Full disclosure is vital to integrity

The entire purpose, in fact the sole purpose, of any investigative procedure, like a coroner’s examination, a trial in our court system, or an administrative or legal review panel, like an environmental impact assessment, is to reveal the scope of the problem, and uncover and examine evidence

That was until British Columbia’s NDP government, a cluster of appointed upper-level civil servants, and some ideologically motivated cabinet members like Environment Minister George Heyman got their hands on the system.

British Columbians did not elect the NDP and Greens to tweak Campbell-Clark’s give-away version of environmental management (not protection). Until just weeks ago, a process like environmental impact assessment rested its public, social and legal credibility on integrity of the system.

The critical foundation of integrity has always required full disclosure, public scrutiny, entitled participation by citizens treated as though they are equal, reliance on evidence and data, and an unbiased and fair hearing in front of non-partisan adjudicators charged with conducting the process.

This has always been the intention, and the public’s desire, even though the process has at times gone off the rails in one or more of these areas.

It takes a lot of brass to attempt a constitutional coup in broad daylight. Most British Columbians, and I venture most Canadians, do not support mass transfer of environmental regulatory authority from the hands of Canadian citizens into the clutches of people who insist on acting as though they and the few hundred people in each First Nation are the equivalent of a nation entitled to act outside the laws of Canada.

Surrounded by a battery of non-aboriginal lawyers, anthropologists, sociologists, and biologists, which together with the First Nations they work for have morphed into the Aboriginal Industry, First Nations are today on the verge of overthrowing environmental law and democratic process in British Columbia.

One fundamental plank in environmental impact assessment is a public record of transactions, featuring the evidence and documents presented by the public or participants like corporations. That principle has been thrown out the window in the pending legislation.

Buried in the proposed legislation is this “feature:” it guarantees Indigenous knowledge will guide impacts assessment and ensures “that Indigenous knowledge will remain confidential unless consented to by the Indigenous nation.”

Nowhere in the document is there a guarantee that British Columbians have any “rights,” or that they are entitled to legal status equal to that of First Nations. Who do you think is going to “moderate” – or make those hard decisions that should favour the broadest public interest – when there is a conflict between evidence and science, corporate profit expectations and First Nations demands for power?

This legislation ties the hands of science and citizens behind their backs and hangs them out to dry, while traditional ecological knowledge is elevated to unprecedented status in policy and decision making.

This is not legislative reform intended to serve the vast majority of citizens. It will not place environmental protection on a level footing with industrial exploitation of public landscapes. And it will not treat Canadians equally.

Dr. Brian L. Horejsi is a wildlife and forest ecologist. He writes about environmental affairs, public resource management and governance and their entrenched legal and social bias.