No Life Like It...

"I myself have been threatened with comments like 'This is the last face you'll see', 'Better call your loved ones. These threats are made to us with megaphones which reach into the staging area."
Gary Fleiger, SWN site

The Canadian Press

There's nothing quite like a cause, something that has been brought close to the heart of people, whether it is justified, or logical, or useful to their very own futures, if it strikes enough people as something to be inspired over and to be adopted as a cause, the motivation to march into the public square and assert a collective will in opposition is there.

So, in New Brunswick it is opposition to shale gas that appears to be the cause of the present.

It fits right in with the righteousness of environmentalism, of opposition to genetically modified foods, of public subscription to championing the rights of Canada's aboriginals. And they have a right to present themselves as ill done by. Invoking terms such as 'genocide' and 'colonialism' to further their very own position as a nation illegally deposed and oppressed does overstate, however.

Canada has been lax in completing and fulfilling its own obligations toward ancient treaties that have never been settled. So, should those treaties finally come to fruition would they satisfy the ongoing demands of First Nations? Would they then feel satiated in their welfare status and declare themselves to be not only satisfied that the outstanding treaties have been settled, but prepared to be self-sufficient?

The Elsipogtog First Nation in New Brunswick is hugely reliant on welfare. Among non-aboriginal welfare recipients in the province a family of four receives $908 in monthly support, whereas a family of like size on a Mi'kmaq First Nation reserve receives $1,262. When the federal government was prepared to equalize income across the board, fierce lobbying prevented that from happening.

And according to lawyers for the Elsipogtog First Nation, it is estimated that 85% of the band members are unemployed and on welfare. So, if a energy resources company comes into the province and is given permission and licences to search for oil and gas reserves on the assumption they will find both, and the end result will be a huge whack of job opportunities, one might think that prospect would be welcomed.

The reality is that near the Village of Rexton, New Brunswick, a three-week-old protest against shale gas exploration on land close to the reserve became violent. RCMP officers, set to break up the protest and uphold a court injunction allowing the SWN Resources Canada Inc. to resume its search under licence from the province, ended up arresting 40 protesters.

Police seized firearms, knives, and improvised explosive devices which were detonated in situ. The situation between the company which has conducted surface geochemistry in its search for signs of an active petroleum system, and the First Nation band has been an uneasy one. The company's head geophysicist claimed in a court affidavit that equipment at the company's staging area near Rexton was vandalized, tampered with and stolen.

When RCMP responded to an injunction authorizing them to arrest or remove the protesters who had blockaded roads leading to the company's work sites, several shots from within the protest encampment were fired. And that action caused the Mounties to move in. Six RCMP vehicles were torched and destroyed.

The impoverished reserve where 2,390 people live has been incapable of handling its finances. The federal government keeps trying to bail Elsipogtog out with tens of millions of additional funding dollars. One might be deluded, as an onlooker, trying to make sense of all of this, that exploration leading to the extraction of energy resources required in a virile economy would be welcome.

Because, of course, the promise of employment is also there. But the perceived threat of the fracking process that would be employed negates that potential. Better to live in squalid conditions, on perpetual welfare, evidently. Better perhaps, on the other hand, to research all the pertinent data on the safety of fracking and then make legal representation in opposition to the process directly to government.