respect indigenous rights.
I expect some replies along the lines of “Canada’s an illegitimate country” and such, and good riddance, and there is some truth. Between the Proclamation of King George III, and a good chunk of BC First Nations not having treaties, it’s a bit of a pickle. I don’t know the way out. I like how the Nisga’a Final Agreement finally sorted all this out for the Nisga’a, but there hasn’t been any further agreements along this line since.
Yeah, there are lots of issues. Like even First Nations groups don’t agree on who’s turf was who’s, because they fought all the time – here’s a story on the cbc just today about one of those cases even. Most of the big tribes on the West Coast, for example, were slave traders – about 25% of their bands were slaves taken from other bands, who were treated like shit by those bands right up to the 1980s at least. Canada banned slavery around the time BC joined, and the main group it effected was First Nations, as slavery wasn’t huge in Canada (likely because its harder to leverage for a fur trade economy, compared to plantations down south). I admit I chuckle a bit internally whenever I see the “Decolonialize!” movements, thinking “Yeah, bring back slavery???” – but of course, we’re required to look through rose-colored glasses at it all, and automatically villianize the colonists.
There’re literally hundreds of different tiny bands/groups, who often act like they should be treating 1:1 with the PM. Like the Cook’s Ferry band, with 500 members, 85% living away from ‘traditional’ lands, and being able to hold up pretty simple utility projects until they get paid off / catered to in some way or another. Even a more well known group, the tsawwassen has less than 500 people, yet lays claim to most of the GVRD and Coastal Islands.
I don’t know the best way to solve the issue, but it’s gotten beyond absurd. Like I’d be fine with basically treating any of the bands that inhabit their traditional lands as villages / municipalities, with regular divisions of powers at play, let em collect property taxes etc to fund things, blah blah, or to simply assign land/financial compensation in standard formats in exchange for ditching the shitty treaty mess. That’d likely cause other issues, get protested, etc etc. Realistically, I imagine any solution put forward will result in the FN bands rejecting it – which means the most likely “solution” that will eventually come into play, will be a Trump-like destroyer that just smashes everything. I think that’s the real gamble that FN groups are playing with, and what we’re nearing the point of with folks like the conservatives following a Trump-style narrative, and with current evolving global events/trends. Left-wing parties constantly virtue signalling and talking down to non-FN people doesn’t help one bit, it just further alienates public opinion / moderates from the idea of reconciliation. Even more, as those racially based groups gain increasing publicity for the extra spending / benefits they receive (the publicity-amplification is potentially a foreign meddling tactic to sow discord, but it’s a tactic that’s proven effective because it drums up legitimate resentment). If people, particularly the FN groups as they seem the most inflexible and content to just let things continue as is, can’t sort out some sort of stable path forward that works and is practically achievable, they risk it being sorted out for them by a Trump-ist – hell, Canada almost elected a trump fan girl last time around, and the FN leadership are still fuckin around waitin to find out.
And honestly, seeing that our solar power projects are so few in BC (only like, 4 in the works?), and they’re all held up by years by FN special interest groups / consultations… while we’re watching the world, and much of Canada, burn from climate change… and other countries with less ‘conflicts’ blast past us with sustainable tech… If someone ran on a campaign to just push that stuff through, consultations be damned… I’d potentially vote in favour of the green initiatives even if it meant the 50 people in Cook’s Ferry band living in the very large/general area of the project site don’t get to have ‘meaningful consultations’ to get their slice of the pie.
Hydro’s already been posting YoY decreases in energy output due to dropping water levels, it’s why we’re ‘buying’ back more and more energy from US downstream dams. One reason the Trump admin down south had been eye’ing the thompson river treaty, is because they know BC already isn’t energy independent, and they could use that leverage to further chop up the country - especially with a US fascist enthusiast in Alberta.
Osoyoos is a desert, and could likely use a new industry or two to bolster jobs in the area. Solar farms would make sense in the desert, other countries have built them on that terrain because it’s … got a lot of sun, and not a lot of precipitation.
The nation-building crap is a shitty predicament though. If rights aren’t suppressed, nothing will get built due to FN blocking everything for generally racist reasons (that we’re not allowed to call racist, or else we’re racist). What few Solar projects we seem to have on the go, appear to be mired in FN reviews / trying to placate numerous FN special interests. So if race-based benefits for racially defined special interests aren’t part of the projects, they don’t go forward. The few we have in the works, heavily favour FN communities, and involve huge spends by the govt.
And it seems clear that the main rights needing to be dealt with in terms of development problems, are FN things – just looking at the Aspen Solar project, which aims to develop a relatively small area of land near Merritt, they’ve gotten 7 different FN groups each wanting a piece of the pie, needing to have their specific special interests met, in order for the project to move forward. It’s been sitting in planning for over two years as they try to placate FN. In that sense, it’s reasonable for FN groups to be opposing the C5 legislation – though at the same time, a business needing to suck up to 7 different race-based groups and provide each with their own benefits in order to move forward on something like this is absurd. And to put it in context a bit, one of the bands holding it up has fewer than 400 band members, 85% of which live outside their traditional lands. So a tiny band that’s generally no longer in the area, is able to hold up a renewable energy project until they get paid. That’s also the size of group where a chief is like “Yo, the PM needs to respect my authority! We should be at the G7 meetings!”…
If the nation-building stuff helps to ‘streamline’ those issues by suppressing rights, not only will the FN likely start protesting, but the change’ll get used by primarily US-backed interests to extract Canada’s natural resources. So it’s lose-lose in many ways.
I think one of the issues is that “meaningful consultation” has been very wishy-washy. In practice though, it works out that every band that might have any right to consultation can tie up anything in interminable lawsuits. In trying to avoid clarifying what constitutes “meaningful consultation” we’ve sleepwalked into this current environment where nothing can be built.
I still remember the mess around the Wet’suwet’en “hereditary” chiefs infighting and vs. the elected band council.It doesn’t matter if you are pro-pipeline, anti-pipeline, whatever. It highlights what a mess “meaningful consultation” is. Who do you consult with? The traditional chiefs successfully ousted 3 traditional chiefs and won a court case saying they had to be consulted as well.
Extrapolate this across the country and it’s a nightmare for any project that wants to respect indigenous rights.
I expect some replies along the lines of “Canada’s an illegitimate country” and such, and good riddance, and there is some truth. Between the Proclamation of King George III, and a good chunk of BC First Nations not having treaties, it’s a bit of a pickle. I don’t know the way out. I like how the Nisga’a Final Agreement finally sorted all this out for the Nisga’a, but there hasn’t been any further agreements along this line since.
Yeah, there are lots of issues. Like even First Nations groups don’t agree on who’s turf was who’s, because they fought all the time – here’s a story on the cbc just today about one of those cases even. Most of the big tribes on the West Coast, for example, were slave traders – about 25% of their bands were slaves taken from other bands, who were treated like shit by those bands right up to the 1980s at least. Canada banned slavery around the time BC joined, and the main group it effected was First Nations, as slavery wasn’t huge in Canada (likely because its harder to leverage for a fur trade economy, compared to plantations down south). I admit I chuckle a bit internally whenever I see the “Decolonialize!” movements, thinking “Yeah, bring back slavery???” – but of course, we’re required to look through rose-colored glasses at it all, and automatically villianize the colonists.
There’re literally hundreds of different tiny bands/groups, who often act like they should be treating 1:1 with the PM. Like the Cook’s Ferry band, with 500 members, 85% living away from ‘traditional’ lands, and being able to hold up pretty simple utility projects until they get paid off / catered to in some way or another. Even a more well known group, the tsawwassen has less than 500 people, yet lays claim to most of the GVRD and Coastal Islands.
I don’t know the best way to solve the issue, but it’s gotten beyond absurd. Like I’d be fine with basically treating any of the bands that inhabit their traditional lands as villages / municipalities, with regular divisions of powers at play, let em collect property taxes etc to fund things, blah blah, or to simply assign land/financial compensation in standard formats in exchange for ditching the shitty treaty mess. That’d likely cause other issues, get protested, etc etc. Realistically, I imagine any solution put forward will result in the FN bands rejecting it – which means the most likely “solution” that will eventually come into play, will be a Trump-like destroyer that just smashes everything. I think that’s the real gamble that FN groups are playing with, and what we’re nearing the point of with folks like the conservatives following a Trump-style narrative, and with current evolving global events/trends. Left-wing parties constantly virtue signalling and talking down to non-FN people doesn’t help one bit, it just further alienates public opinion / moderates from the idea of reconciliation. Even more, as those racially based groups gain increasing publicity for the extra spending / benefits they receive (the publicity-amplification is potentially a foreign meddling tactic to sow discord, but it’s a tactic that’s proven effective because it drums up legitimate resentment). If people, particularly the FN groups as they seem the most inflexible and content to just let things continue as is, can’t sort out some sort of stable path forward that works and is practically achievable, they risk it being sorted out for them by a Trump-ist – hell, Canada almost elected a trump fan girl last time around, and the FN leadership are still fuckin around waitin to find out.
And honestly, seeing that our solar power projects are so few in BC (only like, 4 in the works?), and they’re all held up by years by FN special interest groups / consultations… while we’re watching the world, and much of Canada, burn from climate change… and other countries with less ‘conflicts’ blast past us with sustainable tech… If someone ran on a campaign to just push that stuff through, consultations be damned… I’d potentially vote in favour of the green initiatives even if it meant the 50 people in Cook’s Ferry band living in the very large/general area of the project site don’t get to have ‘meaningful consultations’ to get their slice of the pie.