“The bottom line is, money talks and fish don’t.” Randy Nelson Among the poachers of the Cariboo, he was known as Casper the Ghost. Tall and lean, fleet of foot, and quiet of manner, Randy Nelson could sneak through the woods, crawl along riverbanks, and skulk in the shadows for hours, once even hiding in […]
“This is where every First Nation in the country would love to be.” Crystal Smith In the Haisla Nation off B.C.’s north coast, there are three kinds of natural resource projects: Those imposed upon the nation without a say, those that invited Indigenous leaders to the table to talk, and — newly — those designed […]
A year and a half after the New Democrat government recommended logging deferrals in almost 3 million hectares of B.C.’s old growth forests, two northern interior First Nations are still bristling at the “unilateral” process, saying they’ll participate in forestry management discussions, but the final decision will be theirs. “The province … [announced] they were […]
The new oil and gas emissions cap is a foreboding sign for the sector, says Rob Shaw. How do you get a polluting natural resource project through the environmentally-minded government of Premier David Eby? The answer, it turns out, is by appealing to the only thing the Eby administration considers more important than climate change: […]
“The situation is dire.” Danette Thomsen Health workers from B.C.’s North are raising the alarm at staggering over capacity in hospitals, lengthy wait times, burnt out staff and declining conditions for patients. The University Hospital of Northern B.C. in Prince George recently hit 125 per cent over capacity, with the Emergency Room short-staffed and the […]
“There’s no safety net for them.” Arthur Renwick A billion dollars doesn’t go as far as it used to. When a story broke that the B.C. government had submitted a last-minute, billion-dollar addiction and mental health package for Treasury Board approval, it sounded conspicuously similar to the treatment and recovery platform released by the BC Liberal’s a […]
Just a few weeks after pledging a bright future for B.C.’s natural resource sector, Premier David Eby tabled a budget in the legislature that shows the reality is anything but. Forestry, mining and natural gas are all expected to decline sharply this year, according to the budget. In addition to the jobs lost, and the […]
“The premier is afraid to even talk about it.” Ellis Ross B.C.’s New Democrat government is facing a series of tough decisions around whether to approve First Nations-led liquified natural gas projects, which may imperil its climate targets but are also viewed by Indigenous leaders as reconciliation efforts needed to lift their communities out of […]
For the first time in over a decade, the Conservative Party of BC has an elected member of the legislature. Northern MLA John Rustad announced this morning he’d ended his five-month run as an Independent and taken out a BC Conservative membership. “To be part of a party that can become a true coalition in […]
“There’s no longer ‘business as usual,’ when it comes to doing [projects] within our territory.” Judy Desjarlais A new ground-breaking agreement between the B.C. government and Blueberry River First Nations will initiate “significant” change in land stewardship and resource development across the province, signalling it’s no longer business as usual, according to agreement signatories. “In […]
“We’re all law-abiding citizens who have had enough.” Tygh Lardner The eighth time thieves broke into his property, Dwaine Dilworth had had enough. He’d been running Glacier Mobile Glass in Dawson Creek for 14 years, with few thefts. But in the last few months, his company van was stolen, his equipment ransacked, and the fence […]
