A similar seminar was held in Terrace at the Tillicum Theater. This is a report from the event in Kitimat.

The Rivers at Risk Tour visited Kitimat on October 17th. Key speakers included Joe Foy, National Campaign Director of the Wilderness Committee, Damien Gillis, Documentary Filmmaker of “Power Play: The Theft of BC‘s Rivers,” Andy Ross, President of COPE 378 and Rafe Mair. This is Mair’s first public appearance to Kitimat for some time, although he admitted that he has been visiting the region incognito to fish. According to Mair, Terrace was considered to be a: “Rafe Mair Free zone.” The presentation was well attended by the community. Hereditary Chief Harvey Grant welcomed the speakers and the presentation began.

Gillis took the mike to speak first. He presented a map from the website so that those in the room had an idea of the massive number of hydroelectric projects that have been planned for this region. He stated that there are 600 river projects to be put into place around the province. He stated that the website, www.saveourrivers.ca has a map of the province with up to date information on BC rivers.

He showed a quick video of river projects that were going on in the province and spoke about Bill Thirty, which took away the rights, that communities have to fight against unwanted development in their area. In referring to the video: “This is the Ashtons where the whole thing started with Bill 30. The people voted. […] This is a treasured river for kayakers and fishermen. The Campbell Government initially told the community, that they would be able to evaluate these projects through the municipal and regional government through the zoning process. The District did that, they said no. After several years of reviewing it, they voted 8-1 at regional district and then the government stepped in with Bill 30 and took their rights away,” said Gillis.

Rafe Mair stepped up next and immediately singled out Mayor Richard Wozney to be what he called ‘a courageous politician’ for trying to end the power sales. Mair stated that his presentation was not going to be against Rio Tinto Alcan but against the British Columbia Government. “This pun is intended. The Election next May is a watershed election. We’re going to decide as people what kind of a province we’re going to have and what kind of a province we’re going to leave for our kids and our grandkids. Will it be a province where kids can go out into the wilds and fish and hunt and look and photograph and have their power provided to them by a public power company that gives them a reasonable made in BC price? Or are we going to have a province where river and stream after river and stream are dammed or tunnelled, whatever you want to call, it and ruined for the purpose of making Americans mostly wealthy,” said Mair.

Mair stated that the “Mom and Pop” operations that were moving in to British Columbia to build these dams are really major corporations including Ledcor and General Electric. He also stated that the small footprint, which was visible in the video, is a large scar upon the landscape. He even stated that the suggestion that hydroelectricity is green power is misleading because of the damage done to rivers and fish reserves. “You go out and pick up a horse bun, and you can call it a hot cross bun. There is no less horse S**T for that,” said Mair.

He spoke against the government for appointing the people who carry out environmental assessments on these projects and spoke strongly against bill 30 mentioned earlier. He stated that it’s the government’s way of saying that they want to make foreign shareholders rich at the expense of the British Columbia citizens. Mair stated that according to Dr. Marvin Shaffer, a professor at Simon Frasier University, the hydro electricity deals that the BC government is signing with foreign investors are incredibly bad deals. In addition British Columbia is self sufficient in the amount of power that is generated and there is no need to generate more.

“What we must do is we must all get together because we’ve all been hit. […] All of these things were done without any consultation what so ever with any of the citizens to be affected. We have a consultation day coming up though. Consultation day is next May the 12th. That’s when we can give our answers. […] We’ve got to get together with all the people I’ve talked about. Delta’s problem has to be your problem. Your problem has got to be Tsawwassen’s problem. The Eagle Ridge problem has to be Fort Saint John’s Problem. We have to pull together so no longer will they divide and conquer, […] I’m going to support the NDP on May the 12th next year. […] In saying that, I can live with the possibility that they will screw up and screw up badly. They could leave the whole economy in tatters for all I know but this is the choice. If they did that, it could be fixed. Someone else could come in and fix it up. But you can‘t fix the river that is gone and you can‘t fix the power that has gone to the Americas. I say, take a chance on the short term to be absolutely certain that these evil things do not happen on the long term” said Mair.

Andy Ross, president of COPE 378 took the mike next to deliver a presentation and slideshow on Accenture and BC Hydro and related companies while explaining the history of the Rivers at Risk. He started his presentation stating that the problems began in the provincial election of 2001 when the Liberals ran on the concept of privatization. When groups trying to stop the privatization of BC Hydro fought the government at the BCUC, they failed because the government changed the legislature.

Ross explained that the transfer of BC Hydro to Accenture was heavily covered up, a hidden secretive deal, one of the biggest giveaways of a public resource that has happened. The liberal government signed a deal but will not give away the specifics of that deal to anyone including the opposition to protect the competitive nature of Accenture with your tax dollars,” said Ross.

Ross briefly touched on Bill 42, which prevents people from speaking about political issues 2 months before a provincial election. The bill would make the campaign to save the rivers illegal unless they were a private power producer. “This is an economic question the likes of which we have never seen in this province. It has cost hundreds of millions / billions of dollars of wealth transferred,” said Ross.

The final speaker was Joe Foy, National Campaign Director of the Wilderness Committee. He spoke about disappearing species of wildlife before moving onto the damage caused because of Bill 30. In his own region, the government decided to develop the upper Pitt River, which was a relocation location for elk and for the wolves that followed the herds. Both species had not been seen in the region for some time.

“Then this private company shows up and proposes to put all 8 tributaries on the Upper Pitt River in pipes. So many pipes in fact that when you add them up, you're talking about putting 8 tributaries of one of our best and most important salmon rivers into 30 kilometres of pipes,” Said Foy.

That is when he got involved in this fight. Then the community found out that the company had been given the right to put power lines through a national park. The representatives from the park had no opinion if cutting a swath through the park for power lines was a good idea. Fortunately, this one project was stopped. Joe stated that the most valuable landscape in BC are the rivers.

A time was given for questions from those present. Amongst the questioners were Municipal Manager Trafford Hall, Cherryl Dodds, Morris Amos, Randy Halyk, Larry Thompson and Carl Witcher. Mayor Richard Wozney thanked the panel and the community for coming out and stated that: “It is nice to see that there is still free speech left in this world.”

For further information on the private damning of BC rivers, visit: www.saveourrivers.ca.