Some of this week of debate in the British Columbia Legislature has been taken up with discussion on the Speech from the Throne from last week, the presentation which opened this current session of government business.
Thursday brought some differing views on the document from two Northwest MLA's, with Stikine MLA Nathan Cullen and Skeena MLA Ellis Ross sharing their observations of the blue print for the government for the months ahead.
The Stikine MLA spoke to the topic first, and not surprisingly, the member on the Government side of the Legislature found much to appreciate from the words of the Lieutenant Governor from February 8th, with Mr. Cullen pointing to a range of initiatives that the government has planned as they continue with their work.
Speaking first to some local issues in his own constituency, the MLA noted of the current political themes of the moment across the country and in Stikine.
Normally, even in moments of strong disagreement, we are able to find common ground, treat each other with great, generally, respect and dignity, even when the conflicts have been high. I have to say, this past couple of years, with increasing intensity, that that has become even more challenging, whereas, as my friend from the B.C. Liberals talked about, elements within some of the protest movements expressing some of the most hateful notions humanity has ever come up with.
I've had my sign in my office damaged more than a number of times with swastikas and Stars of David and other hateful acts, even after I've talked to the organizers and said: "I'm of Jewish descent. This is particularly troubling and offensive to me." and I'm told how we are living in 1934 Nazi Germany, and I repeat to them that that allegory and insinuation is unbelievably offensive, demonstrably incorrect in every way that you can imagine.
And yet, unfortunately, within some — not the majority, but within some, enough to worry me and some others — it continues. And there has been provocation from one federal leader in particular. Gone are the rest. But I'm off topic, and I'd like to get back to topic, which is the throne speech. It's context, and I think sometimes context matters.
To those themes of the Throne Speech, for Mr. Cullen jobs, housing and reconciliation were among some of his key elements for review.
"The jobs minister was out, just today, with the Premier, laying out our economic strategy, which follows nicely in that we've had the throne speech, which I'll talk about. We've now had our economic strategy, understanding that B.C. has got a very good problem. We are a very popular place to come to. We're a place that's seen of great opportunity and have been for a long time and increasingly so, where our forecasters look ahead and project that we'll need upwards of, well, hundreds of thousands of new jobs to be filled, in some cases by people we don't have here yet, which, again, speaks to the need.We've added 18,000 affordable housing units. We're adding a bunch more, really struggling at times in working with municipalities and the permitting process. That's something that we have to work diligently for.
As the members know, especially those that have spent time sitting on town or city councils, NIMBYism is a powerful force in the world. People might like an idea in the abstract, until it comes one neighbourhood over, and suddenly they have opinions, whether it be a SkyTrain or a mixed affordable housing unit. Of course, those histrionics are often driven up by misconceptions, and we've got a lot of work to do on that, because we have such a need.
Now, on the reconciliation front, I just came from a phone call with a global mining company that operates in the northwest. I cut one of their first entrances into the Americas, as they like to call us.
In talking about their project and their prospect, I said: "You know, our government is really pushing for new reconciliation agreements with First Nations that allow for co-management, co-jurisdiction, a sharing of authority on the territories."
The more we can do on capacity, on building up the ability to respond to the many requests that are banging on the door of many First Nations, particularly in the northwest…. I know a number of nations who struggle just with the ability to respond to all the potentials and opportunities that are coming their way.
It's something that we've invested in and that we need to invest in more.
I think that there are some partnerships available — the throne speech speaks a bit to this — between the private sector and the public, with respect to encouraging more of the revenue stream through First Nations, which we've done through the Lottery Corp. Of course, many billions of dollars, over the next 25 or 30 years, are going directly to First Nations to build up own-source revenue and capacity.
As well, as the commercial agreements that nations are signing — with the backing and the authority of the Crown, in this case, as we refer to it — to say: "A co-jurisdictional environment exists — a co-management, a co-decision-making environment — and here's how it's going to work.
Here are the legal documents. Here are the precedents. Here's how these agreements will be durable in court and in other places." This is the certainty, this is the present, and I think that increasingly, it will be our future."
The full transcript is available here, starting at the 3 PM mark of the Thursday afternoon session.
The Video presentation is available here, at that same time mark.
Skeena MLA Ellis Ross was next in the Speaking order for the Thursday oratory and his immediate focus for the Legislature was how he has viewed the NDP government's handling of Aboriginal issues and their use of UNDRIP to move their plans forward.
"Over the past three years at least, I've been warning this House not to play politics with Aboriginal issues. That warning has gone unheeded.
I knew going in, long before I came to this place, that UNDRIP was not really relevant to what we were actually achieving in British Columbia from 2004 to 2017.
We had advanced so far beyond that. It all started in 1982 with section 35 of the constitution and the jurisprudence that actually followed it. We were so far advanced, but I gave the benefit of the doubt to the passing of UNDRIP, the United Nations declaration on the rights of Indigenous people. But looking at the clauses, I could see right then that it was impossible to achieve.
And this NDP government has proved it over and over and over already, in every piece of legislation that has passed through this House, that they don't intend to fulfil the promises made in UNDRIP, aligning every single law in B.C. with rights and title interests. We haven't seen it.
We haven't seen any piece of legislation being consulted, meaningfully consulted, with First Nations across B.C., with the rightful title holders which are 203 First Nation communities in British Columbia. We haven't seen it. It's a broken promise.
But somehow all that work from 2004 to 2017 has been wiped away. You only have to look on the B.C. government website to see all the agreements that were signed between B.C. and First Nations to see how much work was done.
You will see protocol agreements. You will see environmental stewardship agreements, forest and range agreements, land planning agreements. You'll see all of this. And this is why I keep getting up and telling this House not to play politics.
And now it's taken a different step in a different direction. It's become insulting. It's become patronizing and condescending to the point now where this NDP government is actually taking a page out of the Indian Act and telling First Nations: "We've already made up your mind for you in terms of legislation and policies. We're not going to consult you. We'll consult advocacy groups. We're going to break our own promise in terms of the UNDRIP bill."
That is incredibly insulting, not only to myself and my council — my elected Chief and council, by the way, elected chief and council that did all the work — but to all those First Nations leaders that preceded me.
That's quite shameful. So I'll say it again: don't play politics with First Nations' issues, one of the most disadvantaged people that finally got a break and started to see a light at the end of the tunnel starting in 2004 and ended in 2017."
Mr. Ross spoke to LNG issues, an frequent topic for him in the Legislature and one that is in his sphere of interest as the Liberal Opposition critic.
"I was part of land use planning agreements way back in 2004. All the time that the NDP government was opposing LNG, we were doing real work with the federal government and the B.C. government to achieve true reconciliation.
And what did we get from the NDP government, who were then opposition at the time? They were fearmongering the public. They were saying that if LNG was approved, Victoria will be under water.
They signed anti-LNG declarations in northwest B.C. I even talked to a couple of those NDPers that signed those anti-declarations and said: "Could you come to Kitimat and actually see what we're doing?" Never saw them again for two years."
Human beings are social beings. The idea of human beings being social is a large part of our success, no matter where you come from, and that's been taken away. We're going to have to rebuild society. Yes, the economy is going to recover naturally.
As restrictions get lifted, the economy will recover naturally. But society is going to need fixing, specifically the mental health of British Columbians.
I'm part of the conversation, as well, in terms of the divisive nature of what British Columbians are going through, and I haven't taken a side. I've heard the people who got vaccinated condemning those that didn't get vaccinated, even though there were exemptions — condemning them, calling them anti-vaxxers.
I heard the Premier actually blame millennials for it, never mind that he called a snap election in the middle of a pandemic, and even his own NDP leader condemned it and called it selfish when the federal government did the same thing.
I've seen those people that didn't take the vaccination actually call those that took the vaccination cheap.
I think we as leaders…. Our job is to be the middle ground, try to find a way to unite those two sides, just like everything else. Don't take sides.
Yes, we want everybody to be vaccinated, especially when we're talking on a worldwide scale. Otherwise, we just get more variants.
But at some point, we're going to have to learn to live with this. That's what all of the experts say. We've got to live with it. When does it become endemic though? When does it? Where are those benchmarks? Where are those milestones?
Because the frustration you're seeing has been pent up for two years, because people have been doing as they were told, but they couldn't see the end goal line. They couldn't see it.
At the very least, they couldn't see the facts or the science that was behind it. That's all you needed to do. And that goes back to being a transparent and accountable government."
Mr Ross also explored themes of fishery and forestry issues, the MLA reinforcing his past support for fish farms and questioning the Provincial desire to remove them.
But have you considered this? In your opposition to fish farms, have you ever considered that fish farms can actually save wild salmon? Specifically steelhead. It's been brought up many times in this House. Steelhead is on the verge of extinction in many of our rivers across B.C.
Have you ever considered that the technology that the fish farms have in North Vancouver Island can actually be easily transferred to save wild salmon? And it could be affordable.
The same way that they raise salmon for sale all across the world to feed the world need for protein, they can do the same thing for wild salmon.
We're not thinking outside of the box here, because we're just doing things for the sake of politics. It's just for the sake of getting elected. Whatever the common narrative is at the time, that's all we're doing, the lowest common denominator.
Well when you're talking about the survival of communities, when you're talking about a person's life, I think leaders…. That's the difference between a leader and a politician.
A leader thinks about what's best for people and the community. A politician just wants to get elected. They can sacrifice 18,000 forestry workers. They can sacrifice fish farms. They can sacrifice food security.
This is not the way to build a province.
We were on a good track from 2004 to 2017, whether you're talking about an economy, building up our communities, reconciliation.
And now we're starting all over again. The people that actually pay for this are the people of British Columbia, specifically my kids, my grandkids, my great-grandkids.
So if we don't get off this path, it's all of our descendants that have got to pay for this.
The full transcript of his response to the Speech from the Throne is available here starting at the 3:30 mark. The video presentation can be viewed through the House Video archive at the same time point.
More notes on the work of the MLA's in the Legislature can be explored here.
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