Professor Weaver won/shared a Nobel prize. ... anybody in the EAO respected as much as he is? I don't think so
If for whatever reason we are turned down again, the courts will seriously take into consideration the Professor's efforts to bring fairness into the process. I for one, would not want to argue against Pacific Booker in court. I have to guess that the EAO and Ministers don't want to either. Plus, the two Ministers, Heymen and Ralston, both worked closely with Weaver.
https://biv.com/article/2021/02/morrison-lake-mine-plan-still-limbo-after-18-years
“The question is, ‘Has this company been treated fairly?’ And in my view, and in the Supreme Court’s view, the answer is unequivocally no,” Weaver told BIV. “And that is why I raised it. It’s a question of fairness.”
“Despite numerous exchanges with the environmental assessment office and the completion of an in-depth study of Morrison Lake, Pacific Booker has been unable to clarify the precise nature of what is actually required,” Weaver said in June 2020 during Question Period. “One of the problems here is the environmental assessment office keeps actually stating that this mine is at the headwater of the Skeena River, which it’s not,” Weaver told BIV News. “That was one of the reasons they used in their 2012 decision. That is actually factually incorrect.”
Weaver isn’t the only former MLA that felt Pacific Booker was treated poorly. Ralph Sultan, a now-retired Liberal MLA, took issue with his own government. In a letter to then environment minister Terry Lake, Sultan took issue with “two senior politicians” who described the Morrison Lake project as “tiny.”
A lawyer representing the Lake Babine First Nation confirmed to BIV last week that nothing has changed from the First Nation’s perspective.
Governments prefer to decide aboriginal rights and title through negotiation, which gives them some say, as opposed to the courts, which give them none.
But that should not mean that the usual standards of procedural fairness should be set aside, Weaver said.
“I understand the importance of Indigenous engagement,” Weaver said. “We pushed for UNDRIP [the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples]. On the other hand, business certainty is critical. And if you’re just changing the goalposts every time you do something, that scares business away.”
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AND YES, IT IS ABOUT MONEY
In September, they signed an agreement that provides the Lake Babine First Nation with $43 million in funding and 20,000 hectares of land valued at $150 million. It also commits to “a road map” for implementing self-governance and collaboration on “major land and resource decisions.”