True costs

Re: The hot new way to screw up hydro. Brady Yauch, Nov. 23

There have been numerous reports about the economic costs associated with finalizing the boondoggle that is the Site C dam, yet the writers fail to consider the true costs to First Nations in the region. Far beyond what can be measured with a WalMart calculator, expenses will include egregious human rights and Treaty violations, the loss of heritage and tourism value, sunken cultural values, saying farewell to land based Indigenous economies, and long- term, sustainable jobs.

There are long- term, debilitating costs to First Nations for the sake of shortterm construction contracts based on an increasingly dated economic model of government- funded megaprojects requiring well- experienced specialized skillsets of a highly transient workforce. Boom and bust economic projects represent a “false economy.”

The BCUC Report clearly demonstrated that the Site C dam is over budget and behind schedule. When the federal and provincial governments approved the project, they claimed that the severe, irreparable harm that would be caused by Site C was “justified” by the energy and the jobs it will produce. The facts illustrated by the BCUC’s scathing report lead us to strongly disagree. Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, President, Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs