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BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE Courageous Indigenous leadership on construction and climate change
ALISON TEDFORD
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t is the actions of a few that can create a quality of life for the many,” Chief Patrick Michell of Kanaka Bar Band says. In his speech for the Clean50 Lifetime Achievement Award, he says, “We manage land and resources for future generations. We asked our membership — they said, ‘It’s not a cost — it’s an investment. It’s our children and grandchildren that benefit.” He received the award in recognition of a lifelong focus on the environment for his Band. For Chief Michell, the impacts of climate change have gotten personal. He lost his home in the Lytton fire and now lives with his family spread out among RVs. This summer, Lytton’s temperature soared and the community burned. While the cause of the fire is still under investigation, the circumstance of the rising temperature is attributed to climate change. “Climate change is producing a wolf that comes around straw homes and buildings, infrastructure, and tears it apart,” Chief Michell says. He believes the reality of climate change has implications for the construction industry and for Indigenous business and economic development. “The jobs for First Nations contracting companies and procurement is in renovations to new resilient standards and/or building the stuff of tomorrow. You can renovate
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British Columbia and Canada with resilient buildings and infrastructure. And when you have an opportunity like Lytton, you can rebuild with resilient buildings and infrastructure,” he says. Chief Michell points to the building standards to explain the devastation of Lytton — how the brick buildings survived and how materials that are more sustainable and resilient could avoid a similar situation in the future. He points to a technology called autoclaved aerated concrete as a solution, which has not been adopted in Canada. When asked why this material isn’t yet available, Chief Michell spoke to the conditions around introducing new materials to the market. “We're addicted to our timber, so we prevent technology from coming into Canada that can create jobs in manufacturing, transportation and installation, because the forest industry hates competition, and they have a strong lobbying group. So rather
2021-11-17 9:30 AM
