Dear Radical Reader,

Some welcome news for all those who’ve been fighting to preserve the sacred lands of the Tsilhqot’in people. Whether or not the recommendations of CEAA are taken to heart by the politicians in Ottawa is, of course, a horse of another colour. Time will reveal all. For now though folks ought to celebrate and enjoy the fruits of their long and arduous efforts.

Shine your Light for Love, Peace & Justice for All,

Arthur Topham
Publisher/Editor
The Radical Press
Canada’s Radical News Network
“Digging to the root of the issues since 1998″
http://www.radicalpress.com
radical@radicalpress.com
——————————-

Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) Decision on Fish Lake Recommends Project be Stopped!

FROM THE FRIENDS OF NEMIAH VALLEY
JULY 2, 2010

FISH LAKE/TEZTAN BINY IN THE SOUTH CHILCOTIN REGION OF BEAUTIFUL BRITISH COLUMBIA
___________________________________________________________________________

I would like to forward FONV’s email regarding the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency’s decision from today.

Today the federal review Panel of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) made their long, and anxiously awaited, recommendations to the federal government re Taseko Mines proposed open pit gold and copper mine: the mine that would destroy Fish Lake/Teztan Biny.

We are very pleased to say that the Panel made the best decision we could have hoped for!

Here is an excerpt from the Summary Review (availble here: http://www.ceaa.gc.ca/050/documents/43937/43937E.pdf )

The Panel concludes that the Project would result in significant adverse environmental effects on fish and fish habitat, on navigation, on the current use of lands and resources for traditional purposes by First Nations and on cultural heritage, and on certain potential or established Aboriginal rights or title.

The Panel also concludes that the Project, in combination with past, present and reasonably foreseeable future projects would result in a significant adverse cumulative effect on grizzly bears in the South Chilcotin region and on fish and fish habitat.

The Panel notes that Taseko’s propsoed “replacement” lake would not meet DFO’s “No Net Loss” policy and that Taseko could not provide assurances that the fish in such a lake would be safe to consume.

The Panel cites the effects on navigation would be “high magnitude and irreversible” as presented by Transport Canada’s submission.

The Panel places significant and detailed emphasis on the presentations and teachings from the First Nations witnesses who appeared before them, saying their “overall conclusion is that the Project would have a high magnitude, long term, irreversible effect on the Tsilqhot’in”. They also note that, “the effects of the Project on the potential Tsilhqot’in title would be significant as the value of the claim would be reduced substantially due to changes in the landscape and the loss of the area for current use for traditional purposes”.

In regard to grizzlies, the Panel says that Taseko’s proposal to mitigate the effects of increased traffic (through speed limits, etc.) are not suffiecient to compensate for loss of habitat or landscape fragmentation.

Reference to negative impacts on local use of meadows and trap lines is also included.

FONV would like to congratulate everyone who wrote letters to the panel and who appeared before them. For many, this was a difficult and upsetting process to go through and it was done with great dignity and integrity. Thanks to you all.

Now, it’s up to the federal government to decide how they will proceed.

Pat Swift
www.fonv.ca
info@fonv.ca

A Corruption Trial in a Corrupt B.C. Supreme Court?
A call to Associate Chief Justice Anne MacKenzie to cite this writer as being “in contempt of court”.

By Robin Mathews

June 13, 2010

Public Corruption.  British Columbia is its national symbol.

Canada and the world saw a hint of B.C.’s public corruption in the Robert Dziekanski killing by RCMP in Vancouver International Airport.  First the world was given lies – all the way up the RCMP.  Then the RCMP turned to “damage control”.  Damage control will be the report by Mr. Justice Thomas Braidwood who is conducting the Robert Dziekanski “Inquiry”.  “Damage control”.  Depend on it.

Public corruption in British Columbia is huge – is everywhere.  The“privatization” of B.C. Ferries was corrupt.  Gordon Campbell’s U.S. CEO friend is now making $1,000,000.00 annually (on the books) at B.C. Ferries.  Off the books, debt of the Ferry Corporation is enough to sink a battleship.

The corrupt “privatization” and sell-off of BC Gas – was completed by Gordon Campbell, folding the finish of BC Gas into a volume of omnibus legislation.

The corrupt “privatization” of BC Hydro – is lied about, manipulated, the corporation shredded, legislated into impotence.  One third of BC Hydro – to sweeten the story – was handed (still secretly) to Accenture of the Arthur Anderson/ENRON gigantic U.S. energy corruption and collapse scandal.  Accenture?  Why Accenture?  A story beyond belief.

Corruption is the B.C. (public) way of doing business: the sea-to-sky highway, bridges, river licenses … whatever.  Name it.  Name … almost anything.

Corruption was (and is) in the transfer of BC Rail to CNR – by lies, manipulation, “failure strategy” buddy pay-offs, organization of whole teams to build to the fraudulent transfer.

All of those major acts of corruption are supported by the mainstream press and media of British Columbia and Canada by avoidance, half-reporting, failure to investigate, complete abnegation of responsibility right up the ladder.

The corruption/BC Rail Scandal is huge.  It is now in B.C. Supreme Court.  It is, alas, probably in a corrupt court – as we shall see.  First witness in the BC Rail Scandal/ Basi, Virk, and Basi trial is Gordon Campbell’s top political advisor and Chief of Staff, Martyn Brown.

Martyn Brown refuses  - day after day – to remember almost anything about major policy, major initiatives, major strategies, major people, major associates.  That tells all.  By what at least some in the gallery of courtroom 54 have concluded, Martyn Brown’s failure to tell what he knows, what he remembers, points to a web of falsehood and deceit.

So deep is the corruption in the BC Rail Scandal alone, that Martyn Brown, it seems, can’t admit even to the purchase of a box of paper clips.  That admission might lead to, say, evidence of an alleged secret meeting of Gordon Campbell, David McLean CEO of CN Rail, CEO of Rocky Mountain Line Peter Armstrong, and Ken Dobell, deputy minister of everything, to chop up the loot from BC Rail and distribute it to croneys … before the railway was anywhere near being “sold”.

At this point, in the depths of corruption, Canadians may be asking – “where is the RCMP?”

The question – like a throbbing toothache – haunts the province.  After the RCMP’s lies about Robert Dziekanski were revealed, people threw garbage at RCMP vehicles in Vancouver.  We might ask why they stopped doing so.

(more…)

The BC Rail Scandal, Basi, Virk, and Basi Trial Focuses Wide-Ranging Political Abuse (by Campbell) of Special Crown Prosecutor Appointments

By Robin Mathews

June 5, 2010

The following is a letter sent to Stephen Owen, UBC vice-president, External, Legal, and Community Relations.  Mr. Owen has been asked by B.C. Attorney General Michael de Jong to “review” the appointment process for Special Crown Prosecutors and – it seems – to smother criticism and to cover-up what I believe has been (and is) serious, on-going abuse.

Attorney General de Jong said at the time of Mr. Owen’s appointment: “In my view the system has generally worked well over the years”. Mr. de Jong merely wants a look at ”fine-tuning some of the issues”.

Stephen Owen said: “I don’t see the recent cases as suggesting the system needs to be dramatically changed or doesn’t work, but it should be reviewed to see if it can be improved.”(May, 2010)

The category of Special Prosecutor needs, I believe, dramatic rebuilding or abolition altogether.  But both (Liberal) Michael de Jong and (Liberal) Stephen Owen soft-pedal the abuse that has taken (and is taking) place. I believe the process of appointment of Special (Crown) Prosecutors has been regularly abused.  I believe it has been employed politically to protect wrongdoing by the Gordon Campbell government.  I am forced to the suspicion that the de Jong/Owen move is an attempt to cover up a sorry condition needing complete overhaul.

That moves me to ask about Stephen Owen’s suitability to undertake the review.  Is conflict of interest and/or the potential for perception of conflict of interest on his part so strong as to rule him out?  Owen was, and presumably is, a Liberal.  He was deputy Attorney General in the B.C. ministry, and he was a Liberal MP.  He is presently – by job description – “responsible for guiding and enhancing engagement with government at all levels” for UBC…. Can such a person ALSO act as an unbiased critic (as a Liberal) of a B.C. (Liberal) government process (and ministry) under serious attack?

The answer, I believe, is that he cannot possibly act as an unbiased critic.

As if to make a fantasy of the whole “review” process, Mr. Owen very likely SHOULD NOT have been appointed because of “the potential for perception of bias or the incontrovertible bias” he will show in any work he does on the matter. He has been appointed to look at the potential for perception of bias or incontrovertible bias shown in the appointment of Special (Crown) Prosecutors!

Every Special Crown Prosecutor appointed since the election of Gordon Campbell in 2001 must be suspect.

Every appointee must be carefully and completely examined. (What were his/her connections to the Campbell Machine? What was he/she paid?)

How much is the Special Prosecutor appointment kept as a rich plum to give to Liberal supporters – and how much do they, in turn, contribute to the Gordon Campbell party?

How many of the appointments have been demonstrable, political appointments to further the political aims of, or to cover wrongdoing by Gordon Campbell and/or his associates?

How many have been made in clear violation of the Special (Crown) Prosecutor legislation?

Why is there no check, no review, no process by which potential appointees are thoroughly vetted?

The Letter to Mr. Stephen Owen follows.

(more…)

Canada: A Chance to Begin National Rebirth – Now.

By Robin Mathews

May 15, 2010

A chance has come to Canadians, in a courtroom of the British Columbia Supreme Court … now … to begin undoing the disastrous sell-out of public wealth that has been the major policy of the Gordon Campbell (and – less visibly but determinedly – the Stephen Harper) regime.

Let me repeat – the chance to take real action, within the law, and with the chance of major effect, is present in the BC Supreme Court right NOW. The history of major resource and infrastructure sell-out over the last ten years has produced a moment for action … and it is now.

The policy of extravagant sell-out has just been taken on by Ontario - through an almost unbelievable Goldman Sachs-Ontario government agreement to dump into private hands 49% of “Crown assets, including public power, liquor stores, and the lottery commission”.  (The 49% will stay that amount for the shortest time you may imagine.)

Ish Theilheimer of Global Research and Straight Goods News quotes Ontario NDP environment critic Peter Tabuns.  Staggered at the use of Goldman Sachs “after their role in destabilizing Greece and the world economy”, Tabuns says: “We are talking about the sale of the most lucrative and amongst the most strategic of Ontario’s assets.”

Jay Spark writes: “Transport, security, energy, and WATER are all essential parts….  (In) 5-10 years, Sir John A’s Canada will be only a vaguely remembered entre-temps to ‘manifest destiny’.”

Those items are precisely what the Campbell group has sold off and is selling off in British Columbia – and is working on selling off more.

The opportunity to fight back, now, arises out of the B.C., Campbell group’s corrupt transfer of (publicly owned) BC Rail to (U.S. privately-owned) CNR.  Out of that contorted (and I allege criminally effected – but resolutely RCMP uninvestigated) transfer a single set of accusations against lower order cabinet aides has made its pre-trial, years-long march (from 2004) to trial – to start on May 17, 2010.

But there is a HUGE hitch in the validity of the trial.

(more…)

http://www.vivelecanada.ca/forums/post1664324#1664324
A Monstrous Canadian Miscarriage Of Justice About To Unfold

    by Robin Mathews

Friday,

May 7, 2010

Part Four in the series on the Gordon Campbell BC Rail Scandal.

The miscarriage of justice about to unfold is what I call “the staged trial” about to begin (May 17) as a result of the corrupt transfer of publicly-owned BC Rail to privately (in fact) U.S.-owned CNR.

Canadians sleep-walk through the takeover of their society by thugs and political adventurists.  The signs are clear.  In Ottawa the cynical Stephen Harper attacks the Supremacy of Parliament [the fundamental safeguard against undemocratic takeover]. His power grab is debated as a question of the need to “compromise” on solutions to the denial of essential information to elected representatives. Those men and women,  elected by Canadians, stand embarrassingly naked, (simply) stripped of their power to represent the people who elect them. (And their condition is blurred, misrepresented, and misreported by the “bought” mainstream press and media.)

In Alberta, government allies itself with corporations to produce a (planned) almost unsupervised looting of community and environment – in the tar sands rape.  The whole world notices what Canadians shut their  eyes to. The April (Paris, France) ‘Le Monde diplomatique’ features a huge spread on the subject.  [translation] “The conservatives in power in Alberta have transformed, with the aid of Ottawa, the north of the province into a supermarket of dirty oil for the profit of multinationals and their U.S. neighbour.  The boreal forest is being sacrificed as are the first nations of the region.” The story concentrates on the cynical erasure of native rights –which in recent decades have been a symbol that Canadian democracy was alive and demanding universal equality.

In British Columbia I allege that the Gordon Campbell government - aided by a depressingly servile journalism (mainstream and other) – is engaged in an almost incredible collaboration with RCMP, the higher courts, and the formal political Opposition (poster-group for the failure of Opposition in Canada) - asleep, bribed, or stupid – to hand the province to thugs and political adventurists.

That involves, as we will see, the calculated destruction of law and the administration of justice in the province.

Public wealth is being gifted to private corporations by sleight-of-hand, often in secret contracts, and – I allege – by criminal activity (elaborately uninvestigated by the RCMP).  The tax burden is being lifted from the corporations-in-close-cooperation with the Campbell group and laid on an increasingly impoverished population.  Education is being attacked.  Protection of children is being slashed by calculated legislation. The new Clean Energy Act is a simple ruse to destroy the publicly accountable B.C. Utilities Commission. A slow, continuous undermining of universal health care is – to the observing – a calculated, continuous government policy.

In short, all levels of accountability to the public for the use (and misuse) of government and corporate power are being undermined or destroyed outright in British Columbia.

(more…)

Editor - RadicalPress.com:

RE: HST & Olympic spending
In regards to the HST Tax and the Olympics I believe the HST is for paying for the phony fancy image “prestige” of the Olympics where they spent 10 to 100 times more then they needed to which is destroying what little credibility and integrity the government may have.
Putting on a fancy show to the extreme for prestige is ridiculous as appearances are superficial and of very little value and spending other people’s money such as taxes is what I call criminal. If the  politicians and multimillionaires want to put on a show of prestige by way of fancy expensive looks (which is totally superficial and useless) they’re the ones that should pay for it not anyone else.
The benefits of sports, which includes the Olympics, is learning to work and play well together, i.e. “sociability”, exercise, increasing one’s abilities and having fun; how well you play the game is very important but winning is not as important. Main thing to remember is it is just a game.
To make hard working people pay for expensive looks that are of no benefit to them is totally wrong and unfair.
Jack Cutting

Parksville, B.C.

Jack Cutting jcutting@shaw.ca

RadicalPress Publisher Arthur Topham will be appearing as a guest on RoadKill Radio with host Kari Simpson tonight, April 6, 2010 at 7:30 PST.

7:30 –8:15 pm:  ARTHUR TOPHAM, publisher of the Radical Press joins us to talk about his ongoing battle to exercise his (and mine and yours) right to Free Speech!  A battle that is costing Canadian tax-payers (us) millions of dollars!

8: 20 – 8:55 pm:  Then, one of our favourite healthcare advocates, DEE NICHOLSON will be here to talk about “post H1N1” and the flood of adverse reports that are still coming in daily on the Canadians for Health Freedom website.  Also, Is our Sovereignty “Enlightened” or “Endangered”?

8:55 – 9:30 pm:        Current happenings that will affect you and your family, including the “Day of Silence”, an event coming soon to a school near you!

Be Wise, Be Aware & Be Informed!!

It all happens tonight at 7:30 p.m.-9:30 p.m. Pacific. Listen live at www.roadkillradio.com or check out the archived show later.

CALL IN: On-air telephone: (604) 525-4167 or (604) 525-3974
WHERE: Listen live - http://www.roadkillradio.com
EMAIL THE SHOW LIVE: Roadkillradio@live.ca

http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/Aboriginal-Affairs/2010/03/23/FilmPanel/
Public hearings on mine proposal will include Tsilhqot’in documentary
By Andrew MacLeod March 23, 2010

Taseko Mines Ltd. has failed in its bid to prevent a documentary about the Tsilhqot’in people’s connection to Teztan Biny, or Fish Lake, from being shown at a public hearing on a mine proposal southwest of Williams Lake.

The federal review panel this morning dismissed Taseko’s motion that last week asked that the film Blue Gold: The Tsilhqot’in Fight for Teztan Biny (Fish Lake) not be shown at the public hearing, said Jay Nelson, a Victoria lawyer acting for the TNG, in an email. “It held that its rules of procedure did not prohibit presenting information in this form,” he said.

A lawyer acting for Taseko did not respond to a message by posting time. The submission to the panel said Blue Gold is a “propaganda film, produced to influence the opinions or behaviour of people, by providing deliberately biased content in an emotional context,” the Tyee reported.

The film’s director, Susan Smitten, said she laughed when she heard the company’s lawyer had called the film “propaganda.”

“The film’s power comes in its authenticity,” she said. It was made as a way to help the Tsilhqot’in people express what the threatened lake means to them, she said. “They come from a position of love.”

Views of Blue Gold tripled the day after Taseko asked that the film be kept out of the hearing, she said. Filmed in two days with a budget under $10,000, it has been watched by people around the world, she said.

The film can be seen on the Hook or on Vimeo. It will be shown during the panel’s evening hearings on March 24.
————-
Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee’s Legislative Bureau Chief in Victoria.

[Editor’s Note: The following letter was sent to the Editor of the Quesnel Cariboo Observer by myself after reading the front page article in their March 18, 2010 edition headed: “Public support key to mine project’s success.” (See article below as well)

The story covered an “appeal” given to the Quesnel Chamber of Commerce by Taseko Mines Limited vice president Brian Battison concerning Taseko’s controversial “Prosperity” copper-gold mine slated for development in what is known as Tsilhqot’in Traditional territory, aka the Chilcotin area of B.C. located south west of Williams Lake, B.C.

The one major monkey wrench which Taseko Mines attempts to downplay while waxing eloquent to Quesnel Chamber of Commerce members about money and jobs and progress is the blatant fact that in order to build their mine they would have to destroy a lake (Fish Lake, also known as Tetzan Biny in the native tongue), held sacred by the indigenous residents in an area of B.C. still as yet unceded to the provincial or federal governments in any title settlement.

The letter, to date, has not been published by the Observer and considering its length may not appear in full should it actually be published. As such I decided to make it an Open Letter to Taseko Mines Limited so that the general public would have online access to its contents.

Interested and concerned supporters of the Tsilhqot’in people are asked to pass it along to their friends and associates.

***Further note as of March 25th: The Quesnel Cariboo Observer published the letter in full in their March 25th edition. It can be found at http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_cariboo/quesnelobserver/opinion/letters/89209507.html “The only true way to prosperity for everyone.”

I am most appreciative of the fact that this mainstream newspaper has given my pro-Tsilhqot’in perspective coverage in their pages. Big thanks to Editor Autumn MacDonald.]

——————

Open Letter to Taseko Mines Limited: Destruction of Fish Lake in Tsilqot’in Territory

By Arthur Topham

March 19, 2010

To:

Russell Hallbauer
President, CEO and Director

Ronald Thiessen
Chairman of the Board and Director

C/O

Investor Relations
Brian Bergot
Direct: (778) 373-4545
Email: BrianBergot@tasekomines.com

Taseko Mines Limited
#300 - 905 West Pender Street
Vancouver, BC, Canada
V6C 1L6

From:

Arthur Topham
4633 Barkerville Hwy
Quesnel, B.C.
V2J 6T8

Phone: 250-992-3479
Email: radical@radicalpress.com

March 19, 2010

Editor
Quesnel Cariboo Observer
newsroom@quesnelobserver.com

Editor:

Re: Public support key to mine project’s success, Observer, March 18/10

Your article states that Taseko Mines Limited vice president spoke of many things but he might as well, as the Walrus in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, have spoke of “shoes – and ships – and sealing wax – of cabbages – and kings – And why the sea is boiling hot – and whether pigs have wings.”

All Battison’s talk of “employment” and “millions in capital investment” and “sustainability” and “relationships” sounds no different than what the Walrus stated to the Oysters prior to gobbling them up for lunch.

The “key,” unlike what Taseko is proposing, is not “public support” for a flawed project but the realization, by all the players in this deceptive deal, that the land in question is legally in the hands of the Chilcotin people and that they, and they alone in the final analysis, have the last word in whether or not a mine will manifest within their traditional, unceded territories. Anything else is subterfuge and within the same realm of fantasy as the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland.

Taseko is saying, “Essentially we’re building another Gibralter in the Cariboo,” but my response to that disingenuous statement would be: Actually, no. Due to the manner in which this process is being steam-rollered through the negotiations process what Taseko is laying the foundations for is another Oka Uprising or, an example more close to home, another Gustafsen Lake stand-off, like what we witnessed back in 1995 out of 100 Mile House when the former NDP government and the Canadian military attempted to lie to the public via the media and violently remove a small group of native Sundancers from off of their traditional territory.

For Prosperity the sacrifice of a relatively small lake, Fish Lake (Tetzan Biny in the native language), is not a big deal compared to their gargantuan plans for the future. This may seem quite normal to them seeing as they don’t live in the area or have any historic or spiritual ties to the land there, but for the people of the Tsilhqot’in Nation this small, unassuming and placid lake symbolizes the essence of all that composes their culture, history and way of life.

When Battison stated that, “some First Nation chiefs have expressed ’strong and inflexible’ positions on Prosperity. Opinions, he said, they are ‘entitled to hold,’” we come to the crux of the issue; one that Battison and others would rather not acknowledge and deal with.

When he speaks of “some” First Nations chiefs he is referring to ALL the First Nations chiefs within the surrounding, unceded territories where the proposed Prosperity mine would be located if it were to ever materialize.

Fish Lake is located deep within the Tsilhqot’in Nation’s traditional, unceded territory. As Black’s Law Dictionary clearly states, unceded means the land has never been yielded or assigned or granted by the Tsilhqot’in government to either the federal or provincial governments in any legal and binding treaty. As such it is still legally in possession by the people who have lived in the area for thousands of years.

While this is, admittedly, a rather inconvenient truth for both levels of government and for the corporation that is desperately attempting to circumvent these established facts in order to build their mine it nonetheless is the actual reality rather than what all the rhetoric coming from Taseko’s vice president Brian Battison would have the gullible public believe.

It would be a grave error on Battison’s part to think that the adamant position of all of these chief’s is merely “opinion” that they are “entitled to hold.” Far from it. Their position is backed by history, tradition and legal precedent and for all of the public relations scamming that’s occurring in the media the facts still remain: the land belongs to the Tsilhqot’in Nation and it is up to them whether they wish to allow corporate interests to destroy what they claim is a sacred lake. No outsiders have the legal or moral right to question the position taken by the chiefs. Taseko knows this. The Campbell government knows this. The Federal Conservative government knows this. And you can be bloody sure that the mainstream media also knows it yet refuses, as is their duty and responsibility to the public, to inform readers of this fact of life.

The Campbell government giving Prosperity the “go-ahead” is meaningless within the context of treaty rights and traditional ownership of the land in question.

Another fact, not mentioned, is that no outside body thus far has been able to buy off any of the chiefs and thus create the typical “divide and conquer” scenario among the local chiefs. This is a great problem for both government and Taseko as it’s normally par for the course that they manage to produce a red apple here or there to complete the signing and give-away process regardless of what the people themselves desire.

The abject failure by government, Taseko, the media and the dumbed-down public to concede the fact that the land is still owned and controlled by the Tsilhqot’in people and that they are fully within their legal rights to oppose this massive deception called “Prosperity,” will ultimately result in a clash if blindly pursued; one bound to explode into hatred and violence and potential bloodshed if these government and corporate entities don’t get a grip on the actual gravity of the situation.

The people of the Chilcotin territory are peace-loving and fair-minded but they are also extremely cognizant of the history of their people and past attempts by government to deceive them and exploit their territories. They have proven themselves to be a people strong enough and courageous enough to stand up for their land, their culture and their spiritual values. It would therefore, as I’ve already stated, be a remarkably foolish error to try and force this project upon a people who have stood in defiance of subjugation since the European settlers first set foot in their territory.

All the talk therefore about “working with” First Nations; providing “employment” and “partnerships” and “opportunities” for “training” and “advancement” is nothing but smoke and mirrors that the chiefs and the people they represent see through.

It’s time we stopped promoting all the feverish pitch for Taseko along with the selfishness and greed and lying and started respecting the wishes of our first people. That is the only true way to prosperity for everyone.

Arthur Topham

Cottonwood, B.C.

————————–

Quesnel Cariboo Observer
Public support key to mine project’s success

By Autumn MacDonald - Quesnel Cariboo Observer
http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_cariboo/quesnelobserver/news/88493392.html

Published: March 18, 2010 

He spoke of employment, hundreds of millions in capital investment, sustainability and relationships.

“And the key to it all is public support,” he said.

“Let your voice be heard.”

Taseko Mines Limited vice president Brian Battison appealed to Chamber of Commerce members Wednesday, first running through the company’s operations at Gibralter, then moving onto one of the most talked-about mining opportunities in the country: Prosperity, one of the largest undeveloped copper-gold deposits in Canada.

“Essentially we’re building another Gibralter in the Cariboo,” he said.

To do so, the company needs manpower – and a lot of it.

“Seven hundred construction jobs over a two-year period [to build it],” Battison said, using point-form to highlight economic benefits.

“Operating jobs, as many as 500 for 20 years, 1,200 additional indirect jobs.”

The operation also requires $800 million in capital investment and $200 million in spending every year, totaling $5 billion over the 20 plus life-span of the mine.

“All of this effort, all of this spending, all of this employment, all of this opportunity will contribute significantly to the future and sustainability of regional communities in the Cariboo-Chilcotin and the central interior,” he said.

Of course, he said, it comes at a cost.

Developing Prosperity means the draining of Fish Lake, average depth of 12-feet and home to rainbow trout.

“We wish it were otherwise,” he said.

“We searched hard for a different way, a way to retain the lake and have the mine. But there is no viable alternative.”

Because the deposit and the lake sit side-by-side.

“It is not possible to have one without the loss of the other,” he added.

However, he said, they can compensate for the loss by building a new lake and creating new fish habitat.

“The Cariboo-Chilcotin region covers an area of 80,262 kilometres or 20 million acres” Battison said.

“The area directly impacted by Prosperity totals 5,420 acres.”

Battison explained some First Nation chiefs have expressed “strong and inflexible” positions on Prosperity. Opinions, he said, they are “entitled to hold.”

“Our belief is that many First Nations people themselves hold other views, views that are more flexible, thoughts that are more progressive, ideas that look to the future with hope and optimism,” he said.

“They believe that not all change is bad.”

Battison said the company believes there exists the ability to combine the historic First Nation traditions and ancient practices with the benefits of full participation in modern society.

Recently, the provincial government gave the go-ahead to Prosperity, stating the project has no adverse environmental impacts, except that of Fish Lake.

The provincial environmental assessment certificate also outlines a number of commitments Taseko must fulfill.

These include working with First Nations, providing opportunities for employment, promoting partnerships with First Nation neighbours and providing opportunities for training and career advancement for employees.

Starting Monday the federal evaluation begins. A three-member panel is flying into Williams Lake. The process includes a 29-day review, 17 of those will be spent in First Nation communities.

“The public needs to make their views known,” Battison said.

“The key to this project’s success is community impact. The first meeting we had in the provincial process, more than 500 people attended. It had an impact.”

Because the reality of resource development today, he said is “people need to fight for it.”

Public hearings begin March 22 in Williams Lake, 10 a.m.

Those wishing to present to the panel are requested to register by contacting the panel manager Colette Spagnuolo, 1-866-582-1884 or e-mail, prosperity.review@ceaa-acee.gc.ca .

Residents can also outline their comments on the project at the above e-mail address.

————————

Three Letters On the BC Rail Scandal

By Robin Mathews
RadicalPress Contributor
rmathews@sfu.ca

This is the first part of a four part series.  Three letters are to “officials” I believe are in dereliction of their responsibility to law and the administration of justice.  The fourth part is an overview placing the BC Rail Scandal and the Gordon Campbell government in relation to the present, persistent attack on democratic accountability across the Western World.

The first – to Gary Bass, RCMP Deputy Commissioner (BC) and Commanding Officer of “E” Division. Copies sent by surface mail and e-mail to Gary Bass.

Dear Deputy Commissioner Bass:

Earlier I wrote to you to ask you to undertake criminal investigation of the actions of Gordon Campbell and his associates in the corrupt transfer of BC Rail to the CNR.

I pointed out to you that a mass of evidence has been brought forward to the Supreme Court of B.C. by the disclosure applications of Defence counsel, and that they – in open court – have repeatedly claimed that evidence exists that the accused in the Basi, Virk, and Basi case were following the policy of their seniors, and/or were acting as mandated to do, and/or were directly instructed by seniors.

In the material I have referred to – and more that would be available to your organization – I believe evidence rests to allege criminal breach of trust and perhaps more, by the Gordon Campbell group.

Further, reasonable investigation by the RCMP of BC Rail matters would almost certainly bring to light more evidence – despite the destruction of key materials by the Gordon Campbell structure – almost two years of key e-mail materials – without satisfactory explanation or any investigation by the RCMP, your Force.

An investigation, moreover, into the dessication of BC Hydro would, I believe, also reveal criminal behaviour by Gordon Campbell and his associates.  I formally ask you for an investigation of the separation of BC Hydro into parts, the move to prevent it from expanding energy generation,  the agreements involving the participation of Accenture in formerly BC Hydro work, and all other aspects of the de facto privatization of what were traditionally BC Hydro activities.

Beyond making here a formal request for criminal investigation of the BC Hydro matters, I will confine the subject of this letter to the BC Rail Scandal.

You have refused to conduct the criminal investigation I have asked for in the BC Rail Scandal matter – the corrupt transfer of BC Rail to CNR.

I remind you that the B.C. RCMP – at the instigation of people connected to the Gordon Campbell constituency office [you being a highly placed BC RCMP officer at the time] - undertook a criminal investigation of long duration and at high cost to determine if then-B.C. premier Glen Clark had criminally received benefit from eight to twelve thousand dollars worth of sun-deck work he had done at his private residence in Vancouver’s East End. [But you will not investigate Gordon Campbell and his associates in the corrupt billion dollar transfer of BC Rail to the CNR.]

After 136 days of expensive Supreme Court trial presided over by Madam Justice Elizabeth Bennett – despite the concentrated efforts of your B.C. Force -  Glen Clark was acquitted of all suspicion of wrong doing.  Madam Justice Elizabeth Bennett would grant no considerations of false or faulty procedure though the whole case bristled with suspicious activity.

You will, of course, remember well some of the suspicions aroused by the case against Glen Clark.  I refer you, for instance, to the Globe and Mail, January 7, 2002 – front page.  The story there reminds us that the chief investigating RCMP officer on the Glen Clark case was a political ally of Gordon Campbell and was asked by Campbell – on more than one occasion – to run for office.  Peter Montague played out his role while you were, at least, a senior RCMP officer.

You will know, too, that the investigation I requested into the (generally accepted) dubious investigation techniques of the RCMP in the Glen Clark matter was shut down by experienced RCMP officers. The Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP reported the investigation I requested was wrongfully shut down.  I wonder if you ordered the wrongful closing of that investigation?

Peter Montague was a bizarre choice as chief investigating officer in the Glen Clark case.  In the earlier “Gustafsen Lake stand-off” in 1995, he was deeply involved in what has been (with mountains of supporting evidence) repeatedly alleged to have been an RCMP, B.C. government, Canadian Army, B.C. Supreme Court, and Mainstream Press and Media “operation” in defiance of all Canadian law to subdue some twenty or more Native people attending and attempting peaceably to protect a Sun Dance celebration.

Peter Montague is alleged to have lied to CBC in order to get special radio time.  He is alleged to have taken part in the falsification of documents to the Department of National Defence in order to justify a military presence at Gustafsen Lake.  In the Vancouver Province of January 21, 1997, Holly Horwood refers to the RCMP’s “disinformation and smear campaign” at Gustafsen Lake.  Sgt. Dennis Ryan admits to using the terms.  Horwood goes on: “On the tape, parts of which are missing, RCMP information officer Peter Montague says with a smile that : “Smear campaigns are our specialty”.

In an interview with Arthur Topham of The Radical in November 2000, John (“Splitting the Sky”) Boncore, deeply involved in the events, tells of the false story about armed Natives.   Boncore says “they [RCMP] had forgot to shut the camera off and so we had the footage which showed that the statements make by Peter Montague of the RCMP and subsequently reiterated by Attorney General Ujjal Dosanjh, that the two men jumped out of the truck with AK-47s and were shooting at the police and which precipitated the whole shooting incident where thousands of rounds were fired into the [Native] camp was nothing but fabricated lies”.

[One has to ask if that kind of behaviour is not echoed in the Globe and Mail Editorial of December 9, 2009.  The Editorial reads, concerning Robert Dziekanski: “The RCMP brutally killed a new-comer to Canada, put out fake information into the public sphere while investigating themselves, then refused to correct the record….” That was done with you as top RCMP officer in the Province, and one has to ask if you sanctioned the false information provided to the public, referred to in the Globe editorial?]

The Basi, Virk, and Basi case, I believe, is a cover-up action – whatever the guilt or innocence of the accused – bleeding attention away from the alleged criminal activity of Gordon Campbell and his associates in the corrupt transfer of BC Rail to the CNR.

Defence counsel repeatedly has claimed that the RCMP was delaying, stalling, responding inadequately, providing chaotic materials … and more in the Basi, Virk, and Basi pre-trial hearings.  A reasonable Canadian watching that process, as I did, might well believe your officer Force, the B.C. RCMP, was deliberately attempting to confuse and obstruct the administration of justice.

The trial of the three accused cabinet aides which is to begin on May 3 cannot have, I insist, credibility.  The Special Crown Prosecutor was appointed, I allege, in violation of the prosecutor legislation.  The RCMP responded to disclosure requests, I believe, in a way which casts suspicion on their intentions.  And – of key importance – from the beginning of investigation, RCMP appears to have (and is alleged by Defence counsel to have) carefully cut and fitted the investigation activities, “targetted” them, in order to avoid charges being laid against anyone senior to the aides accused.

When I suggested in my last letter to you that racism may have been involved in the charges against the accused, you expressed alarm and consternation.  If, however, as many believe, some “White” people were protected in the investigation and three Sikhs were charged … who can dictate what conclusions will be drawn?

All of those anomalies can only be corrected by a full, publicly announced criminal investigation of Gordon Campbell and his associates in the corrupt transfer of BC Rail to the CNR. I formally request you to undertake that investigation without any further delay.

Respectfully,

Robin Mathews

——————

Robin Mathews is a Vancouver based writer and researcher and a regular biweekly columnist with vivelecanada.ca.

To view Robin’s extensive articles on corruption in B.C. politics please go here.

Robin can be reached at rmathews@sfu.ca

Fish Lake: Tsilhqot’in gold stays in the ground
by Carmen Nunez

March 13, 2010

To:
Prosperity Review
prosperity.review@ceaa-acee.gc.ca

Hello.

I’ve received an email indicating I could send you an email to express my views on the proposed project of a gold mine at Fish Lake.

First of all, whatever information you or the other members of the panel, the people of Williams Lake, and the investors are receiving from the people of Taseko Co. is bound to be incomplete and biased.  I have seen published that they went through with all required consultation with first nations in this area and that is just not true.  I live in one of the Tsilhqot’in communities and I know for a fact that there has been no consultation and indeed very little interaction with the people of these reserves.

It is very angering to read in the newspaper how the proposed project is being described, it is being described as something that is going to happen: “So sorry we have to destroy Fish Lake, we’ll do it with sadness, and this is how much money we’ll be making….”  The people of Taseko are assuming that their project will go through, and such an assumption is quite an insult because it implies they are turning deaf ears to the protests of the Tsilhqot’in people.

The statements about environmental impact are also quite ridiculous: “There will be no major impacts except for the destruction of Fish Lake”.  That is like saying “It is not dark, only there is no light” or “We’re not going to hurt you, only hit you,”  I don’t know and I don’t know anybody who knows what the studies of environmental impact were like:  Who conducted them?  For how long?  What is the design of those studies? What data was collected and how was it analyzed?  As a biologist, I know that to calculate the potential damage of a “development” to an ecosystem is an enormously complex task that would require large sums of money and a lot of people working on it for a long time to have some tentative answers.  So, the absolute statement “There will be no major impact” is to me obviously dishonest.  I think that whatever studies were conducted have to be published in their entirety. It is only fair that the information is made public so that authentic questions can be asked.  What’s the use of holding panels for people to ask questions when nobody really knows how decisions are being made?

It is also very angering how Taseko Co. has been pushing to sell the idea of the mine to the people of William’s Lake, with presentations, biased media, and even ads in the radio saying how the mine will save this region from the economic recession, how it will make things right….  That’s inaccurate, it’s nothing but marketing.

The facts are that there is a crisis in the world right now that has to do with scarcity of fresh water.  Even right in William’s Lake fresh water is being rationed and people experience shortages and having low quality water.  Water is undoubtedly the most precious resource to human and non human populations on this planet and as pollution and climate change get worse clean fresh water will become more and more precious.  In that context it makes absolutely no sense to risk contaminating the pristine, unspoiled precious water bodies of the Chilcotin wilderness.  The lakes and the rivers here are all clean, perfect and abundant in life-giving water.  People here have known the lakes in this area to be sacred; made up of healing waters and if you have ever come to swim in the Chilcotin or Taseko rivers or to dive into Chilko lake or Fish Lake then you will know exactly what that means.

Healing waters, sacred waters are infinitely more precious and important than jewelry and 20 years of nine to five jobs. The development of the mine would not only have the impact of annihilating all life in Fish Lake and destroying a site that is sacred for the people who know it as their home and the heritage of their ancestors, it would also have the impact of destruction of all the trees that would need to go to make way for the roads, power lines, and traffic of machinery in and out of the mine site.  It would have the impact of air, soil, and noise pollution being produced continuously at a place that is now blessedly silent and at peace.  It would have the impact of scaring off the wild game on which wild predators and traditional hunters rely for food.  It would have the impact of depriving the already unfairly harassed and persecuted grizzly bears of a micro habitat that is ideal for them and sustains their life.  It would have the impact of creating an influx of foreigners to an area that is now still relatively autonomous and the safe haven for a people who are made to feel out of place anywhere else.

Tsilhqot’in people have lived in this beautiful and magnificent pristine wilderness for at least ten thousand years.  In all those years there has been no destruction of the land because it has been preserved and loved by the people.  The land as it is, the wild nature, the landscapes, the wildlife all have a profound and personal meaning to the Tshilhqot’in people. This is their home and the home of their ancestors; it is their place in a way that no immigrant to this land could possibly understand.  The colonial government is foreign to this place, and as a foreigner, it doesn’t recognize the value of what is here.  Where Taseko Co. and the government of BC see only dirt, minerals, trees to be cut, animals to be killed, and people that get in the way of progress, the Tsilhqot’in people see their history, their mother, their brothers, and the sacrifice of their leaders to protect the land.

Already during the years of the gold rush there was a huge pressure to rip through the sacred land of the Tsilhqot’in territory. There was the insatiable push of greed and the colonizers did all they could to wipe out the Tsilhqot’in population.  They spread smallpox deliberately; they pushed the indigenous people to their death and then claimed their land as theirs.  They killed off as many people as they could and then settled right there and set up their ranches or sold the land to other ranchers for a handful of cents.  They had the intention of “developing” this area, of mining for gold, and if they had succeeded what is now Vancouver would be at Bella Coola and this whole area would be urbanized, or in other words, lost (no more wild game, no more traditional hunting, no more fishing, no more clean water, no more views of wild nature to put one’s heart back in place).

The only thing that stood between that insatiable greed and the actual realization of their horrible vision were the Tsilhqot’in survivors, the Tsilhqot’in warriors who fought back to protect their land, their place, their right to live, and the lives of their children and grandchildren.  Many were killed, and seven leaders were deceived, betrayed, and hung by what is now “the province of BC”, but still their actions resulted in those greedy plans being postponed… Until now.

“The province” never gave up their desire to extract the gold from the heart of the Chilcotin range. What is happening now is not a new story, it is merely the continuation of what is traditionally known as the Chilcotin war.  The push for Taseko Mining Co. to move in here like it’s theirs is another advance of the drive for colonization and the annihilation of the Tsilhqot’in people.  It is a provocation for war, as clearly as anything can be and for people here, the protection of the land is a matter of life or death.  There are elders already saying, “I will die to protect Fish Lake”.  Why?  Because Fish Lake means everything.  Fish Lake means the Tsilhqot’in nation is still a free nation. It means the Tsilhqot’in people still have their land to rely on; they can still fish and hunt and live off the land; they can still gather as they have for thousands of years; they can still honor and respect as sacred what their ancestors honored and respected as sacred for thousands of years.

This area is still Tsilhqot’in land. As soon as you cross the so-called Fraser River coming this way you feel this area belongs to the people of  the Tsilhqot’in.  You can feel in these communities the independence and lifestyle of the people is still protected. There is still traditional fishing and hunting. There is still a connection to the land, knowledge of the land. There are still not that many foreigners to disrupt the familiarity and peaceful pace of life out here.

The presence of a mine deep in the heart of the Chilcotin area would shatter that peace and familiarity, that sense of autonomy and power, and the bonds and workings within the communities.  A mine would bring with it truckloads of workers with their accompanying alcohol, drugs, garbage, racism, appropriation of the land, prostitution and so on.  Fences would go up and the traditional ways of sharing the land would be impeded.  People from here would no longer have the power and freedom to go anywhere they please within their territory.  What is now a perfectly beautiful and sacred site would be an enormous dump, a scar, a symbol of greed and unnecessary exploitation of the land, yet another case of rape of the mother of us all (the Earth).

Would the Tsilhqot’in elders have their traditional gathering at “Prosperity Lake”? Tsy’los watches over Fish Lake. Would he rather watch his people participate in the exploitation of the land or would he like to watch them honor mother Earth and gather to celebrate and enjoy what she offers?

All of this might sound like nonsense to investors and stockholders who can only think in terms of money, costs and profit.  It might sound like nonsense to people in the cities, people who have never come to see Fish Lake; to people who have no connection to this land whatsoever, but it is not nonsense to the people who live here.  I live here and I can say in all sincerity I genuinely love this land. I love this place as it is and I appreciate and cherish the Tsilhqot’in communities and people just as they are. No amount of money can pay for the loss of beauty, for the loss of freedom, for the loss of wild nature.  The toxic waste that a gold mine can produce doesn’t miraculously disappear, it is made to stay. It stays.  The fallen trees stay gone, the fish stay gone, the wild game stay gone and there is no money or gold that could bring them back.

If the waters of the Chilcotin river become polluted there will be no money that could clean them.  No more healing waters; no more jumping in to feel born again; no more fishing for salmon like the ancestors did.  No more fishing nets; no more missing work to stay home and cut up all the fish you caught the night before; no more hunting for moose and sharing the meat with all your neighbors. That has no price.  It can’t be said or understood in terms of money for money is only an illusion anyway.  What good is money if you can’t drink from the river right in front of you?  What good is money if you have to stay thirsty when you’re out in the bush, lest you poison yourself by drinking up uranium or some other heavy metal from a creek nearby? What good is money if you can’t share with your children the teachings and activities that your grandparents shared with you? A gold mine out here is just not worth it.

Artist: Robin Koni

It is not worth it for any Tsilhqot’in person immediately and it also not worth it for anyone else ultimately.  People would get the chance to be miners and ruin their health while selling their soul for twenty years and then what?  What after the mine?  Would Taseko Co. continue to pay the workers’ salaries after the mine is closed?  Would any of the locals of the Chilcotin-Cariboo be a millionaire by the time the mine closes down?

Only the stockholders of Taseko Co. would be millionaires, everyone else is just a means to make them so. The fact is that the people of the Chilcotin-Cariboo would benefit more from conserving their most precious asset: wild nature.  Money could be invested in projects of eco-tourism, sustainable agriculture and sustainable energy. There are many ways in which the economy of this region could be revitalized.

Really, there is no need to damage this planet any more. There is no need to generate any environmental damage in this area. There is no need for any more abuse and damage to first nations people.  Nobody needs gold to live. A gold mine is not a human necessity and we can all live without it. That is a fact.

We can choose to walk down a path that leads us to justice, peace, and harmony. There is no need to repeat the patterns of greed and mindless destruction that have already caused so much damage to ecosystems and to people all over the world.  I say end the gold rush already, end the greed, end the illusions.  Clean water is truly precious. The pristine and unspoiled water bodies of the Chilcotin range are its true wealth.

Tsilhqot’in gold stays in the ground.

Thank you, and please share this with as many people as you can.
————-

Carmen Nunez can be reached at sersuave@gmail.com

Tsilhqot’in chiefs protest Prosperity mine

By Erin Hitchcock - Williams Lake Tribune
February 16, 2010

http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_cariboo/williamslaketribune/news/84423087.html

“The land is very vital to our people and where we make our livelihood. We want our waters to remain pure for the fish and for our people’s survival”  -Tl’esqox Chief Francis Laceese

Dozens of protesters held up signs on Highway 97 between McLeese Lake and MacAllister Thursday afternoon to show their opposition to the destruction of Fish Lake should Prosperity mine be built.
Among those protesting were Xeni Gwet’in Chief Marilyn Baptiste, ?Esdilagh Chief Bernie Elkins, Tl’esqox Chief Francis Laceese, Ulkatcho First Nation Chief Allen Louie, and Lhtako Dene Nation Chief Geronimo Squinas.

They, as well as members from First Nations communities and their supporters, displayed messages such as “Our lakes and our rivers are our life, Our elders won’t gather at a mine site, Our pristine lakes are the heritage for our children and grandchildren, You know you hit rock bottom when you’re a miner,” and “Water is more precious than gold.”

They were also protesting the B.C. government’s recent decision to grant Taseko Mines Ltd. an environmental assessment certificate for the mine following the provincial review process that was completed.

A federal panel is still reviewing the mine project and will hold public hearings beginning March 22 in Williams Lake.

If built, the copper-gold mine would be built about 125 kilometres southwest of Williams Lake at Fish Lake (Tetzan Biny), which First Nations chiefs say is sacred and in the Tsilhqot’in declaration of rights area.

As part of its Fish Compensation Plan, Taseko Mines Ltd. would build a new lake and fill it with fish to replace Fish Lake that would be compromised for the mine.

Laceese, holding a sign that read “Free the Tsilhqot’in you just might free Tibet,” said many Tsilhqot’in members and other supporters were demonstrating Thursday because they don’t want to see the mine go through.

“The land is very vital to our people and where we make our livelihood,” Laceese said. “We want our waters to remain pure for the fish and for our people’s survival.”

He said the protesters wanted to send a strong message to the government and the mining industry that the Tsilqot’in Nation is going to stand firm against the mine.

“We have a lot of allies that will be supporting us right across B.C. and right across Canada,” he said. “Our people are very concerned about this proposed mine and we can’t stand back any longer to let them just push it through and rubber stamp the whole process.”

Baptiste — with signs behind her that said “destroying Fish Lake not the answer” and “blue gold” — said the protesters were trying to get the attention of the world.

“We are looking to save our fish, our waters, the headwaters of the Taseko River and Taseko lakes, which are a part of that wild salmon run that is part of the Chilko run,” Baptiste said.

She said the protest would get more people to realize they do have a voice and that there are First Nations who are concerned.

She said the protesters gathered were a fraction of the Tsilhqot’in people who are concerned about their aboriginal right to hunt, fish, and gather food and medicines.

She added that the B.C. environmental assessment process is “a rubber stamp” process that has never turned down a mine.

Baptiste said a joint review panel process should have been used, not the B.C. environmental assessment process and the federal panel review process. A joint review process, she said, would have included First Nations, the provincial government, and the federal government.

“Through B.C. Supreme Court and our aboriginal rights and title case, this proposed mine is in our Eastern trap line in the declaration of rights area,” Baptiste said, adding that since the Tsilhqot’in Nation has never given up its rights or title, the mine should have been reviewed only under a joint review panel.

“Our land is not for sale, has never been for sale, as we have never entered into the treaty process, and we don’t intend to,” Baptiste said.

Brian Battison, vice president of corporate affairs, said all of the First Nations concerns will be addressed through the federal review process.

“Those questions may be asked and they’ll be addressed in the federal process as they were addressed in the provincial process,” he says.

———————–

UBCIC’s Protecting Knowledge Conference site: http://www.ubcic.bc.ca/Resources/conferences/PK.htm

Follow UBCIC on Twitter at http://twitter.com/UBCIC

On behalf of my lovely wife Shastah and myself I want to take this moment to thank everyone who made our trip to the 24th annual George Orwell dinner in Victoria, B.C. a reality.

Travel from our relatively remote area of the province to the island is expensive and it was only due to the generosity of those who donated funds that we were able to attend this important gathering of free speech advocates from across Canada.

This was the second time that we were able to enjoy the fellowship of people on the front lines of those fighting to retain the right to speak out their truths in the face of a brutal and alarmingly dangerous force: the government of Canada and its bureaucratic agent known as the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC).

Due to time restrictions at the moment I cannot elaborate on the meeting but will do so over the next while.

Arthur Topham

Pub/Ed

RadicalPress.com

Teztan Biny/Fish Lake Petition
http://www.protectfishlake.ca/petition

Teztan Biny is part of the Tsilhqot’in homeland and the Taseko River / Fraser River watershed.

At Teztan, Nabas, and Jididzay, Tsilhqot’in families have hunted, trapped and fished, and gathered medicines in their traditional way of life for decades, just like their ancestors, the Esghaydam, did before them.

Today, Teztan is still a beautiful and powerful place where they go to practice their culture and preserve their way of life. Since settlers came into their land, they have worked hard to protect their culture and their way of life from the settlers destructive ways. Now Taseko Mines Ltd. wants to build a huge mine there. They want to cut the trees, tear up the land, and make a lake of poisoned waters there, forever destroying this lake. We do not want to see Teztan Biny/Fish Lake and the lands and waters poisoned and destroyed for short-term gain. We want to see it preserved for our lives, for our children, and for our grandchildren after them.

We all say ‘No’ to this mine and the destruction of the land and our clean water resource.

Thank you very much for signing the petition.

Please take a minute and forward this petition to your friends and family that they can sign it as well.

To comment directly to both the federal and provincial governments before midnight May 25, 2009, here’s the contact information:

Garry Alexander
B.C. Environmental Office
P.O. Box 9426, Stn Prov Govt
Victoria, B.C.
V8W 9V1
Fax: 250-356-6448
E-mail: eaoinfo@gov.bc.ca

and

Colette Spagnuolo
Panel manager, CEAA
160 Elgin Street
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0H3
Fax:  613-957-0941
E-mail:  prosperity.review@ceaa.gc.ca

Photo credit: WCWC

BC’s Rivers: Is Anyone Listening?

by Arthur Topham

May 1, 2009

The Royal Canadian Legion in downtown Quesnel was likely the most popular spot in town on Thursday evening, April 30th and considering that the Canucks were playing at the same time it was little short of a miracle that so many local citizens would have taken the time to leave their homes.

What could possible draw a near full house of hockey enthusiasts away from the tube on a week day evening other than a national emergency? Well, as Joe Foy of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee so aptly put it, there’s another emergency happening right here in B.C. that may be as critical and important to all British Columbians as any other crisis that the nation as a whole has ever faced.

And what on earth could be so important? As Foy went on to explain to a rapt audience of concerned listeners, that biggest scam being pulled off on the people of the province; one engineered by the very people elected to represents the interests of electors of British Columbia, was what the Save Our Rivers Society was here to explain to people.

That “scam”, as former Social Credit Environment Minister, author and renowned Vancouver radio broadcaster Rafe Mair told the audience (in no uncertain terms), is the total selling off by the Liberal government of Premier Gordon Campbell of BC’s public ownership of the streams and rivers that are the lifeblood and, as Rafe summed up in his provocative talk, the “soul” of this province’s geographic and ecological treasures; ones which make British Columbia the most beautiful and prized piece of real estate on the face of the planet and upon which all our other economic and social assets, as well as the free flowing vitality of the natural ecosystems, depend for their existence.

The Save Our Rivers crew from Left: Joe Foy - Western Canada Wilderness Committee, Melissa Davis - B.C. Citizens for Public Power, Rafe Mair - Save Our Rivers Society, Mike Bruce, Union Rep & MC
Photo credit: Radical Press
____________________________________________________________________________

Rafe Mair, now retired from politics and broadcasting and into the 78th year of his earthly sojourn, sporting a light beard, a jolly belly and a trusty cane, has been leading a a series of public awareness meetings throughout the province to try and drum up public awareness and interest in what he feels is an upcoming provincial election whose outcome could have a devastatingly negative impact on all future generations in the province should the Liberal Campbell government be returned to power and be given free reign to fulfill their self-chosen, hidden mandate to sell off BC’s rivers to foreign corporate interests.

Over a decade ago Mair published a book called Canada: Is Anyone Listening? in which he presented his views on the state of the country. Today, he could just as easily write another one, were there enough time, titled “BC: Is Anyone Listening?” On this night in Quesnel there were people listening and to put it mildly they weren’t impressed with what they were hearing.

Representing a non-profit, publicly funded organization called the Save Our Rivers Society, see http://www.SaveOurRivers.org , the former politician and broadcaster and now elder environmentalist and contributing writer to the online news site http://www.thetyee.ca , has been traveling around the province with an entourage of other public figures in a somewhat desperate attempt to alert voters to the real situation that exists regarding the state of our publicly owned utility known as BC Hydro and how it’s being hijacked by corporate interests and aided and abetted by the Campbell Liberal government in Victoria.

Accompanying Rafe with his traveling salvation show in favour of the salmon, the streams and the environment was Joe Foy, spokesperson for the BC based Western Canada Wilderness Committee, BC’s longstanding, dedicated and trusted environmental organization noted for numerous accomplishments in the way of protecting British Columbia’s eco systems and wildlife habitat from the devastating effects of overly zealous industrial logging and mining interests who tend, at times, to put the dollar and the interests of the corporate boardroom above the natural environment.

Also included in the list of speakers was Melissa Davis from BC Citizens for Public Power see http://www.citizensforpublicpower.ca who began the evening’s discussion with an introduction to her organization’s efforts over the past few years to draw public attention to the urgency of what has been taking place behind closed doors in Victoria with respect to the Liberal agenda for privatizing BC’s publicly owned natural resources.

Of particular note were Melissa’s comments regarding the broken Liberal promise in 2001 to “not sell or privatize BC Hydro’s dams, transmission lines, water resources, or other core assets” followed by a grim reminder that Bill 30 was brought in by the Liberals to usurp any democratic rights of local regional governments to enact rules for safeguarding their resources thus allowing foreign, corporate interests to prevail over indigenous decisions of local governments in their bid to gain control of all provincial rivers and streams.

Melissa Davis’s third point, one which the audience appeared to understand almost intuitively, was that the Liberal’s willing compromises to BC’s environment and its citizens by the relinquishment of the rights of public ownership of BC Hydro and introducing a private sector model of corporate control of public assets for stockholder’s profits over and above anything else, would automatically ensure that the price people are paying for their electrical needs would dramatically increase in the years ahead. Predictions went as high as a 25% increase in one’s power bill over the next 3 years, this on top of already substantial increases. Rather shocking to say the least! Melissa recommended going to the following website to view a map showing the rivers and proposed projects: http://www.ippwatch.com .

Rafe took to the podium after Melissa’s enlightening talk and opened his remarks with a rather choice anecdote. He had served as a cabinet minister in the Bill Bennett government of the 1970s, along with the Cariboo’s own Socred MLA of the time, the well respected Alex Fraser who had been Minister of Highways for many years and after whom the Alex Fraser bridge in the lower mainland is now named in fond remembrance.

Rafe told a little story about how when in cabinet meetings theywould try to guage public approval of their policies by media comments but that when Bill Bennett really wanted to know how the public were taking to their policies he’d always turn to Alex Fraser and say, “Alex, now what are the folks in “Queznelly” saying about all of this?” Alex would then inform them that they thought if was just a “bunch of bs” and that would settle the question then and there.

In some respects that is how Rafe proceeded in describing the selling out of the province’s rivers and streams and the people’s collective ownership of public utilities such as BC Hydro. He dispensed with all the bs that CanWest media, the Liberal government and the pseudo-”green” organizations are telling the people of the province and got down to the nuts and bolts of what is really taking place. It wasn’t a pretty picture.

“The massive destruction of our environment and the slow but sure death of BC Hydro have been planned and are being implemented without any opportunity for the public to be heard.”

“Why the lack of real consultation?”

“Where’s the proof that we need more power and, if we do, are there alternatives?”

“Experts tell us — so does BC Hydro, for that matter — that with conservation, upgrading present facilities and adding generators on existing dams plus taking back the power we’re entitled to under the Columbia River Treaty, we have no need for many years for more power. So why are going down the privatization route?”

“Why is BC Hydro not permitted to create any new power?”

“Why are we giving away to large corporations the hundreds of millions of dollars BC Hydro puts into the public purse every year to help with schools, hospitals and the like?”

“Why is BC Hydro forced by the government to enter contracts for energy with private producers which cost Hydro more than they can sell it for — buy high, sell low is a strange policy especially for a capitalist government!”

“Why are we approving intermittent power, which only can be produced during the spring run-off?”

“What will be the effect of NAFTA? Will it mean that any American company with rights on a river has all rights, including the right to export it?”

“Will it mean that as long as the American company uses the river, it can ignore the time limit in the lease? The answer to each is probably “yes.””

“Why are we disabling BC Hydro so that it must go broke under the proposed policy?”

All these explosive questions and more were given to the crowd of listeners who sat attentive throughout the whole presentation.

Photo credit: WCWC

The final speaker was Joe Foy of WCWC and he proceeded to pull the plug on privatization plans of the Liberal government. Speaking clearly and forcefully and with extreme knowledge and awareness of the various projects already on the go throughout the province, Joe assured the audience that these so-called “little mom and pop” power projects as the government likes to label them are anything but little and anything but benign when it comes to the extreme destruction of the natural environment and the fish and wildlife that will result from their construction. Using examples such as the Pitt River Project in the lower mainland Foy went on to explain how this environmentally friendly little private power venture would entail constructing close to 40 kilometers of pipelines and river and stream diversions which would reduce the levels of the free flowing waterways by up to 90% and that coupled with power lines and roadways criss-crossing throughout what is now virtually pristine wilderness areas.

In graphic detail and in cogent, convincing arguments Joe went on to expose the absolute insanity and irresponsibility of the Liberal government in determining in secret, private discussions with corporate interests this monumental scheme to steal from under the nose of an otherwise ill- and mis-informed public, the fundamental sources of the province’s wealth and future. When he was finished speaking the audience acknowledged his efforts with a rousing round of sustained applause.

Following the speakers’ presentations there was ample time given over to questions from the audience. One of the first persons to speak was a Chief from the Chilcotin who used the occasion of the meeting to further enlighten listeners as to the problems the First Nations people of the Nemaiah Valley were facing with a similar project by Taseko Mines which was threatening to destroy Fish Lake one of the water bodies the water in their indigenous territories. While it was slightly off topic in terms of the purpose of the meeting the speakers listened attentively to what the Chief had to say and were in full support of his position. To the credit of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee Joe Foy publicly stated, “We’d love to join you at Fish Lake.” He told the Chief that all they had to do was invite WCWC to lend their support and the environmental group would be there within days fully committed to helping the Chilcotin people in any way possible.

Another inquisitive listen asked Rafe Mair why it was that so many of the public were unaware of the issue and how come the mainstream media wasn’t drawing more attention to the subject. That brought a rather grimaced grin to the face of the elder Mair and he proceeded to give the Asper-controlled CanWest corporation a well-deserved tongue lashing pointing out that they have done nothing in terms of bringing this issue to the public’s attention and in fact everything to keep it hush hush or else misinformed by only presenting the government and corporate propaganda and those so-called “green” environmental lobbyists who have sold out and are now capitalizing on the issue by giving their tacit consent to the Liberal’s scheme. With the Province, the Vancouver Sun and the Victoria Times-Colonist all mum on the subject of selling off BCs public resources there’s little way for the public to know what is truly being implemented. That said, Rafe went on to tell the audience that they should visit the websites of those non-profit groups who were giving the rest of the story on this issue and also that they should write letters to their editors and to their MLAs and send information out to whatever lists and groups that people might be connected to on the internet. If the mainstream wasn’t going to cover the whole story then the alternative media and the people themselves could spread the word via the net.

The meeting ended at 9 pm as scheduled and the audience gave the presenters a long and hearty round of applause for having empowered them with new and vital information with which to deal with the problem. The final bonus of course for all of those who had sacrificed their time and left their televisions to attend the meeting was the announcement that the Canucks had been victorious!

Such is life in the Cariboo!
————

Arthur Topham is the publisher and editor of http://www.radicalpress.com an alternative, online news site located in central BC and in operation since 1998. He can be reached at radical@radicalpress.com .

CARTOON BY GERRY HUMMEL  ghummel@telus.net
__________________________________________________

[Editor’s Note: Big thanks to Merv Ritchie of The Terrace Daily for permission to reprint this article. Also for alerting me to the excellent work of Cartoonist Gerry Hummel of Kitimat, B.C. Gerry says please use his cartoons to help spread the word about ridding this province of the Campbell Liberals. Please credit his work and post his email if you use them. Go to The Terrace Daily to see more of Gerry’s fine cartoons.]

http://www.terracedaily.ca/show3831a/POWER__AT_WHAT_COST
POWER: AT WHAT COST?
Ken Fraser
April 17, 2009

The main speaker of the evening was John Calvert, an associate professor at Simon Fraser University, and the author of the book ” Liquid Gold”. Calvert feels that BC has one of the most reliable, secure, and low-cost electricity systems in the world. Yet despite this he sees the BC government jettisoning the public ownership approach. And why is this happening? It is difficult to look into the BC Liberal Party’s mind and find the answer, but he felt that it may be connected to privatization. Calvert also noted that hydro customers will be paying well beyond BC Hydro’s cost to produce energy if private developers have to provide that power in the future.

John Calvert of SFU and author of Liquid Gold speaking in Terrace, B.C. on the subject of the Campbell government’s selling out of BC Hydro to private corporate interests.
______________________________________________________________________________

Calvert felt that about a dozen companies have the major control in the hydro projects in BC today and some of these are American controlled. Lurking into the background related to this fact is NAFTA’s Chapter Eleven. Calvert said that once these American companies become entrenched in BC’s electricity system it may be almost impossible to adopt policies that affect their profit making policies without paying dearly. Another very interesting comment made by Calvert was that First Nations have almost entirely been excluded from the awarded water licenses despite that almost all projects are on territory subject to land claims. It appears that you have to be “first in line” or live on “Howe St.”.

Aaron Hill was one of the two presenters at the public information session, Liquid Gold, held at Caledonia High Sr. School Thursday evening.

Hill is an ecologist specializing in freshwater and coastal ecosystems, with an emphasis on salmon habitat and fisheries. His current project areas include Wild Salmon Policy implementation and ecological sustainability of energy development in BC for the Watershed Watch Salmon Society. Hill feels that the gutting of the Environmental Act has not been beneficial to the environment when private power projects are being developed. The vast majority of the run-of-the-river projects now no longer need to undergo a full environmental assessment. In addition these assessments and the planning approach fail to capture the overall impact of these projects on a region and watershed where the project is being developed. But he did acknowledge that there are some good projects on the go in BC. One example Hill gave was a local run-of-the-river possible project on the Dasque and Middle East Creeks near Terrace by the company Swift Power Corp. One of the company’s representatives at the session stated it has set its standards high to satisfy the environmental assessment as well as individuals/communities concerns about the project.

Over 50 people attended the presentation. A comment by one individual noted that it was interesting how little attention the topic, run-of-the-river hydro projects, was getting in the lower mainland news even though there is a huge number of such projects in the lower half of BC, and that these projects and the government’s moves are truly changing the hydro scene. Another individual stated that people are not against these projects, but only want to be included in the discussions and decisions to determine if the project should go ahead.

For more information, buy John Calvert’s book, ” Liquid Gold” and check the following sites:

www.watershed-watch.org

www.ippwatch.info

www.saveourrivers.ca

911 & Sec. 13(1): Coincidence or Collusion?

By Arthur Topham

April 18, 2009

“The reason men are silenced is not because they speak falsely, but because they speak the truth. This is because if men speak falsehoods, their own words can be used against them; while if they speak truly, there is nothing which can be used against them - except force.”

~ John “the Birdman” Bryant 1943 - 2009

There are important reasons why the 9/11 Truth movement must be discredited in the eyes of the still bewitched mainstream public. One of the more far-reaching ones is the connection between the Israeli Mossad (their official/unofficial spy agency), the insiders within the US administration and the resulting legislation that followed in the aftermath of the premeditated attack upon the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

For the USA, it represented the labour pains purposely induced by a traitorous element within its own government designed to birth the infamous Homeland Security legislation and justify its planned war against Afghanistan and Iraq plus the “War on Terror”. For Canada, that act of deliberate mass murder (better named a mini-holocaust considering the circumstances), had a different, although comparable direct and immediate benefit for the same criminal element now embedded within our nation’s social and political infrastructures whose similar purpose is to undermine Canada’s Constitution, Bill of Rights and our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I’m referring here of course to those Zionist Jew lobby groups within Canada who consistently and systematically seek to increase their stranglehold over the country’s judiciary and government leaders in order to fulfill their own separate, alien and seditious objectives which are to adulterate and manipulate Canada’s federal and provincial statutes in order that the courts, be they judicial or quasi-judicial, may then inhibit and pervert our traditional rights and freedoms; ones fundamental to the harmonious, peaceful functioning of our democratic way of life.

I don’t make these allegations lightly nor do I make them without reason or evidence. I make them because they are a reality in today’s world of politics not only in Canada but in the USA and throughout the vast majority of the world’s nations (if not, if fact, all of them).

In the example of Canada we are now facing the same crisis that exists in another of the former British colonies, Australia, where in the past days we’ve witnessed the blatant ruling by their supreme court which found Dr. Fredrick Toben, owner of the Adelaide Institute website, guilty of 28 counts of contempt, all connected to that country’s legal bondage to the Jewish lobbyists who have successfully infiltrated and taken over the former democratic nation’s rights to freedom of speech and expression and introduced, (better, substituted) their Talmudic Noahide “laws” for those which once were based on British Common Law. As such they’ve been deliberately deceived by these Jewish lobbyists into accepting the erroneous beliefs of the Zionist Jews that to question aspects of history, specifically the scientifically unproven, mythical 6 Million Lie about an exclusive “Jewish” holocaust committed during World War II, must constitute a criminal act, one warranting both incarceration and massive financial punishment.

(more…)

Editor’s Note:

The yahoo group Integrity BC was first started back on March 6th, 2004 by Arthur Topham and former Lawyer Jack Cram. Its purposes are outlined below. For a number of years I have been away from the site but it has, nonetheless pioneered on and persevered in its aims.

Regular contributors to the site ensure that it remains hard-hitting and controversial. A perusal of the latest posts involving former United Church Minister Kevin Annett will illustrate this comment.

Check it out and become a contributing member.

—————————–

The goals of INTEGRITY BC are:

1. To document, expose and eliminate all forms of corruption in B.C. with an emphasis on Government, Judicial and large corporations.

2. To restore faith, honour and integrity in the Rule Of Law.

3. To liaise, support and assist allied individuals, groups and coalitions.

4. To encourage proportional representation and effective accountability in government for the social, cultural, economic and healing benefit of all.

5. To create, promote, expand and share alternative communication networking via the web, newspapers, pamphlets, radio and t.v. for distribution of information, news and events reflecting IntegrityBC objectives and goals.

6. To foster and build a B.C. Peoples’ Movement as an effective independent watchdog to police ‘public’ and ‘political’ party policies and programmes.

7. To expand and to share these goals with other provinces and territories.

———————

Click to join IntegrityBC

THE ARROW LAKES INDIANS ARE RECOVERING FROM EXTINCTION

New Book Tells of a People Who Were Forgotten Until Their Ancestors Were Taken Away

Local author and artist Cliff Woffenden’s latest book is now published. The title Ghost Peoples is the story of the Arrow Lakes Indians. Cliff wrote this book to clear up the many misunderstandings about these people and their place in local and Canadian history.

In 1956 the Canadian government declared the Arrow Lakes Indian Band extinct. There was only one problem - they were still alive. But the government was about to begin negotiations with the USA for the Columbia River Treaty that would dam the Columbia and create a reservoir stretching from Castlegar in the south to Revelstoke in the north. This two hundred kilometer long lake would eventually wipe out all archaeological traces of a culture that had endured for over five thousand years.

To complicate matters, just when the last visible vestiges of their culture were disappearing from the landscape, the people came back to their home to request the return of the remains of their ancestors that were dug up by archaeologists and carted off to museums.

An interesting dilemma for the government. A rediscovery of a peoples’ identity. A clash between two worldviews. The return of the Sinixt Peoples has caused both elation and fear among members of the dominant society. Their return signals the end to the vacuum in our history and on our landscape. It also brings up the insecurities of a society that seems to fear the truth.

Ghost Peoples is the story of the Sinixt: their origins, their culture, their history and their present situation. This story is not one of blame but one that hopes to shine a light on a darkness that pervades our history so that it can be reconciled. Our story is not complete without the truth of our prehistory; our landscape is barren without its original inhabitants.

Ghost Peoples is published by Howling Moon Productions of Nakusp, B.C. CANADA

CLIFF WOFFENDEN - AUTHOR/ARTIST

_________________________________

Contact information: Cliff Woffenden

91 4th Ave NW,

Box 214, Nakusp, B.C. V0G 1R0

250-265-0122

woffend@telus.net
———–

Cliff has been researching the story of the Sinixt people for two decades and lives in Nakusp, B.C. He is available for comment at 250-265-0122 or woffend@telus.net

Dedicated to all who value the truth, free speech and are willing to sacrifice themselves on the “Highway of Public Controversy”

Hi Everyone, 

We are very excited to launch this Hard-Hitting, Pro-Family, Pro-Truth Radio show.

Please help us to make it a hit by forwarding this email to your list and then making a date with us tonight on RoadKill Radio!!!  It’s going to be fun and ohhhh so very needed!!!

With great appreciation for all you do!

Kind Regards,

Kari Simpson

————–

YES TODAY!!!!!!

RoadKill Radio Launches Online!!!!!

And You Are Invited!!

Hosts Kari Simpson & Terry O’Neill

Unabashedly Canadian, BOLD with No Apologies and oh yes, one more thing - we are pleased and determined to ensure those “Politically-Incorrect” voices that have been silenced are given an opportunity to be part of the debate and to have your voices heard!!

WHERE:         Listen live -     http://WWW.ROADKILLRADIO.COM

WHEN:          TODAY!!!  Tuesday March 3, 2009 @ 7:30 – 9:30 pm (PST)

CALL IN:        On-air telephone:      (604) 525-4167

EMAIL US:     roadkillradio@live.ca

TOPICS:

– The naughty Pro-Lifers who dared to exercise their right to free speech and have now been charged by the  University of Calgary with trespassing!

–  Polygamy, do we need to say more?….YES!

–  Gay Politics 101 and other Social Injustices – The Corren Agreement

DOUGLAS CHRISTIE - DEFENDER OF FREEDOM OF SPEECH

___________________________________________________
NEWS  RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE FEBRUARY 23, 2009

INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED CANADIAN FREE SPEECH LAWYER DOUGLAS CHRISTIE INTERVENES IN ABRAMS/B’NAI BRITH V. RADICALPRESS.COM HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL HEARING

QUESNEL, B.C. – Arthur Topham, Publisher and Editor of RadicalPress.com, says he received an email from the Victoria, B.C. Law Office of Douglas Christie on Friday, February 20th, 2009 confirming Mr. Christie’s interest in the current Canadian Human Rights Tribunal hearing process involving the League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada v. Topham and his website RadicalPress.com (Complaint No.: 20071016).

In an email letter to Registry Officer Nancy LaFontant and Tribunal member Karen Jensen of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal in Ottawa, Ontario Mr. Christie stated:

“I am general counsel of the Canadian Free Speech League, and as such I am interested in the case of Arthur Topham. I would like the opportunity to intervene on behalf of the free speech issues raised in this case. We were allowed intervention status in the case of Marc Lemire, and it is our desire to assist in the maintenance of a constitutional challenge to the enabling legislation, as well as to participate in the fact-finding that would be the foundation of such an assessment.”

Topham’s case first came to light back in November of 2007 when Harry Abrams, B.C. representative for the League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada and his co-complainant the League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada filed a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) alleging that he, Topham, Owner, Publisher and Editor of RadicalPress.com was promoting “hatred toward Jews and citizens of Israel” because of articles on his website critical of both political Zionism and the actions of the foreign Jewish state of Israel.

Topham, who has publishing both a hard copy newspaper, The Radical (now defunct) and an online new site since 1998, said that after receiving the complaint back in November of 2007 he filed a hard-hitting, detailed, and thoroughly  documented 13-page Response http://www.radicalpress.com/?p=629 which he sent to CHRC “hate-team” investigator Sandy Kozak sandy.kozak@chrc-ccdp.ca on January 3, 2008.

On September 5, 2008 Topham received the Investigation Report from Ms. Natalie Dagenais, Director, Investigations Division. http://www.radicalpress.com/?p=785 . He was given until September 17, 2008 to comment on the Report. See: http://www.radicalpress.com/?p=786 .

On November 21, 2008 Topham received confirmation from the CHRC that the complaint would be moved to the Tribunal stage with the possibility of a hearing.

On January 14, 2009 Topham received an email from the CHR Tribunal requesting confirmation of whether or not he wanted to enter into a mediation process with the complainants. Topham declined to participate giving the Tribunal his reasons in a letter dated January 28, 2009. See: http://www.radicalpress.com/?p=893 .

With the Tribunal hearing now underway Topham said he was deeply honored to receive word that Mr. Christie had taken an interest in the case and was planning to intervene as General Counsel of the Canadian Free Speech League, a society that defends freedom of expression in Canada.

“No one accused of ‘hate speech’ could ask for or expect a better man of principle to stand by him than Doug Christie,” Topham said. “Mr. Christie has a well-deserved reputation world-wide as Canada’s most prolific defender of free speech, having appeared in the Supreme Court of Canada in that capacity more than any other counsel. Mr. Christie has been defense counsel for James Keegstra, Ernst Zundel, Malcolm Ross, John Ross Taylor, Tony McAleer, Imre Finta and in his most recent case that of First Nations leader David Ahenakew. And so it would be an understatement to say that I was both surprised and deeply grateful for the fact that Mr. Christie would take an interest in my case.”

As Doug Christie states on his website http://www.douglaschristie.com he has “challenged the powers of big government, the income tax department, big banking institutions, “human rights” commissions, social service bureaucracies, and other forces seeking at times to unjustifiably curtail the liberty of individuals.”

“Who could ask for a finer ally than that in my struggle with the League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada and the censors within the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal,” Topham said.

“The root cause of all the legal problems facing writers, bloggers and publishers in Canada is the infamous Sec. 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act. It’s the most specious piece of Orwellian legislation ever to have (dis)graced the law books of Canadian jurisprudence; one which prohibits truth and intent from entering into a person’s defense when such a complaint has been filed against them” Topham added, “and that is why I intend to also file a constitutional challenge to this undemocratic and draconian section of the CHR Act.”

-30-

CONTACT: Arthur Topham

Email: radical@radicalpress.com

Website: http://www.radicalpress.com

Home: 1-250-992-3479

Forty Years is too Long to Hate
by Doug Collins

Nov. 11th, 1985

This item is taken from my first book of columns (The Best and Worst of Doug Collins), published in 1987, and there are three reasons for using it again. It shows what my thinking was in 1985 with regard to old enemies; it has a link with what got me into trouble with the Human Rights maniacs over a decade later, when I wrote that Hollywood’s obsession with the Holocaust was hate propaganda in the form of films; and it has a bearing on the rest of the columns in this section. (From the Preface to the reprinted article found in Doug Collin’s last book, Here We Go Again! 1998)

If anyone had told me in 1945 that I would on this Remembrance Day be writing the column you are reading now, I would have referred him to the doctor. I was a good hater, you see. But time is not only a healer. It’s a teacher.

It’s now almost forty years on, and we should stop making villains of the Germans. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, there can be no other instance in history where so many have been subjected to so much vilification for so long. If such a thing happened to anyone else – East Indians, for example – there’d be hell to pay.

The Second World War is the longest-running movie of all and it’s time for a change of program. That doesn’t mean we should forget the sacrifices that were made. But:

I am tired of seeing bemonocled heel-clicking Nazi officers saluting one another as if the Fuehrer were about to jump out from behind a curtain and make another speech.

I am tired of seeing those clips of the Brownshirts marching down Unter den Linden in that torchlight procession. It crops up in every documentary on the Nazi regime. And there are almost as many documentaries as there were torches.

I am tired of the concentration camp stuff and tired of hearing about war criminals and the trials of war criminals. I am also tired of Simon Wiesenthal the Nazi-hunter. Forty years of Nazi-hunting is a hell of a lot of hunting, and the guy should find another job. Anyone would think that the Israelis have never been guilty of any war crimes.

It’s time we lifted the cross of guilt from the backs of German generations that are no more responsible for what happened between 1939 and 1945 than your seven-year old tad is.

Consider:

There are Germans now grandparents who weren’t old enough to have been in the war at all.

A kid who was 15 in 1945 and shoved into the Hitler Youth and given a gun whether he liked it or not is now 54.

Any German even remotely responsible for the rise of Hitler would now have to be at least 72, the voting age in 1933 having been 21. Most of those who cast a ballot in that un-wonderful year were much older, and are now dead. And millions voted against Hitler.

But the longest-running movie of them all runs on….

This year, in addition to old soaps like Hogan’s Heroes, and 50s late-night oldies like The Longest Day, it was The Winds of War, a ridiculous eight-hour propaganda melodrama if ever there was one. Before that it was Holocaust and others too numerous to mention.

It’s curious, this Hollywood fascination with the Second World War, because it zeroes in almost exclusively on the Germans. The Japanese, who weren’t exactly gentlemen either, are almost ignored. Apart from Bridge on the River Kwai and Tora! Tora!, which latter epic dealt with the attack on Pearl Harbour and made the Japanese look pretty good, I can’t think of any big feature in the past 20 years or so that deals with them.

Yet they murdered and pillage on the grand scale in South East Asia, and the atrocities they committed against British, Canadian, and American prisoners of war far exceeded anything the Germans did. Of those held by the Germans, two per cent died. Of those held by the Japanese, 27 per cent died. Many others staggered home only to expire from their sufferings. Others are still physical wrecks, and will die so.

I am not suggesting that we start a movie war against Japan (someone might hit my Toyota) but that we drop the movie war against the Germans.

Forty years is long enough. Talk about hate literature!
—————-

ALL ALONE ON THE RIGHTS GRIDDLE
By Doug Collins

[Editor’s Note: I was reflecting on this piece this Sunday morning as I read it through. Here was a man of singular honesty, forthright and filled with courage at the age of 77, writing in defense of his sincere belief in the value of freedom of thought and expression. A man who had, at the age of 19, joined in fighting a war that he felt would keep the world free of the sorts of traitorous acts which, 58 years later, would return to haunt him and his work as a Canadian journalist (not to mention the rest of us free speech lovers).

That of course brought to mind Harry Abrams and the League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada who were attacking everything that Collins had fought for (including escaping 11 times from Germany prisoner-of-war camps before the age of 25!) all of which was cause for rumination on my part and the recognition that in today’s world how cheap and taudry have become the old principles of respect for and admiration of our elders especially those who sacrificed so damn much in order that we Canadians of today would have the freedom to express our thoughts and ideas without fear of repression and harassment and imprisonment and fines.

This idea of this relatively young, baby-boomer Abrams and his co-conspirator the B’nai Brith, doing their damnedest to destroy the credibility and integrity of one of Canada’s true heroes I found to be exceedingly repulsive and contemptible.

My own Dad, born in 1918 only two years before Doug Collins and a man who also fought in WW2 against the supposed “fascists”, had he the requisite literary skills that Doug did, would likely have taken the same position of Collins on these very issues that Abrams and his pro-Zionist org B’nai Brith Canada are hell-bent on imposing upon the Canadian legal and political environment. When I look at Doug’s picture I also see my Father and become that much more incensed at the thought of what these anti-democratic, ungrateful and miserable, misinformed misanthropes are attempting to do to the most cherished of human values.

And for what I’m forced to ask? So that they can prevent Canadians from weighing the facts both pro and con as per the endless propaganda that’s been literally forced upon the minds of Canadians for decade upon decade? Hardly a justification for making critical analysis a crime.

Now these censors are not only unhappy with preventing “hatred toward Jews” in Canada. In addition to such a totalitarian/Bolshevik notion they also want to stop Canadians from extending any critical analysis to the foreign nation of Israel as well. How quaint. What next? No criticism of the Harper Conservatives or the Ignaiff (Jewish) Liberals or the Layton NDP or the May Greens because they all happen to be in the same bed with the Jewish Lobbyists like the CJC and the B’nai Brith and so in their orgies of appreciation for this racist, apartheid state and their blatant prostrations before their Zionist idol of innocence and endless persecution any protest of a frank and critical nature against them must also not be allowed to enter into the slipstream of Canadian thought? That, I propose, is the intent of this latest attack upon myself and RadicalPress.com. They’re out to set a new precedent in duplicious cowery, one that I could, and would, and will state is on par with Israel’s latest precedent-setting example of humanitarianism respecting their recent slaughter of the innocent Palestinian people of Gaza.

We must NEVER forget men like Doug Collins and what they spent their lives fighting for: the Free Will and God-given Right of every human being to express their deepest ideas and concerns without fear or threat or intimidation by others.]

————-
ALL ALONE ON THE RIGHTS GRIDDLE
By Doug Collins
July 20, 1997

from the North Shore News

North Vancouver, B.C.

Your man Doug is in trouble for saying that the “holocaust’s” six million story is  nonsense, that the biggest influence in Hollywood is the Jewish influence, and that the whole thing has become a business.

Which latter point was emphasized some time ago by the Chief Rabbi in the U.K. As they say in Israel, “There’s no business like Shoah (holocaust) business.”

So while we await the verdict of the Great Heresy Trial, [the one involving Harry Abrams and B’nai Brith Canada. A.T.] I want to ask a question. If the Commissars of Right-think don’t mind, that is. Or even if they do mind.

It is this: how come that I am the only one on the griddle?

A chap called Michael Enright shot his mouth off a couple of months back.

Enright, successor to Peter Gzowski on the ever-holy and blessed – by liberals – CBC Morningside, declared that next to the Mafia, the Roman Catholic Church was the biggest criminal organization around.

There were a couple of squeeks of surprise. But no witch hunt. Little old Michael was in safe hands.

Allan Fotheringham didn’t call him a monster.

The Sun’s Vaughn Palmer didn’t call him contemptible.

Writer David Mitchell didn’t call him anti-Catholic. Which, of course, is by no means as moral a sin as being “anti-Semitic”.

Nobody complained to the Ontario Human Rights Commission about Enright, either. But what do you think would have happened if I had said that those of the Jewish faith were the biggest bunch of crooks outside of the Mafia?

The sky would have fallen. It would have been a case for criminal prosecution under the hate laws. I would have been sued. And burned at the stake.

Take a look around you.

In Alberta a couple of years ago a small magazine publisher was roasted for complaining that the Hollywood film, The Last Temptation of Christ, was anti-Christian and blasphemous.

Jewish groups cried havoc. Supermarkets refused to carry the magazine. And the publisher went out of business.

But what’s this?

Here we have an American rabbi, Yechiel Eckstein, accusing Hollywood of “a very real and pervasive anti-Christian bias.”

A story to that effect was carried on the Ecumenical News International wire.

The rabbi belongs to the the Orthodox branch of the Jewish faith and is quoted as saying that in order to rectify the situation, Christians should put pressure on the film industry in the same way  as pressure has been put on American tobacco firms.

Writing in the North Jersey Jewish Standard he said that Hollywood had gone out of its way to portray evangelical Protestants and devout Roman Catholics in the worst possible light.

“The cherished symbols of their faith are put to blasphemous use,” he declared.

“If there is a Christian character in a film, he is usually depicted as a fool, a liar, a cheat, a diabolical murderer, or a crazy person. And if such images are allowed to accumulate without a response they could prove detrimental to faith and to Christianity.”

I pointed out years ago that you never saw a movie out of Hollywood that featured a bad Jew. For Hollywood, there aren’t any bad Jews.

Not to mention that Christianity, thanks mainly to “minority” pressures, has become a no-no in our schools and that the Christian cross cannot be shown in some public places.

As for the rabbi, I guess it would be OK for him to say these thing even if they had human rights tribunals in the U.S., which they do not. Comment is protected by the First Amendment so he could not be dragged before one.

There’s something else. In many movies WASPS generally are depicted as being sinister.

You might think they were all members of the KKK. Mississipi Burning was such a film.

If you ask me, and I know you haven’t asked me, my comments were like kid’s pap compared with what some other people have said.

I guess it all depends on who your friends are. And what is “right” and what is “wrong” in the halls of political correctness.
———-

Foreward to the Doug Collins book Here We Go Again!
By Doug Collins
1998

“The purpose of human rights commissions is clear: it is to harass dissidence and throttle all serious attempts to fight political correctness. In other words, don’t question immigration or suggest that not all immigrants are equal, and don’t criticize the politics of the pressure groups, who have been handed a deadly weapon. Do ridicule traditional Canada and support the ills that liberal flesh is heir to. We must all subscribe to liberal thought. Or else!”

~ Doug Collins

It brings a blush to my battle-hardened hide, but frankness forces me to confess that in 1997 I became the most discussed columnist in the country, thanks to the Canadian Jewish Congress and other would-be censors. But it still puzzles me that my harmless offerings could create a national furore and, in British Columbia, a media feeding frenzy.

Such are the joys of political incorrectness. Only a few years ago, when men were men, and liberals, homosexuals and feminists did not rule the roost like so many squawking chickens, the columns in question would never have raised an eyebrow.

For such critics I was the serpent in the Garden of the Politically Correct Eden. Sleepwalkers in the major media nodded their heads like clockwork Barbie dolls as your correspondent was put through the grinder, describing me as an anti-Semite, a racist, a dork, and other terms popular with people who profess to hate hate.

The immediate cause of those fulminations was the column “Hollywood Propaganda”, published in 1994 in Vancouver’s North Shore News. It led over three years later to a five-week hearing before a “human rights” tribunal, the inquisitors believing, obviously but in this case mistakenly, that the longer a person is on the rack the louder will he repent.

In the eyes of the provincial government and the Jewish Congress the column was “hate literature”. But neither it nor anything else I have written has been, or ever could be, the subject of a criminal prosecution under the federal hate laws. That much was admitted by Lisa Mrozinski, a lawyer representing the government side. She stated that the need for proof makes it difficult to get anywhere with such complaints in the courts. The implication was that no proof is needed in the NDP’s Alice in Wonderland hearings, where words mean what the inquisitors want them to mean.

A complaint, in effect a charge, leads to a politically appointed one-person tribunal in which an “adjudicator” is judge, jury and prosecutor.

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