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Chiefs Council against Bill C-48

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Sign the Petition against Bill C-49 
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First Nations Seek Economic Self-Reliance through Oil Sector



The purpose of this page is to assist over 30 impoverished First Nations with legal and administrative costs needed to fight the Government's unilaterally imposed Oil Tanker Moratorium Act and the Great Bear Rainforest--both of which were established largely through the lobbying of foreign-financed ENGOs and without the consultation and consent of First Nations. With the First Nations-led Eagle Spirit Energy corridor in northern B.C.,  we are explicitly opposed to American ENGOs dictating government policy in our traditional territories in a manner that harms our communities, regions, the energy industry (the most import industry in Canada), and the Canadian economy. The liberal government was supposed to be supporting reconciliation--not perpetuating past failed colonial policies designed subjugate and marginalize indigenous peoples. We are taking such direct action based on the facts where:
1.  
First Nations have unextinguished Aboriginal rights and title from time immemorial and continuing into the present, or have treaties over the land and ocean of their traditional territories.
2.   We have protected the environment as first-stewards of our traditional territories for millennia.
3.   We have and will always, put the protection of the environment first, but this must be holistically balanced with social welfare, employment, and business opportunities.
4.   We absolutely do not support big American environmental NGO’s (who make their money from opposing natural resource projects) dictating government policy and resource developments within our traditional territories.
5.   When such projects are environmentally acceptable and essential to meeting our non-environmental needs such foreign interference serves only to perpetuate the rampant poverty and dysfunction encouraged by previous colonial policies.
6. The Great Bear Rainforest was created without any prior consultation or consent as required under Section 35(1) of the Constitution Act, 1867 where the Supreme Court of Canada in Tsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia has determined that “The right to control the land conferred by Aboriginal title means that governments and others seeking to use the land must obtain the consent of the Aboriginal title holders…. if the Crown begins a project without consent prior to Aboriginal title being established, it may be required to cancel the project.”
7.   The Great Bear Rainforest is a fiction created largely by foreign environmentalists and we do not support its creation.
8.   Given concerns about the environmental impact of Enbridge's Northern Gateway Pipeline, First Nations decided to lead their own first-of-its-kind energy corridor project from Alberta to British Columbia tidewater called Eagle Spirit Energy.
9.   After consulting top world experts the most stringent environmental model in the world was developed that would deliver greater protections to the oceans than is currently being allowed for shipping crude oil in every other part of Canada, and for the pipeline on land.
10.  We support the First Nations-led Eagle Spirit Energy energy corridor of because it would provide real-world sustainable benefits and own-source revenue and meaningful participation for the poorest communities in Canada through a project whose outcomes cannot be duplicated by government.
11.  We are proud to provide a once-in-a-generation solution for a rapid approval process for major energy and other infrastructure through a First Nation sanctioned corridor—a concept that cannot only provide efficiencies and save money for industry, but can minimize the overall impact of such future projects on the environment.
12.  We are proud to have a Canadian precedent-setting solution for indigenous participation in a project in the form of the “Chiefs Council” that may be held up as a progressive model to the world of how to achieve win-win results for natural resource development projects through what we thought would be the constructive cooperation of First Nations, Industry, and Government.
13.  Regrettably the federal government has introduced, Bill C-48, the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act, which would ban crude oil tankers in our traditional territories (despite the fact they are allowing crude oil to be shipped everywhere else in Canada) which is being done without consultation or our consent breaching the Crown’s lawful fiduciary duty to First Nations in a manner that is consistent with United Nations Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples, section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, and the Government of Canada’s commitment to “…achieving reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples through a renewed, nation-to-nation, government-to-government, and Inuit-Crown relationship based on recognition of rights, respect, co-operation, and partnership as the foundation to transformative change."
WHO WILL BENEFIT: Over thirty impoverished elected First Nations, or hereditary governments will benefit from the using the funds for all matters relating to  the organization of a legal campaign to quash the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act (Bill C-48), and to pull our coastal lands out fo the fictional Great Bear Rainforest. These American ENGO-financed government policies create great damage to our communities and our holitistic aspirations for balalnced development. There also needs to be an alternative market for Canadian crude oil export (other than United States which is reportedly costing Canadian companies up to $50 million dollars a day), and stability to the Alberta and British Columbia energy industries.
WHEN NEEDED: Support is required immediately as Bill C-48 will likely be passed into law in the near future, and indigenous lands need to be pulled out to the American ENGO-created Great Bear Rainforest.
WHAT YOUR SUPPORT MEANS: We are most grateful for your support as we do not have the financial means to sustain such legal and organizational costs where most of our communities have 90% unemployment rates and were described in a recent article in MacLean’s Magazine as the harsh Indigenous reality of poverty symbolized by broken windows and tar paper shacks (that most Canadians don’t see) as having:
“…an unemployment rate worse than Sudan and the median income on par with Latvia…infant mortality rate is worse than Russia [where] sewage systems often don’t work…[where] there is no fire department…medical facilities…drug and alcohol addictions are rampant, TB is at epidemic levels, and the rate of HIV infection is higher than Nigeria’s.”

It is a sad comment the this action is required to taken against  a federal justice department with an indigenous minister, and with a federal government touting a supposed policy of "reconciliation, "  possessing unlimited financial resources .
ESE interview with Danielle Smith 
Global News Radio 770 CHQR Interview with Rob BreakenRidge

Bill C-48: House Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities
Sickening: First Nations Left Empty Handed as Environmentalist Pressure Kills BC Energy Projects
Pipeline has First Nations Backing but May Never Get Built Tanker Moratorium Killing First Nations Enterprise 
A Sustainable Energy Corridor 
Community Capitalism: Path to Prosperity 
Bill C-48: Environmental Hypocrisy 
Time to Question Outside Influence on Energy Industry
First Nations Challenge Oil Tanker Ban

Organizer

Chiefs Council
Organizer
Lax Kw'Alaams, BC

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