bcbusiness.ca december 2014 BCBusiness 59
SMiTherS, B.C.
143 km northWest of BUrns Lake
Dennis MacKay admits he was the only person
to speak in support of Gateway when the Joint
Review Panel (
JRP) of the National Energy Board
came through town. "I just think people have to
stop saying no to everything," says the retired
RCMP member,
ex-coroner and two-term Liberal
MLA. "We need jobs, and
nothing comes without some risk."
As a provincial government centre and regional hub for
mining and forestry, Smithers attracts a well-educated pro-
fessional class drawn by the skiing, hiking, biking and prox-
imity to world-class paddling and steelhead fishing rivers.
However, its population also includes a deeply conservative
element—an element that formed MacKay's base for eight
years as
MLA. Today, as a volunteer activist, MacKay says
he's not afraid to stand up and support Enbridge and spend
time erecting homemade "Yes to Jobs" signs.
And yet, in terms of political representation, Smith-
ers is pretty green these days. In September, federal MP
Nathan Cullen, the
NDP's finance critic, introduced a private
member's bill aiming to ban supertanker traffic on B.C.'s
north coast. B.C.
NDP Doug Donaldson, the provincial MLA
for Stikine (which includes Smithers and was part of Dennis
MacKay's old riding), told the
JRP that risks to his constitu-
ents outweigh the benefits of the pipeline, the same view
held by Mayor Taylor Bachrach. "The pipeline would cross
the Morice River, and the Morice flows into the Bulkley,"
Bachrach says, referring to the river that meanders through
Smithers and is a lure for paddlers and anglers.
And Enbridge's relationship is fractious at best with the
Wet'suwet'en, a nation whose sprawling traditional territory
encompasses Smithers and is divided among five clans. A
subset of one of these clans, the Unist'ot'en, has established
a permanent camp smack in the path of Gateway near where
it would cross the Morice River, forbidding access to all
commercial, industrial and non-aboriginal interests. "We
will take every avenue available, whether it's provincial,
federal or our own laws, to prevent this pipeline," says John
Ridsdale, also called Chief Na'Moks, hereditary leader of the
Beaver Clan, from the Office of the Wet'suwet'en in Smithers.
" We will take every
avenue available,
whether it's provincial,
federal or our own laws,
to prevent this pipeline"
—John Ridsdale, hereditary chief
of the Wet'suwet'en
PoPulation
5,400
