‘We want to have a voice,’ Haisla chief pleads at Gateway hearings
The public relations battle surrounding the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline kicked up once again Tuesday, but the people at centre stage at the start of environmental hearings delivered a more quiet plea and warning.
“I know all the history, laws, ins and outs of the native culture,” said Rod Bolton, a hereditary Haisla chief who spoke at the opening of the hearings in Kitimat, B.C.
“Please, hear me. We will not be walked over again like was done in the reserve system. We want to have a voice.”
Days before the hearings began, environmentalists issued polls suggesting Canadians are opposed to tanker traffic along B.C. coastlines while an open letter from the federal Natural Resources Minister referred to some of them as “radicals” backed by big U.S. money and naive celebrities.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/we-want-to-have-a-voice-haisla-chief-pleads-at-gateway-hearings/article2297578/
