A few weeks ago a Bill Bennett speech was posted on this website. That was the prepared text of Mr. Bennett's address to the BC Legislature. Below is what was actually said in the BC Legislature from the Hansard record. The first part follows the prepared text posted earlier, but it differs following Norm Macdonald's comments (NDP MLA Columbia River - Revelstoke).
This is a quote from Mr. Bennett's response to Mr. Macdonald's comment: "As for coalbed gas exploration and development, I recently asked our government to not include the Flathead in the coalbed gas tenure that was being advertised. If BP obtains the tenure in the Elk Valley, it will have the opportunity to prove to the public how well it operates before it applies to explore in the Flathead."
Mr. Bennett's position suggests that CBM exploration is too risky, hazardous or contentious for the Flathead, but he's willing to experiment with CBM extraction in the Elk Valley to see how it goes.
MANAGING THE FLATHEAD VALLEY
B. Bennett: The eastern half of my riding, next to Alberta, consists of two river valleys, the Elk River drainage and the Flathead River drainage. The Elk River drainage starts high in the mountains to the north. It separates Kananaskis in Alberta from our Elk Lakes Provincial Park. The valley is still high elevation at Elkford but decreases in elevation as it meanders south to Sparwood and then swings west through Fernie. Legendary trout rivers such as the Wigwam and the Fording feed into the Elk River, which flows into the mighty Kootenay before it arrives at Libby, Montana, where there is a dam that creates Lake Koocanusa.
The Elk Valley has supported both logging and coalmining for over a century, and today thousands of British Columbia families depend on mining and forestry from the Elk Valley. The Elk River drainage is prima facie evidence that a major industrial activity can coexist with a clean and vibrant natural environment. Ask the thousands of people from around the world where the best cutthroat trout fishing is, and they'll tell you it's the Elk, the Fording and the Wigwam rivers. Ask any hunter in the Elk Valley, and they'll tell you about huge populations of grizzly, elk, deer and sheep on reclaimed mine properties.
The Flathead River drainage is south of the Elk River drainage, and it forms the western boundary of Glacier National Park, which our U.S. neighbours refer to as the crown jewel of their U.S. national park system. This is an iconic river for the folks in Montana, and we in B.C. must respect that fact.
However, Montana politicians must also respect that the Canadian Flathead is B.C.'s jurisdiction and that within Canada's acknowledged international obligation to steward waterways upstream from the U.S., we will manage the Canadian Flathead in accordance with the responsible British Columbia standards and practices. It doesn't advance Canada-U.S. relations or the debate for Montana politicians to consistently make disrespectful public comments about British Columbia laws, regulations and processes.
Now, an important distinction between the two valleys is the absence of permanent human habitation in the Flathead. Another distinction: the Flathead, unlike the Elk Valley, contains only one major industrial activity, and that's forestry. Although, like the Elk Valley, there is also mining exploration, guide-outfitting, trapping, hunting, angling, camping and recreation in the Flathead.
For the past 50 years logging has been the primary resource extraction activity in the Flathead. The Flathead actually saw B.C.'s first pine beetle epidemic way back in the 1970s. The wise stewards of the day had a very large portion of the Flathead Valley clearcut to stop the epidemic in its tracks.
A few of my constituents and many Americans would like to see logging, hunting, guide-outfitting, trapping and motorized recreation removed forever from the Flathead by the creation of a federal park. If logging was stopped in the Flathead, the major employer in the region, Tembec, would probably go out of business, and for certain, their Elko mill would shut down, throwing hundreds of East Kootenay families out of work.
But the majority of my constituents support the current activities in the Flathead, and they do not wish to end logging, hunting, guide-outfitting, trapping and motorized recreation there. It is, I would suggest, a logical inconsistency that the proponents of a federal park argue that we must stop doing what we've been doing for the past 50 years so that we can preserve the result of that past 50 years' management.
Placing a federal park over the Flathead Valley would prevent local people from enjoying this beautiful area the way they have for generations, and it would kill the jobs generated from the Flathead. Certainly, species like moose, elk, whitetail and mule deer, and black bears all profit from the habitat created by logging. This is, of course, not true of all species. But overall, the Canadian Flathead has flourished under the current management model.
Some people suggest that a federal park would be a great economic driver for the area, but how can they argue that there are too many people in the Flathead and then argue that a federal park should be created that will attract thousands of tourists who will crawl all over the Flathead? As for the huge economic park spinoff, just ask people in Golden, who are ten minutes away from Yoho. They will tell you that the benefits are actually quite minimal.
There's one more thing. Although I do support the tourism industry — and I'm an old tourism operator myself — not all rural British Columbians aspire to work in the service sector. They prefer logging, mining and construction. Thank goodness for the rest of us that they do, because B.C.'s wealth still comes from the ground, despite our postmodern penchant to pretend otherwise.
Over the past five years, with the world price of coal rising and natural gas reserves dwindling, the Flathead has seen a renewed interest in exploration for both commodities. It's believed that there are trillions of cubic feet of clean, pure natural gas trapped in Flathead coal seams. And of course, there's lots of coal in the Flathead.
Unfortunately, the debate about managing the Flathead isn't about management models. It's more like a school yard fracas, where name-calling is the order of the day. The proponents of a federal park trot out the absolute worst horror stories from the U.S. they can find about coalbed gas, often from 20 years ago, when the industry was unregulated.
Our friends in Montana reverse the Sam Slick stereotype that some Canadians love to use against Americans, and they try to paint British Columbians as neanderthals eager to mine the heck out of every square inch. Both stereotypes, I would suggest, are simple-minded. Of course, the provincial opposition is only too happy to hop aboard the bandwagon of simple-mindedness, thereby further reducing the chances of any meaningful dialogue between the different points of view.
Last year a local environmentalist in Fernie, after saying the province had no environmental conscience, claimed on CBC radio that he "could sit on top of one of those great Rocky Mountain peaks in the Flathead and not see anywhere where the humans are, where the humans have done whatever humans do." Only if he sat there with his eyes closed could he say that with a straight face, because there is evidence of humans in all parts of the Flathead, or most parts of the Flathead.
Today the Flathead, with all that activity over the decades, has the highest concentrations of grizzlies in inland North America and a diversity of life that's all the more remarkable because of how far south in Canada it's located, which brings me to the crux of the matter. What management model will work best to ensure that future generations have the same opportunity to hike, hunt, fish, trap, guide and recreate in the beautiful Flathead Valley and see the same vibrant diversity of flora and fauna that exists there today?
N. Macdonald: Two summers ago was the last time that I was in the Flathead. I had the opportunity to camp with the MLA for Nelson-Creston. If it's entertaining in the House to hear him speak, around a campfire, in particular, it's a great experience.
Interjection.
N. Macdonald: It was memorable.
It is a spectacular wilderness. When we're talking about wilderness in the Kootenays, it often includes forestry. That's an activity that shapes the land. It's not appropriate everywhere, and we have set up places where we make sure that the land is not changed by forestry, but certainly, where forestry takes place, you still have what you would call a true wilderness. You have wildlife that is exceptional.
This is — as the member, I think, alluded to — one of the largest valleys that is largely undeveloped in southern British Columbia. It is an exceptional wilderness, and it is beloved of many people. The member referred to the Montanans and how they feel about it. It's clear they have strong feelings about that watershed that we need to respect, but I think the main point is that for people in the area, there is a tremendous love of the area too.
The things I have heard from locals are that there is not only an interest in making sure it stays a place that is largely wilderness but that it also stays a place that is available to locals — that it remains there for the people who currently go there for hunting and fishing, for responsible recreational use and for camping.
There are quotes from people that have been involved in the protection and the stewardship of that area for a long time, talking about the need to make sure that the things we value now are available for their children and for generations to come. It's absolutely possible to do that.
I think there are a couple of principles that we need to be clear on here. One is that local people always have to be involved in decision-making in their area. What I would say is that for the Kootenays…. I know that in our area we will be able to balance the many pressures on lands in a way that is responsible. I firmly believe that, and I don't think that is a position that the member would ever argue with.
It is clear from the Fernie Rod and Gun Club, from Wildsight, which is the local environmental group, and from local government that there are concerns about what is going to take place in the Flathead if the government does not make sure that things are done properly.
There are concerns around coalbed methane. We've been told that there's a two-year moratorium on that. Maybe the member can speak more about that. I think that until it is a proven technology, until we are absolutely certain it is not going to impact that area, it's responsible to make sure that we don't put it in place.
For that matter, I think that's the same standard we would put in place for the Elk Valley. I think that you would want to be very careful with anything like that where the public is not completely comfortable with it.
The other point I would make is that the Cline mine has been contentious for a long time. The member would know that there are a number of issues around the Cline mine that people in the area have concerns about. That project is something the government should simply be clear on that it shouldn't proceed.
The position I have heard locals talk about — this is a longstanding position and goes back, as far back as the '70s and '80s, to efforts to make sure that mining doesn't take place — is that it is an area which needs protection, but the protection should be such that it would allow the activity that has taken place to date to continue.
What I would say again is that in the Kootenays people understand the land and value the land and that we are good stewards of the land. We want to be included on decisions — whether it is with the Flathead, whether it's with Jumbo, whether it's with private power or whether it's with forestry. Those decisions we want a say in. When we're cut out — that is when poor decisions are made and when compromises are made that should not be made.
With that, I thank the member for bringing this important issue to the House, and I look forward to his further comments.
B. Bennett: My thanks to the member for his comments. I agree wholeheartedly that the people of the region should have a say in how the Flathead is managed. In fact, in the year 2000 the then government of the day decided that it was going to implement a secret management plan for the Flathead. They failed to talk to the people who live in the area. They held secret meetings with the environmentalists and announced that they were going to create something without actually talking to the people who live there.
When I was first elected in 2001, one of the reasons I got elected was because I promised that we would undo that secret deal and that we would have a full public land use planning process, which is what we did. Through that, we created the southern Rocky Mountain management plan, which continues today to be a very grass-roots, democratic exercise, with people from the valley meeting on a regular basis to decide what happens in the Elk drainage and in the Flathead.
The southern Rocky Mountain management plan that was created currently allows mining and allows oil and gas exploration in the Flathead, as did the Kootenay-Boundary land use plan, which is still in effect and which was created by the New Democrats. But aside from the politics, the question really is: can the Flathead retain its ecological integrity and diversity with coalmining and/or coalbed gas development added to the activities that already happen there today?
In my opinion as a local MLA, the majority of my constituents would prefer that coalmining not take place in the Flathead Valley, and I support my constituents in that view. The Elk Valley — including the Dominion coal block, the north piece — has enough coal to sustain our southeast coast industry for the next hundred years. My constituents believe that coalmining should therefore be constrained to the Elk Valley.
There is, as the member opposite said, a proposed coalmining project in the Flathead. It has been in the preapplication process for the last couple of years. I'm not sure where it's going, but I can tell you one thing, Madam Speaker. Opponents to that project want us to make a simple, unilateral political decision — to just scrap the due process, and to heck with the proponent's rights, and to the heck with the reputation of B.C. to investors from around the world.
We have a vehicle, through the Southern Rocky Mountain management plan advisory committee, which is made up of local people, to actually take on this issue and decide whether they want to make a recommendation to government that the terms of the southern Rocky Mountain management plan should be changed to remove mining as one of the acceptable uses of the Flathead. My hope is that that committee of local people will take on that difficult task and make a recommendation to government.
As for coalbed gas exploration and development, I recently asked our government to not include the Flathead in the coalbed gas tenure that was being advertised. If BP obtains the tenure in the Elk Valley, it will have the opportunity to prove to the public how well it operates before it applies to explore in the Flathead.
Over the next few years — and I'm not sure that it will be two years, as the member suggested — that company will have its opportunity to prove itself, and the southern Rocky Mountain management advisory committee will have the opportunity to decide what recommendations they want to make to government. Bottom line is that we need to protect this area for future generations, but I don't think we need to create a federal park there to do that.
