THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 2016 VOL. 73, NO. 85
SERVING FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. AND SURROUNDING COMMUNITIES
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The Fort St. John Fire Department pulled one of their engines 50 feet in 11.88 seconds at the annual fire truck pull in support of the United Way on Saturday, Sept. 17. The firefighters placed second, 0.38 seconds shy of Progress Energy, which walked away from the event with top honours for the third year in a row. In all, more than $33,000 and 11 pallets of food was raised for local agenices. To read more, turn to A4.
From social strain to social gain Amnesty International report on industrial development impacts expected Nov. 4 CONTACT US
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MATT PREPROST editor@ahnfsj.ca
Amnesty International will deliver its report on the impacts of resource development on Indigenous women in Northeast B.C. during a public presentation in Fort St. John this November. The human rights group recently finished its last round of research in the region, meeting with emergency outreach and service providers in Fort St. John to get a sense of the scale of demand facing frontline workers in the latest economic downturn. MATT PREPROST PHOTO What researchers found were agencies Craig Benjamin, an Indigenous rights campaigner like the Women’s Resource Centre and the with Amnesty International, delivers a speech Friendship “in constant triage mode,� filling during a recent visit to the Peace Region. gaps by serving more and more men and non-aboriginals who are facing difficult “When we first came up here a year and times but without a place to go. half ago, they were saying, ‘our hands are
full. We’re stretched to our limits trying to meet the needs of the most vulnerable,’� said Craig Benjamin, an Indigenous rights campaigner with Amnesty. “We come back and they say, ‘well, all those people we were struggling to serve a year and a half ago, they still need us, but now there’s all these other people who are recently unemployed, who don’t have the ability to make ends meet any longer.’� The experiences of local agencies will form part of Amnesty’s report on the broader impacts of large scale industrial development on the rights of Indigenous peoples in Northeast B.C., in particular women. The report will be released Nov. 4 at the North Peace Cultural Centre, with a public panel discussion expected to take place with local leaders. See AMNESTY on A12
Court rejects landowners’ dam appeal MATT PREPROST editor@ahnfsj.ca
The B.C. Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal by the Peace Valley Landowner Association to overturn the province’s approval of the Site C dam. The association sought the court to review a July 2015 BC Supreme Court decision on the province’s move to grant the dam an environmental assessment certificate. That court found the provincial government was within its rights to
approve Site C, despite a Joint Review Panel finding that the dam would cause significant environmental impacts. In its decision released Sept. 15, the three-member appeals court panel concluded that four economic recommendations that the federal-provincial joint review panel made regarding the dam did not need to be considered by provincial ministers when approving the dam. Those panel recommendations included referring the
dam for review by the BC Utilities Commission, as well as having the commission review a long-term pricing scenario that included LNG demand, and reviewing BC Hydro’s load forecast and demand side management plan. The PVLA argued provincial ministers ignored those recommendations in its decision to approve the dam, however, Justice Harvey Groberman disagreed. “The factual issue of whether the Ministers took Recom-
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mendations 46 through 49 into account is also, in the circumstances, of no moment. I would say, however, that I agree with the judge’s apparent view that the Ministers were aware of the recommendations and concluded, after due consideration, that they should not affect the issuance of the certificate, though they might be considered by government after issuance of a certificate,� Groberman wrote. See APPEAL on A12
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