CKNW Editorial
for July 24, 2001

In Lincoln’s words – inapt as it turned out for they were in his Gettysburg Address – the world will little note nor long remember any words I may utter through this microphone. I don’t flatter myself into thinking that what I might say is anything more than bits of noise that occasionally result in a moments thought. Having said that, if I’m ever remembered for anything, I hope it is for what I’m about to say.

British Columbia is a critically period of its history. We face a deadly combination – we are stony-assed broke with a new government that sees itself as having a huge mandate to do whatever it deems appropriate to refill the coffers … not sometime in the future but within the next four years.

I must state frankly that I don’t think it has any such mandate. The mandate was not to the Liberals but to the NDP – and it clearly said bugger off and don’t come back. I was part of that mandate.

The key question we must all ask ourselves – right now, not tomorrow – is this … is it our wish that Premier Campbell do whatever it takes to please the business community and the investors of capital with only token regard for the long term consequences? This is not an anti business question but one of timing. Do we want to hasten our recovery with long term environmental devastation or do we have the patience to gear our recovery to strong protection for what God gave us?

Yes, there are too many rules and regulations … everyone knows that. They must be cleaned up. This prolixity of regulations makes it very easy for business to sneer not just at rules that are obviously inappropriate but at any rules that impede them in any way. These things run in cycles – right now it is unfashionable as hell to favour any regulation.

Indeed, as regulations are eased, governments and industry will minimize all suggestions of danger to our environment by a combination of mockery and half truths. Or silence.

There – I’ve spat it out. The environment. A word that conjures up images of tree huggers with ringed nipples and a strong odor of pot. Mind you, when politicians seek office they’re full of love for the environment – but when it gets down to tough decisions, it’s a word to which they pay lip service and nothing else.

What we’ve seen thus far is not encouraging. Already the Liberal government is prepared to interfere with a WCB ruling on smoking as a payoff to political donors who own bars and casinos … and they’ve handed the grizzly bear to the guide outfitters now, promising to do the science later … sometime. But that’s peanuts compared to the big picture.

Take three areas in the bigger picture, in no particular order.

First, offshore drilling for oil and gas. The government is like the broke horse player looking at what he thinks is a sure thing. All our troubles will be over if we can bring this one off – billions to the treasury just when our forest revenues will have sunk to new lows. Richard Neufeldt has already made it clear he will brook no delays. Some public hearings in Prince Rupert and Bob’s your uncle. Any concerns for the environment will be met with smug assurances that everywhere else in the world petroleum is being extracted from sea beds without trouble. This ignores the fact that we are not everywhere else in the world and there have been huge problems elsewhere.

Then there is Alcan and the excavations they propose in Tahtsa Lake. Alcan will get its way because BC Hydro wants the power Alcan can generate. Never mind that Alcan is only supposed to generate power for its needs and needs in the vicinity … never mind that the huge sockeye runs through the Nechako will be put on a death watch ... ignore all the other implications for the environment because we want power … and the Nechako is a long way from Vancouver and Victoria. Mark my words – we will be told by no less authority than Alcan’s own hired engineers that no harm will come to a single fish and Campbell government will buy it.

Thirdly, look at fish farms. All evidence against them is ignored by the government while every industry financed, PR spun, utterance is grasped as if it were gospel. By all objective standards fish farms are an environmental disaster but there’s money in it – lots of it especially for Norwegian interests that, because of what fish farms did there, are no longer welcome in Norway.

These three initiatives pose, individually as well as collectively, huge threats to our native fish especially salmon. How, then, can the governments get away with it?

Simple. For both senior governments fish are a big pain in the butt. The commercial and sports fishery combined don’t bring in anything like the revenue that oil and gas, electricity and farmed fish bring in. It’s a couple of hundred million against scores of billions of dollars. That’s the arithmetic. Moreover, the people who are on about fish are also a big nuisance – they keep talking about ethics and moral values. Get rid of the fish and within a decade no one will be bitching at the government again. The Indians will be shut up after being paid off, sports fishermen always accept their lot and, besides, they’ll still have their interior lakes, and the workers will be employed in low paying non union jobs throwing pellets to penned Atlantic Salmon – but at least employed.

This is how the scene unfolds. After the Stuart sockeye are wiped out by Alcan two things happen – Alcan does Kemano II for power alone – don’t kid yourself that a new aluminum plant is on the books because it isn’t. And the Fraser River will be dammed north of Lytton – why not, there being no more migratory fish left to protect?

Next, wild salmon on our coasts will be a curiosity.

We citizens of British Columbia have to make a choice. Do we wish to pay off the profligacy of the past ten years by permanently ridding ourselves of our salmon resources or do we stand up for them? The money’s there all right. If we want to cash in we shouldn’t waste any time about it. We have a business community which, like all business communities and a labour union community, which like all labour union communities, will put short term money and jobs against environmental concerns every time. Don’t play down the role of unions – you’ll remember that a former IWA president’s attitude to spotted owls was, in his words, to shoot the goddam things. Industry – which includes both capital and labour - has never done anything environmentally sensitive without being forced to do so by public insistence with resulting government rules.

We have a broke government, a hurting business community – no one wants that - and all that money to be made if we aren’t too fussy about what our children will inherit. We all want to be right again financially, but surely this is the point – economic crises come and go but a lost environment is lost forever. I can’t say for certain that this, that, or the other consequence will follow any given action. What I can say with absolute certainty is that our government and our business community is saying to us, "here is the way to economic recovery but don’t ask any environmental questions. We don’t think bad things will happen and that should be the end of the matter."

I’m sorry – I don’t agree. That’s not good enough. For if the government and the business community are wrong, the consequences are not for us to bear but for future generations for all time. And they are dreadful.

What we leave behind for those who follow will, in all likelihood, be decided within the next 12 months … and no one is going to ask your opinion because, it is said, you gave the government a mandate.

Did you really do that?

I certainly didn’t!