Indian band declares Ashnola valley protected

[VLD43]

So… here’s a couple of numbers to help calculate the percentages in BC.
350000 licensed anglers in BC
107000 licensed hunters in BC
5.24 million people in BC
This works out to be .087% of the population of BC.
I wouldn’t say we are in the majority. I would say it’s time to make some allies, powerful ones with common interests instead of making more enemies. It’s obvious to me the government cares little for fish, wildlife and habitat and less about hunters and anglers.

Agreed......

[ElectricDyck]

Well Mr Chipman, I don't disagree with the make friends not enemies tactic, work within the rules, keep lines of communication open etc..but times are different now. Certain canadians are not allowed to travel because they disagreed with the government on taking a vacine for a virus they already had already recovered from. Some were put in jail for speaking about it. Others were put in jail for their words, simple things like calling your daughter your daughter. Whole country in disbelief at indian child burrial grounds that were never found and may be just a made up headline, anybody who asks questions is a racist.

You say a bunch of white hunters with flags cant have a protest because it will be deemed racist ect..I think you re correct, we just had people from all over Canada, mixed background, mixed ethnicity protest about something as generic as freedom and we saw how far they got despite having epic amounts of financial support for lawyers.

So the plan is to play by their rules, form relationships with the 200 indian bands and the politicians to somehow negotiate slowing the erosion of resident hunting? A sport that none of the parties involved care if we can participate in.

Curious if you are a volunteer or paid? What is your #1 priority? Hunting and firearms ownership or conservation and habitat?

Maybe Im just pessimistic because of the events of the last few years and the speed that everything is changing....but if I were a betting man, I know where my bet will be when it comes to erosion of resident sport hunting.

[ElectricDyck]

So… here’s a couple of numbers to help calculate the percentages in BC.
350000 licensed anglers in BC
107000 licensed hunters in BC
5.24 million people in BC
This works out to be .087% of the population of BC.
I wouldn’t say we are in the majority. I would say it’s time to make some allies, powerful ones with common interests instead of making more enemies. It’s obvious to me the government cares little for fish, wildlife and habitat and less about hunters and anglers.

Who are these allies?

Sierra Club or the Tides Foundation? Lots of money and power..Im sure they'd work together on a conservation project lol.

Edit: Speaking of making inroads, relationships etc...if this were a fight I thought I could win for residents I would be making friends with GOABC and fighting with them, not against..

[Rob Chipman]

My comment was strictly to this one line you wrote:
"Pretty much. If you want to run things the way JT does then vote for him and his kind and support the BS that they do."

So....do you want to respect the rule of law and follow our court system and observe the honour of the Crown or do you want to do things the way JT occasionally does? I suspect you actually want rule of law, and that means accepting things like the RP. Correct me if Im wrong. I don't want to put words in your mouth.

[Rob Chipman]

Getting rid of the Indian Act and assimilating First Nations was the first signature move that PET tried and had to abandon. He faced lots of opposition from First Nations. I recall at the time, and for a long time afterwards, that non-Indigenous Canadians often attributed this the FN leadership's love for money from the feds. Over time I've come to realize that FNs have long been opposed to assimilation (fair enough, right?). Point being, he thought about getting rid of the Indian Act long, long before he repatriated the Constitution and it was just too hard for him to do.

We should get rid of it. It is, by definition, racist legislation. The problem is: what takes it's place? There are lot of answers circulating, but few that most people will agree on.

[Rob Chipman]

Well Mr Chipman, I don't disagree with the make friends not enemies tactic, work within the rules, keep lines of communication open etc..but times are different now. Certain canadians are not allowed to travel because they disagreed with the government on taking a vacine for a virus they already had already recovered from. Some were put in jail for speaking about it. Others were put in jail for their words, simple things like calling your daughter your daughter. Whole country in disbelief at indian child burrial grounds that were never found and may be just a made up headline, anybody who asks questions is a racist.

You say a bunch of white hunters with flags cant have a protest because it will be deemed racist ect..I think you re correct, we just had people from all over Canada, mixed background, mixed ethnicity protest about something as generic as freedom and we saw how far they got despite having epic amounts of financial support for lawyers.

So the plan is to play by their rules, form relationships with the 200 indian bands and the politicians to somehow negotiate slowing the erosion of resident hunting? A sport that none of the parties involved care if we can participate in.

Curious if you are a volunteer or paid? What is your #1 priority? Hunting and firearms ownership or conservation and habitat?

Maybe Im just pessimistic because of the events of the last few years and the speed that everything is changing....but if I were a betting man, I know where my bet will be when it comes to erosion of resident sport hunting.

So...time to repeat: there are a lot of things going on in this thread.

Yes, the government (not FNs) restricted the freedoms of Canadians over the vaccine. That was clearly wrong, and in time we'll have even more proof of that. (For pro-mandate guys that doesn't mean vaccines don't work, or that I'm anti-vax. It means that you can't say "My body my choice" when you're arguing abortion rights but then say "Not your body and not your choice" when a virus turns up. It means I think that you either believe in individual freedom or....you don't).

Yes, people in Canada have been imprisoned (through a contempt of court work around) for speaking words about their kids that a judge didn't like. It happened and its wrong, but again, that isn't a FN or a fish, wildlife and habitat issue.

FN burial grounds were never lost, so they didn't need to be found. The whole "discovery" aspect was the media. What was known at a bare minimum for decades and decades, was that 1) Indigenous kids were forcibly taken from their families and sent to residential schools 2) some of the kids died in residential school custody 3) those kids' deaths and their bodies were very often not handled properly 4) the kids were generally buried at the schools, in graveyards that were known, and 5) the record keeping was atrocious.

FN said this for a long time. They said "We know that there are kids missing, we know they died at the schools, we know that they are buried at the schools, we know where the graveyards are, this was all kinds of wrong and it's time the churches involved and the government acknowledged it and made it right.

The Anglican Church, the United Church and the Canadian government said "Yup, that pretty much sums it up. It happened pretty much like you said, and we're sorry".

The FNs then said "It was probably worse than we know, because what we know is based on what survivors saw. We'd like to see your records to see what else was happening". The story quickly got worse when the Anglican Church and United Church shared their records and the Canadian go ernment shared some of their records.

The Catholic Church did not share records and has only recently started down the road to apologizing, but I think that when you can get Stephen Harper and the Pope to apologize for something we can read the cards on the table: there are bodies in the graveyards, everyone involved always knew it, the parties involved don't deny it and it's time we moved past believing that it's a made up story.

There are Indigenous people exercising influence over fish, wildlife and habitat and our access to it who have family in those graveyards. None of this was "discovered". The wider Canadian public finally learned about it.

Ground penetrating radar found *disturbances* in locations that were known to be graveyards. The numbers don't add up (and if you look at the records, many of which are online, you'll understand why -they are sloppy and incomplete) but the error is leaning towards *more* bodies, not fewer.

I think you have to imagine, given the overwhelming evidence, and the fact that most of the parties involved have agreed that it happened, that if you question it people will ask "Why are you trying to defend something that everyone involved admits happened? Is it simply that you're ignorant of these facts or is is something a bit more sinister?" When you think you hear someone implying that you're a racist maybe consider that question.


What's the plan? I don't know yet. Chime in and let me know what you think will work. I know what *won't* work. That's as far as I have gotten.

I'm a volunteer. My number 1 priority is preserving and enhancing a wild landscape and waterscape that is home to as many natural species as possible, managed in as sustainable way as possible, with equal access to all BCers so that they can practice their traditional, sustainable outdoor pursuits from now until the end of time. I am a big supporter of firearms rights and hunting. I'm going bear killing (hopefully) this weekend. I've got wild meat (mammalian and fish) in my freezer. I can't separate hunting and firearms from conservation and habitat. If you can, tell me how, because I can't see how the hell I can hunt and kill anything if we don't restore fish, wildlife and habitat and then, once we've done that, conserve all three. You can't hunt and kill what isn't on the landscape, and you can't catch a salmon or a steelhead if there are none in the water.


I am a betting man. We're holding bad cards. But you cannot win if you do not play. I'd rather go down swinging.

[TheObserver]

Well Mr Chipman, I don't disagree with the make friends not enemies tactic, work within the rules, keep lines of communication open etc..but times are different now. Certain canadians are not allowed to travel because they disagreed with the government on taking a vacine for a virus they already had already recovered from. Some were put in jail for speaking about it. Others were put in jail for their words, simple things like calling your daughter your daughter. Whole country in disbelief at indian child burrial grounds that were never found and may be just a made up headline, anybody who asks questions is a racist.

You say a bunch of white hunters with flags cant have a protest because it will be deemed racist ect..I think you re correct, we just had people from all over Canada, mixed background, mixed ethnicity protest about something as generic as freedom and we saw how far they got despite having epic amounts of financial support for lawyers.

So the plan is to play by their rules, form relationships with the 200 indian bands and the politicians to somehow negotiate slowing the erosion of resident hunting? A sport that none of the parties involved care if we can participate in.

Curious if you are a volunteer or paid? What is your #1 priority? Hunting and firearms ownership or conservation and habitat?

Maybe Im just pessimistic because of the events of the last few years and the speed that everything is changing....but if I were a betting man, I know where my bet will be when it comes to erosion of resident sport hunting.

Not one excavation has been done, not. one.

[Livewire322]

So… here’s a couple of numbers to help calculate the percentages in BC.
350000 licensed anglers in BC
107000 licensed hunters in BC
5.24 million people in BC
This works out to be .087% of the population of BC.
I wouldn’t say we are in the majority. I would say it’s time to make some allies, powerful ones with common interests instead of making more enemies. It’s obvious to me the government cares little for fish, wildlife and habitat and less about hunters and anglers.

457,000 people out of 5.24 million gives 8.7%, not .087%.

In other words, a larger segment of the population purchases hunting and fishing licenses than are of native ancestry.

[Greenthumbed]

My apologies… a slip of the decimal place. My point was that we as hunters and anglers are not in the majority.

[ElectricDyck]

Well Rob my point bringing up all the specific incidents was to show that the truth is not winning these days...hunting and fishing need the truth to survive. At the core our passion is pure, healthy ans sustainable. You cant slow the erosion of our sport if you have to play within these current standards of truth.

Asking questions of the current narrative makes you a racist these days but its not true. I heard a quote I liked recently...skeptism is the chastity of truth.

Either way, I think you re positivity is naievity but who knows I was surprised by how quick change has been in the last few years maybe it will surprise me again..history tends to show otherwise though..