Roland Willson is a practical man. As chief of the West Moberly First Nation in northeastern B.C., he’s got to be.
“The natural gas industry is the main source of employment,” Willson said over coffee in Victoria this week, before heading into meetings with the B.C. NDP and B.C. Green parties. “It’s a natural resource economy up there.”
Of all the industrial activity happening on his traditional territory — ranging from fracking to forestry to coal mining — one development takes the cake: the Site C dam.
With B.C.’s new NDP-Green alliance, and its (Read more…) to send the $9 billion Site C for an independent review by the B.C. Utilities Commission (BCUC), there’s reason for Willson to be hopeful.
“We are hopeful that this stupid project is going to get stopped. They’ve done nothing that can’t be undone so far. The trees will grow back. The animals will come back,” Willson. “I’m pretty confident that if it goes to the BCUC, it’ll be deemed non-viable.”