https://edmontonjournal.com/business/lo ... ssman-says
Businessman Calvin Helin wants to bring jobs to his impoverished hometown on the Lax Kw’alaams First Nation on the northwest British Columbia coast, but there’s a powerful group blocking his dreams.
Helin sees a new kind of colonialism — this time imposed by wealthy, big city environmentalists and their allies in the Trudeau government — thwarting the desire for work and for dignity for his old community.
Eco-colonialism, Helin calls it, led by “elitist, latte-slurping white people.”
These activists are more concerned with land-locking Alberta oil and keeping the donations flowing than they are with supporting environmentally sound projects that will create jobs, he said.
“It’s clear to everybody that what this (Trudeau) government is doing is pandering to elitist environmental groups who want to make a park in our backyard. They don’t give a damn about the human cost, the lack of any opportunity up there.”
The Trudeau government is now preparing to pass into law Bill C-48, which would forever ban all tanking of Alberta crude off the northwest B.C. coast, a bill that Helin and Alberta political leaders like Rachel Notley and Jason Kenney agree needs to be trashed.
Helin does not accept the romantic idea that the northwest B.C. coast is some special Indigenous area where industrial activity must never be permitted. “This whole notion we were this noble Indian looking at the environment, it’s a manufactured idea of Western imperialism. By trying to impose all this crap on our people, this is just a further form of colonialism, which I call eco-colonialism.”
Hundreds of First Nations leaders across Western Canada feel the same way. Together with Helin as project chairman they are pushing for the new Eagle Spirit pipeline corridor from the oilsands of Fort McMurray to the coastal waters of the Lax Kw’alaams, with the support of all 35 First Nations along that route. They would be majority owners of the $12-billion, 1,500-km multi-pipeline super highway.
It’s worth noting that Helin only reluctantly got involved in Eagle Spirit when the project started up seven years ago.
Why so hesitant?
“Because I didn’t know much about it. I bought into all of the stereotype ideas that were being put out there, the misinformation that NGOs (non-governmental organizations) were putting out there.”
When the Harper government was in power, coastal Indigenous groups quite rightly united against the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline to Kitimat, Helin said. There was a lack of First Nations consultation and economic empowerment, as well as a minimal ocean protections plan.
Helin had left his hometown when he was 12 to get an education at Lower Mainland schools, before becoming a fisherman and a lawyer. He only changed his mind on pipelines when he returned home and spoke with family and community members. The logging industry and fishery were shutting down, he heard. Unemployment was at 90 per cent. Conditions were on par with the most impoverished parts of the world.
At the same time, pipelines seemed inevitable. Why not one lead the way on a project with majority Indigenous ownership, as well as world-leading marine safety and carbon emissions practices? After all, the nine tribes of the Lax Kw’alaams had been engaged in trade for millennium, Helin said. The first white traders in the region referred to them as “the Phoenicians of the Northwest coast” because of their superb bargaining skills, including in the trade of eulachon oil, traditional oil rendered from smelt fish.
While eco-activists work to thwart this new vision of First Nations playing a leading role in creating thousands of jobs and billions in business, it’s being embraced by an old foe, Canada’s business and Conservative establishment.
Conservatives have had a generational change in attitude and are now much more inclusive about energy projects, Helin said, which is far different than a decade ago.
“They were tone deaf to anything Indigenous people said,” Helin said. “The way things worked is big companies decided what they were going to do. The notion was they had whichever government in their back pocket and they would just ram through whatever they were going to do. Now they’re completely responsive, I’ve got to tell you that. They’re understanding, I think, that there is a cost to doing nothing for Indigenous people and Indigenous people have real power. All we’re trying to do with this energy corridor is we’re seeking to monetize the power that (First Nations) have in their constitutionally protected rights so we make the lives of the most impoverished people of Canada better. ”
Hmmm, White nationalist First Nations people. Who'd'a thunk it.
Businessman Calvin Helin wants to bring jobs to his impoverished hometown on the Lax Kw’alaams First Nation on the northwest British Columbia coast, but there’s a powerful group blocking his dreams.
Helin sees a new kind of colonialism — this time imposed by wealthy, big city environmentalists and their allies in the Trudeau government — thwarting the desire for work and for dignity for his old community.
Eco-colonialism, Helin calls it, led by “elitist, latte-slurping white people.”
These activists are more concerned with land-locking Alberta oil and keeping the donations flowing than they are with supporting environmentally sound projects that will create jobs, he said.
“It’s clear to everybody that what this (Trudeau) government is doing is pandering to elitist environmental groups who want to make a park in our backyard. They don’t give a damn about the human cost, the lack of any opportunity up there.”
The Trudeau government is now preparing to pass into law Bill C-48, which would forever ban all tanking of Alberta crude off the northwest B.C. coast, a bill that Helin and Alberta political leaders like Rachel Notley and Jason Kenney agree needs to be trashed.
Helin does not accept the romantic idea that the northwest B.C. coast is some special Indigenous area where industrial activity must never be permitted. “This whole notion we were this noble Indian looking at the environment, it’s a manufactured idea of Western imperialism. By trying to impose all this crap on our people, this is just a further form of colonialism, which I call eco-colonialism.”
Hundreds of First Nations leaders across Western Canada feel the same way. Together with Helin as project chairman they are pushing for the new Eagle Spirit pipeline corridor from the oilsands of Fort McMurray to the coastal waters of the Lax Kw’alaams, with the support of all 35 First Nations along that route. They would be majority owners of the $12-billion, 1,500-km multi-pipeline super highway.
It’s worth noting that Helin only reluctantly got involved in Eagle Spirit when the project started up seven years ago.
Why so hesitant?
“Because I didn’t know much about it. I bought into all of the stereotype ideas that were being put out there, the misinformation that NGOs (non-governmental organizations) were putting out there.”
When the Harper government was in power, coastal Indigenous groups quite rightly united against the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline to Kitimat, Helin said. There was a lack of First Nations consultation and economic empowerment, as well as a minimal ocean protections plan.
Helin had left his hometown when he was 12 to get an education at Lower Mainland schools, before becoming a fisherman and a lawyer. He only changed his mind on pipelines when he returned home and spoke with family and community members. The logging industry and fishery were shutting down, he heard. Unemployment was at 90 per cent. Conditions were on par with the most impoverished parts of the world.
At the same time, pipelines seemed inevitable. Why not one lead the way on a project with majority Indigenous ownership, as well as world-leading marine safety and carbon emissions practices? After all, the nine tribes of the Lax Kw’alaams had been engaged in trade for millennium, Helin said. The first white traders in the region referred to them as “the Phoenicians of the Northwest coast” because of their superb bargaining skills, including in the trade of eulachon oil, traditional oil rendered from smelt fish.
While eco-activists work to thwart this new vision of First Nations playing a leading role in creating thousands of jobs and billions in business, it’s being embraced by an old foe, Canada’s business and Conservative establishment.
Conservatives have had a generational change in attitude and are now much more inclusive about energy projects, Helin said, which is far different than a decade ago.
“They were tone deaf to anything Indigenous people said,” Helin said. “The way things worked is big companies decided what they were going to do. The notion was they had whichever government in their back pocket and they would just ram through whatever they were going to do. Now they’re completely responsive, I’ve got to tell you that. They’re understanding, I think, that there is a cost to doing nothing for Indigenous people and Indigenous people have real power. All we’re trying to do with this energy corridor is we’re seeking to monetize the power that (First Nations) have in their constitutionally protected rights so we make the lives of the most impoverished people of Canada better. ”
Hmmm, White nationalist First Nations people. Who'd'a thunk it.
