Hereditary leader say community has been “betrayed”

“We have been betrayed by our elected leader," said Hereditary Chief Yahaan of the Gitwilgyoots Tribe of the Lax Kw'alaams. He said elected Mayor John Helin did not hold a community-wide meeting to secure a mandate to write “the highly questionable letter to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, which offered qualified conditional support for the LNG project on Lelu Island.

"Our community voted unanimously to reject Petronas’s proposed LNG project,” Yahaan said.

Now the First Nations hereditary leadership has publicly rejected BC Minister of Natural Gas Development Rich Coleman's comments that the provincial government has the full support of First Nations impacted by the Petronas LNG project.

In a press release sent March 23, the leaders accuse Colman of misleading the public in a Facebook after the federal government mandated a three-month delay in the project. Coleman stated that the project "has the backing of local communities and conditional support of First Nations along the entire natural gas pipeline route and at the terminal site."

"First Nations leaders from the entire Skeena river are standing together in opposition to this project, said Chief Glen Williams, president of the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs Office. “Upriver First Nations have been side-lined in the environmental assessment of this project all along, and we are standing firm against it.

Chief Na’Moks of the Office of the Wet'suwet'en Hereditary Chiefs said "We do not support the PNW LNG project, nor have we been properly consulted by the BC government, which seems more intent on ramming this project through than respecting the First Nations, our hereditary leadership and the health of the Skeena salmon we all depend on.  Once again First Nations are being forced to take action because the government refuses to obey the laws of the land. We are salmon people and if we don't defend Flora Bank, there will be no protection for our salmon. The salmon is who we are, and without them we lose our identity and our future."

Read our recent interview with Chief Na’Moks on the opposition to the project here: http://www.ammsa.com/publications/windspeaker/band-flip-flops-lng-namoks-questions-consultation-process