9 BC's choice to proceed with outdated development plans reflects a
backwards province.
The
plans which included building Site C Dam to generate more
hydroelectricity are generations old. Nineteenth and 20th century
technologies continue to be pushed because they are familiar, because
it worked before for W.A.C. Bennett, and because people are desperate
for work. Consequences, who or what will die in the flooding, are of
lesser importance.
BC
is a backwards province in a backwards nation. Most of us who have
moved here from elsewhere have been forewarned. "They do things
differently out there." or "It's 3 or 4 years behind
Winnipeg, but once you've been here a while, you don't notice."
As a backwards province, rich in resources waiting to be harvested or
extracted and exported, we have not focussed on keeping up with the
times. Pollution is "paid for" with a kind of "indulgence
tax" rather than tackled at source. Coal is transported across
the province and across the ocean for other people to burn. The local
ignorance about potentials of solar and wind energy are mind
boggling. How often have you heard: "But the sun doesn't shine,
the wind doesn't blow all the time"?
Because
we have failed to adjust, to update our knowledge, outdated attitudes
prevail. We all know the cliches. British Columbians have "drunk
the economic cool-aid." Have accepted the old lies that dams are
necessary, that development destroys to create, that hydroelectricity
is "clean" or "green" and the least expensive
option. How can it be green to clearcut a forest? To block
fish-spawning rivers? We have swallowed the bait - hook, line, and
sinker. That "civilization" moves ever onward (north). We
believe the myth of progress, that today is better than yesterday and
tomorrow will be even better. What does it matter if we drown more of
the valley?
People
who have never even seen the valley believe they have a right to
decide its future. People who have never even seen any of the food
they consume while it was still alive. While it was growing. Being
produced and harvested. Our southern needs are more important than
the needs and wants of the few people who live "up there,"
First Nations, old settler families, farmers, forestry workers. We
have failed to keep up. We have failed to learn from past mistakes.
We continue to fail to listen to others with valid alternative
opinions.
But
some of them want the dam, you say. Yes, I understand, people need
jobs. A few local businesses are in line, those who will benefit
financially, to whom nothing but money matters. And a large
unemployed population, many affected by the downturn of oil prices,
is anxious, needing money, willing to grasp at anything. But these
facts simply make the pressure to agree to the death of the valley a
kind of extortion.
Jobs,
Yes. Damming a river, drowning a valley, No.
