No right to stop pipeline

Dear Editor:

The signing ceremony between the hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en Nation and the federal and B.C. governments to begin a new process to determine the Wet’suwet’en hypothetical rights and stewardship of unceded lands are an incredible insult to investors and taxpayers, as democratically elected chiefs a long time ago endorsed the construction of this pipeline on behalf of those same Indigenous people.

The ridiculous part about this disaster is simple. The hereditary chiefs do not have stewardship of this land today, and they also do not have any legal or moral right to stop anybody from building a pipeline on it.

Scott Fraser, B.C.’s Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation, stated negotiations with the hereditary chiefs will include talks with others with an interest in what happens. We are allowed to assume this finally will include everybody.

We are all migrants and or descendants of migrants, Indigenous people included. To continue to exclude the majority of British Columbians from these sensitive one-sided negotiations is nothing less than a violation of our Charter and Constitutional Rights of being recognized as equals under the law.

Failing to establish who had the authority to represent the Indigenous people before venturing into any negotiations demonstrates an incredible lack of competence on behalf of the politicians and the courts.

Sub-dividing Indigenous People into separate identities at this point in time, is beyond comprehension, as it casts a huge cloud of uncertainty over the whole process of the awarding of lands and rights that have been made by politicians and the courts over the years.

We were held hostage in February. Now we are being held hostage again, and our resource-based economy has stalled.

This project has to go, and if somebody has not been greased yet – it’s too bad. The train has left the station.

Andy Thomsen, Kelowna