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Opinion
December 24, 2014 • Northern View • A9
Clark on climate, clawbacks, credit cards and the NDP
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year-end interview with page from your book. They have seven Premier Christy Clark. conditions for an oil pipeline, Energy For an extended version East, which involves conversion of gas see the opinion section at www. pipelines and taking Alberta oil to the thenorthernview.com. East Coast. What do you think? TF: Are you still confident that PCC: I think they took our five we’re going to see a major LNG conditions and elaborated on them. So project approved by the end of you’ve got British Columbia, Alberta, 2014? now Ontario and Quebec, all signed on PCC: We’re still in negotiations to some version of the five conditions. with Petronas and Shell, so I don’t And of course Enbridge and Kinder Tom Fletcher know if it will be by the end of Morgan as well. 2014, but I’m hoping in the next few TF: What about the conditions they months. have added? [Days after this interview, Petronas PCC: One of the things they say they want announced a delay in their investment decision to protect against is a shortage of natural gas until 2015.] coming to Ontario and Quebec. These are the TF: I talked to a couple of SFU climate same two provinces that have put a moratorium mitigation specialists, and they agreed that it’s on extracting natural gas. They want to make unlikely to the point of impossible to have a sure that we do it here, good enough for us to major LNG industry and still meet Gordon do, and send it to them, but they won’t do that Campbell’s ambitious greenhouse gas target of themselves. I look at their last two conditions, a 33 per cent reduction by 2020. What do you and I roll my eyes a little bit. think? TF: All the way to New Brunswick, they’ve PCC: I think that we may prove them basically bought the anti-hydraulic fracturing wrong. Many of these facilities, not all of them, myth? will be partly or fully electrically powered up, so PCC: Yes. Somehow they all watched an that reduces those impacts, and there’s going to American mockumentary or whatever you call be a real incentive to invest in new technology it, and believed it. Here in British Columbia we to minimize that as well. do fracking better than anywhere in the world. I think the bigger picture is what really It is the gold standard. matters, which is that in shipping 82 million TF: Finance Minister Mike de Jong says tonnes of liquefied natural gas to Asia, we help we have a surplus estimated at more than $400 them get off coal and other dirtier sources of million for this fiscal year, and he suggested oil, and that is the biggest contribution that that much of that would have to go to pay we’ve ever made to reducing climate change. off deficits from previous years. Of course the TF: Ontario and Quebec have taken a opposition is interested in welfare rates and
in particular ending child support clawbacks. What’s your view? PCC: Like any family that’s been through tough times, the first thing you need to do when you get back to finding a job and making an income again, is to pay off your credit cards. And that’s what we’re going to do. We are going to see if we can find ways to
improve some of the programs over time, but can’t do that until we can afford it. It’s typical, the NDP want us to spend the money before we have it. Tom Fletcher is legislature reporter and columnist for Black Press newspapers. Email: tfletcher@blackpress.ca
Walking in two worlds Higher education is quite the expense in Canada. Teens often as young as 18 venture out to post-secondary school, with half of them not quite knowing what awaits them, let alone the path they should take to get to that fabled career. For Aboriginal students, add in a long history of suppression, colonialist assimilation and degradation for First Nations families, and it’s a wonder some village children even reach the hallowed walls of higher education. That’s why Thomas Barnett, Prince Rupert’s newest lawyer specializing in criminal law, is so excited to start making a difference. Barnett, of Aboriginal descent himself coming from Saskatchewan’s Woodland Cree of the Lac La Ronge Cree Nation, took part in a call ceremony to be presented to the court as introduced by Prince Rupert County’s elected bencher Sarah Westwood. While these are the first few weeks Barnett is spending in Prince Rupert, his extensive family history in Northwest B.C. law has seen his grandfather, a former lawyer and judge, practice in Prince Rupert decades before Thomas first stepped off the plane. “I’ve always felt an obligation since I have had the opportunity to get an education to do something with it. Between my background and my grandfather, going into law school seemed like a thing I needed to do if I had the ability,” said Barnett after the ceremony. Barnett’s parents, Joanie and Kevin, were on hand to see their son complete the last step in his long and arduous journey to become Prince Rupert’s newest Aboriginal criminal lawyer. And it was through his family that Barnett gained perspective on the differences he felt he needed to make in the lives of other Aboriginal residents. “In Aboriginal communities and in my family and where I’m from, intergenerational trauma is a real thing. The problems that have come about as a result of residential schools and colonialism it’s a real thing and not something that happened
Barnett Law
Law Practice so long ago. This is something that still affects people today and my mom was able to break that cycle in her family and give me a life that a lot of other members of my family haven’t had the opportunity to get ... so I’m very, very humbled by where I am and I realize that this is a gift,” said Barnett. The newest Rupert resident attended school at the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) Okanagan campus from 2006 – 2008 and after two years, transferred to UBC’s Vancouver campus where he graduated with an English Literature degree and then attended law school at UBC Vancouver from 2010 to 2013. “I think it is important to me to bring to the court that information about the historical context and systemic factors that First Nations people share today and often is a significant factor in their contact with the justice system.” explained Barnett. “I see myself as walking in two worlds in that aspect, and I hope to act as a bridge between the two”
Focused on criminal law and restorative justice. Limited work in child protection matters, criminal injuries compensation board claims, and human rights cases.
thomas@barnettlaw.cc mobile: 250-922-4130 • tel/fax: 250-622-2039 toll free: 1-844-615-9350