Tse Keh Nay-open Letter

Tse Keh Nay

Takla First Nation ~ Tsay Keh Dene ~ Kwadacha First Nation

P.O. Box 2310, Prince George, B.C., V2N 2J8

Phone: 250-564-9321 Fax: 250-564-9521

OPEN LETTER

February 22, 2007

Dear Premier Campbell,

The Tse Keh Nay welcomed your Speech from the Throne on February 13. It was heartening to hear that your government "stands firmly for the recognition and respect of Aboriginal rights, title, and self-determination within the Canadian Constitution." And that your government is equally up to the challenge of providing "environmental leadership" as it pertains to dealing with local environmental threats and on the broader issue of combating global warming. And yet, we are very concerned with the apparent contradiction between these important commitments and a recent comment attributed to you in the media regarding the proposed Kemess North mine proposal. It said you were "looking into delays in the process" around that mine's environmental assessment review.

Northgate Minerals Corporation's Kemess North mine is currently undergoing a joint federal and provincial panel review. One of the crucial environmental considerations the panel is considering is whether the company's proposal to use Amazay Lake as a waste dump can be done in an environmentally appropriate manner. We state that it cannot ever be done nor should ever be done because the proposal includes the use of a fish-bearing lake for a mine waste dump. That is the unequivocal position of our communities. And we state that in the strongest terms possible. Therefore, the problem with this particular application is not the length of its environmental review - or so called delays - but rather that this asinine storage proposal should not have advanced this far in the review process in the first place.

Amazay Lake lies in the heart of our territory and is a well-spring for our culture. We have un-extinguished Aboriginal rights and title there, including important spiritual, hunting, fishing, medicine-gathering, burial sites and cultural sites. Since the B.C. treaty process began, each one of our First Nations has made significant investments in time and money to negotiate a fair treaty, one that would reconcile our respective rights and titles with the assertion of the Crown's sovereignty. But that hasn't happened yet for reasons best left to another time to discuss.

To date, we have had limited participation in the Kemess North public review hearings, including the process leading up to them. Where we have participated it has been "under protest". This is because the entire review process is flawed. It does not work for us. It needs to be fixed. Since 2002, the province's environmental assessment legislation has gone backwards. Before then, there was a requirement to have First Nations as partners on a project committee to design individual reviews. In our case, we did not contribute to the design of the Kemess North review nor did we have a meaningful role in how it was eventually carried out. As it is now, the province must deal with two primary issues: 1) reconcile our aboriginal title, rights, and interests with its own industrial development aims, and 2) revisit with us the Kemess North environmental assessment process, given that it purports to evaluate and screen out unacceptable industrial impacts on the environment, which in effect are our homelands.

For the past nine months we have tried to engage the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources to negotiate a mining protocol with us. Our proposal is to work with your government and other stakeholders on a land-use plan that designates where and how mining can take place in our territory. We are more than willing to work with government and industry to develop mines in an environmentally sustainable manner and in appropriate areas. Therefore, we remind you of your commitment to Tsay Keh Dene Grand Chief Gordon Pierre to meet with us in the coming weeks to discuss our concerns. We can discuss this proposal further at that meeting. In the meantime, we ask that your government re-consider its support for the unconventional and socially and environmentally unacceptable mine waste storage proposal that it currently contained in the Kemess North copper-gold mine application. Doing so, we think, would be consistent with your government's pledge to be a leader on environmental matters.

We look forward to your correspondence. Thank you.

In the Spirit of the New Relationship,

Chief John Allen French

Takla First Nation

On Behalf of the Tse Keh Nay