Connecting the dots…. The modern art of Deception
I could have titled it, “Killing Canada, one job at a time.”
Or how one user-group wants the rest of us to hand over the entire Skeena watershed for their business programs? Playgrounds for the rich, squeeze everyone else out by destroying the resource sector. Cutting deals with aboriginals and have them do the dirty work for them. Maybe I could have used the title “Aboriginals lured by dollars, fall victim the being used by environmentalists.” But then again are they even environmentalists or just smart aboriginal manipulators who need industry out for their own profits?
Closer to the truth is they are targeting specific influential aboriginals, helping them achieve their “mostly selfish” goals, in a I will scratch your back if you scratch mine deal. Not deals for aboriginals as a group, but individual gains, as we will see a bit further down in this article.
Wow, imagine if you could kill West Frazer Mills in Smithers and remove the user groups presently using the Skeena watershed. look at how Smithers would have downsize without industry support.
Perfect for them, not so much for the rest of us.
. A reality that may just happen if we allow them to deceive us all.
This will be anything but a normal article, it’s a series of musing thoughts for people to consider. We have what appears to be a group of people, who pretend to love and care about the Skeena watershed inclusive of the Bulkley Valley, but would really like to strip it down to exclusive users groups, not for all of us, but for themselves.
The other day we were gifted with a scientific study or was it really based on fiction as opposed to facts? A “kill the forest industry bill” the report was prepared for SkeenaWild Conservation Trust, Terrace, BC, and its alternate name Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, Hazelton, and they got what they paid for, anyone surprised?
This group of anti-establishment environmentalists needed to prove points to justify the massacre of industry, logging and sawmills included. Written by an extraordinary man who calls himself Dr. Jim Pojar and the study was called Forestry and Carbon in B.C. with credits going to people like Richard Overstall, Shannon McPhail, and Bachrach Communications.
Oh wait, was it not Bachrach telling us he is part of 21 Northern majors to get the federal goverment to support workers hit by closures, not to help get the industry to get back on its feet, but to help people find alternatives to expecting jobs or a career in the forest industry. He wants financial help, to make us feel better about losing our jobs!
Never forget the connection, Taylor Bacharach and the Sierra Club, and the Tides Foundation, dedicated to stopping industry.
SkeenaWild Conservation Trust, Terrace, BC, Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, Hazelton, BC. Both with connections to the American Tides Foundation, and both are fighting to kill the LNG lines as well. For a second forget the names of the society and start paying attention to the names of the people its a front for.
When you create a study, produced by people who want a desired end result, is it that hard to believe they got the findings they (or the Tides Foundation) paid for? Here we have a man who earned his entire living from the forest industry, now trying to build the tombstone for it.
Credible or incredible, you decide, Dr. Jim Pojar and a two other men also produced a book, “Plants of Northern British Columbia with funding coming from none other than the tax payers, not to print the book, but almost all of the research was paid for by the tax payers, however I do not see that the government owns the book or any rights to it. It’s a good book, do not get me wrong, but it blows my mind that his pay check was being signed by taxpayers but the end product belongs to Jim, his wife and a few of their friends. (Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
It’s not hard to connect the dots, or people behind, “Save the Bulkley” or aka “Kill the coal deal” in Telkwa, and Skeena Wild, or Northern Confluence better known as Nikki Skuce, who is also connected to West Coast Environmental Law Centre, University of Victoria Environmental Law Centre, Skeena Wild , Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, Salmon Beyond Borders, Mining Watch Canada, International Boreal Conservation Campaign, Forum for Leadership on Water (FLOW), First Nations Women Advocating for Responsible Mining, First Nations Energy and Mining Council, Fair Mining Collaborative.
To keep the public thinking that everyone is against industry they create a multitude of organizations or groups, one after another, almost always with the same people who walk the street with protest signs over every imaginable excuse to shut down jobs. Its almost always the same group of faces starting these groups to lure people who care about or lakes rivers and lands into their fold where they indoctrinate them.
Politics makes for strange bedfellows, you need not look further than our environmental groups, the major of Smithers, and his allies at the Sierra Club, working hard to kill resource jobs, and now we have that same guy who just lost the battle against CGL, you know him as Mike Sawyer, running for the Green Party.
Just look at his platform, he wants Horgan to shut down industry, he is for PR (because without it the Greens will never hold power) He is anti every industrial project ever proposed in British Columbia but still expects free medicare, and maybe a welfare check to cover his time between paid protests.
I could go on and on, but I won’t I want to share some comments Facebook users wrote, it most likely will not win a literature award, but in its own way reflects what lot of people in the Bulkley Valley are saying privately to each other. I will post it verbatim, mistakes and all, I am sure so many of you can relate to it.
The frustration we all deal with, in dealing with the biggest pack of hypocrites who do their best to destroy any hope for our future or our children’s future under the disguise of protecting the environment.
Almost everyone working in oil, gas, logging, sawmills or mining, or drilling for mines keep this valley and every job in it afloat, and they love this area, they love the environment but rather than rob us of our jobs, they pay the bills to keep us here.
So here it is in raw Facebook language.
“If skeena wild paid Bacharach to produce this he took money from the U.S. to create a bad name for forestry in bc
Now he says he and other mayors support forestry
Pojar a retired forest service employee on nice pension.
Changes his tune on fire on Forest. He was always one who said healthy forest require fire. Date Creek research area has burned 2-3 times in past 400 years.
But Pojar followed the money coming from activism to form his new company and now spews environmental crap.
He’s on full pension PEA union.
My pet peeve is again hypocrisy.
Make a living on forestry helping I’m sure Chief forester set AAC ( sustainable harvest rates)
Then retires and I’m sure gets recruited by Shannon McPhail. Shannon Gene Allen daughter. Runs Skeena Wild I’m thinking funded by US.
Her dad logged out Kispiox Valley. Owns operates bear claw lodge. Skeena heli skiing.
Bringing in oil execs from US and others all flying into Smithers. Then the clients are bused 68km to lodge to jump in 4 helicopters flying all day.
They biggest hypocrites and have agreement w chief Lattie Gitxsan. They pay her well as you can imagine to run operate fish guiding heli skiing trail riding Quads horses etc.”
Don’t quit here, take the time to visit Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition and read just how riddled this organization is with self interest promotions, a dead opposite to caring about the citizens of the Skeena watershed’s future, or the futures of our children.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
In the event we are using copyrighted material, we are doing so within the parameters of the Fair Dealing exception of the Canadian Copyright Act.
On occasion we may use photos or videos without express permission for education purposes. If we have images on our website that do not incude a copyright users name, it could be for a number of reasons, the first is we might own the image, or it might published under Creative Commons, or we have no idea who owns the image as they may be reader submitted images, please be aware we are not using the images for profit or commercial use, and would be more than happy to give credits and or remove them based on legitimate request.
Fair Dealing is an exception in the Canadian Copyright Act that permits the use of other people's copyright protected work without permission or payment for the purpose of research, private study, education, satire, parody, criticism, review or news reporting.
Please verify if it is NOT a legally embedded photo or video before filing a complaint.
If you are the legitimate copyright owner and object to our usage of the images or want to have credits added, please contact us using our contact page. Please be specific in your description and location to where it is being used. Please supply I with evidence of where it was originally posted legally, and a link to where you claim we are using it.
a fine, revealing and obviously painstakingly researched article. Kudos. I would like to add my two bits worth to the dialogue. For what it’s worth?
The Fine art of Speaking with a Forked Tongue
Let me begin by stating I am by nature a conservationist. On my arrival in Smithers some 10 years ago I was somewhat smitten with the Smithers Watershed Conservation Coalition (SWCC) I appreciated the fine work they were doing and was mightily impressed with local Ali Howard’s dramatic swim from the Sacred Headwaters of the Skeena to the sea. I was further impressed with the later documentary that was produced ” Awakening the Skeena”…stirring and sterling stuff.! I even went so far as to get involved by posting stories of her swim on the now defunct Allvoices.com, an internet newspaper out of San Francisco I worked for at the time, and hopefully, read far and wide. I went further again and was soon involved as an actor in a play written by local author, Valerie Laub, to help raise monies for the cause. It was called a “Seriously Silly Evening” and was an evening of theatre and music. We did two shows and it was well received and attended. Some of the monies raised also went to a local pet rescue organization in the valley. Later, I also became involved with the “fight back” against the Enbridge oil pipeline issue, which, thankfully, we won.
At this juncture, I should mention this was not my first time up in the region. I had earned money for my first year in college in 1976 by working on the BC Railway at the “end of steel” high up along the upper Skeena. I was the timekeeper/First Aid man for the isolated rail gang. The following summer, 1977, I returned once again to the region and managed to find myself a job as Boom-man/First Aid man at the Northwood A Frame near Topley Landing on Babine Lake loading trucks bound for the large mill in Houston . I lived at the Babine Lodge and got good room & board as part of our IWA collective agreement. I enjoyed the fishing and scenery no end and did a few fair paintings and wrote a few poems that were published later about the experience. I returned to this job again in the summer of 1978 to earn some more funds for college. With some of the knowledge I learned in college, and after a stint at the Nanaimo Biological station, I returned again to BC’s Rugged NW in the fall of 1979 as a biological technician working for P. MaCart studying the Stikine and Iskut river systems in anticipation of a dam being built above Telegraph Creek.
I mention all this preamble because I wish to show (a) I have a love, interest and connection to the area and (b) my connection to resource extraction is what allowed me to both experience the area AND allowed me the benefit of an IWA pension to return now in later life.
But how, you may ask, is this at all about “forked tongues”? To me, there is an irony at work in the politics of the valley area. There is even the strong scent of hypocrisy wafting through the air long with the pungent and omnipresent wood stove smoke. For example, everybody wants to save the salmon. Who wouldn’t? The locals (indigenous & settler alike) have taken advantage of this blessing and local orgs like SWCC and Skeena Wild ( to name a few) have assisted in conservation efforts. A lot of their funding comes from grants and interests far flung from our little valley Rich donors are sought with gusto to fill the coffers for their offices and campaigns. The region has some of the best Steelhead fishing in the world and there is a constant buzz of jets overhead each fall as well heeled fisherman fly in from far and wide to enjoy the bounty of our rivers. There are many large upscale fishing lodges in the area that cater to the rich clientele. There are jobs provided by this…housekeepers, cooks and guides. There is also profit for the lodge owners. Well and good. The same holds true with our skiing in the area. Besides nearby Hudson Bay Mountain, there is thriving heli-jet Ski resort to the north of us that does well during the season. Again, jobs for cooks, housekeepers and ski equipment technicians and pilots.
Both of these industries are good examples of how tourism and recreation are important to the economy of the area..and provide some work for a few. BUT…the resource industry is in a decline lately. Due to recent fires and bug infestations our forests, coupled with a lull in the marketplace for lumber, there are no longer the plentiful jobs about that used to provide many in the valley with a livelihood they once relied on. The livelihood that allowed me to attend college. A livelihood to fill lunch buckets all year round and reliable enough to pay a mortgage. This is where the “forked tongues” tend to surface in the story. We have conservation groups dead set against any development that may harm the status quo recreational playground for the rich they have championed. You have politicians that echo that same sentiment, while at the same time saying they are deeply concerned with the downturn and troubles in our forest industry. We have powerful national and international lobby groups pouring money through grants to our local conservation groups AND to the Office of the Wet’suwet’en and their Hereditary chiefs. We now have a new NDP Member of Parliament, Taylor Bachrach, who sides with both the chiefs and the Sierra Club set…while at the same time telling the plebian electorate he is “looking into the forestry problems” in order to find solutions….much like Nathan Cullen before him, I may add. Odd, we have at least an inkling of a small solution for high unemployment at hand with the work involved with the gas pipeline development…don’t we? I am reminded of the old union organizing song from our distant labour past “…which side are you on, Boys…which side are you on?” It must be hard sitting on that wooden fence for so long I am starting to have some serious concerns about slivers in the poor butts of our duly elected representatives! It is hard to be a slave to two masters. Tongues flapping like a fork in some cool mountain river sliding silver to the scintillating western sea.