National Indigenous Day BCWF Reconciliation Dialogue

[BydeIt]

Hi Rob,

Pointed question: do you think we can ignore what the feds and province are doing regarding access to fish, wildlife and the land base and water? That may actually be a point of disagreement between us. I think we need to respond. What I'm hearing from you (and please correct me if I'm wrong) is that we should not respond.

I certainly think a response is necessary. I just feel that the approach in that response is misguided right now. I was hoping to learn more about it at the town hall (can we agree to call it that?). As I say, I walked away disheartened. The positive to come from that though is that I realized that I need to share these criticisms, and hopefully they are taken constructively. That's why I came here after the town hall, and thanks for engaging again.

the obvious follow up is "OK, what should the response be, given the restrictions that BCWF operates under?"

I'm not part of the BCWF management and I can't pretend to understand the details of the work, so I can only armchair quarterback this one (as per my June 22 post). Most of what I have to offer comes in the form of approach. Very broadly, I would conserve funds by withdrawing from expensive external consultants (Solomon is a nice guy but I don't think he will build bridges you can't build yourself when needed), and re-deploy them to public awareness campaigns.

Further discussion of this is an area of interest for me, and would certainly be something I'd like to talk about if I were ever a deeper part of the discussion on approach to these issues at the BCWF.

but did you miss that the policy that the committee follows has existed for years? We're updating existing policy, but the policy existed before the committee, so I'm not clear what you're disagreeing with.

No I was unaware of the policy, and that's a big reason why I attended the event. By your own admission though, the policy is outdated, and there is no appropriate replacement at this time, so in my mind there would not have been anything for the panel to credibly offer in terms of policy explanation at that town hall.

I don't want to give the impression that I'm not sensitive to FN issues, and recent news. My point is that this tragedy shouldn't be a pretext for concessions on wildlife management, nor should conservation be handed over as some sort of reconciliation offering.

Thanks again Rob,