Photo: Haisla Nation Haisla’s chief adviser, Crystal Smith, is the latest leader from BC to warn Hollywood A-listers calling on banks to stop financing the Coast GasLink pipeline project. “I wonder if Hollywood actors calling for an end to our financial independence understand the history of Indigenous people in Canada and what life is like in the reserves,” Smith wrote in an open letter to the National Post. “Or if they manage to stop these works, they will also stop the hopes and expectations of thousands of Aborigines of BC. “for a future free of unemployment, free of provision and free of despair and despair,” Smith said. Earlier this month, more than 65 Hollywood celebrities, led by Avengers actor Mark Ruffalo, signed the “No More Dirty Banks” application and called on RBC Bank to stop funding fossil fuel projects such as the CGL and ignore their rights. indigenous peoples. Smith, who is in her second term as Haisla’s elected general counsel, is also the President of the LNG First Nations Alliance, which promotes economic development for indigenous communities through energy projects. The Haisla Nation is also one of the first 20 nations to sign the 67-kilometer CGL pipeline that runs through their territories in the northwest BC. under construction at Kitimat in Haisla. However, opponents of the pipeline have repeatedly stressed the environmental concerns of the pipeline being built under the Morice River, without the consent of the heirs. On March 9, Haisla, along with 16 of these first nations, also signed a selection agreement with CGL TC Energy’s parent company to become a stakeholder. “When Mark Ruffalo and Ben Stiller and other celebrities call for banks to withhold funding for projects like Coast GasLink, they are not thinking of doing damage to our nation’s interests and our people,” Smith said. Speaking further about Indigenous collaborations with projects such as LNG Canada, Smith said Haisla had a “share and say” in this project as opposed to the major industrial projects of the 1950s and ’60s at Kitimat, including the company. Aluminum of Canada (now Rio Tinto) and a pulp and paper mill that has since closed. Smith is not the only person who shouts at Rafalos and the other celebrities. Prime Minister John Horgan expressed his frustration with the interference of celebrities in the affairs of British Columbia immediately after the launch of the No More Dirty Banks campaign in mid-March. While Horgan’s office did not respond to a request for comment from Terrace Standard, he went on to say in an interview with Global News that Ruffalo was taking pictures from the sidelines, without fully understanding the intricacies of economic growth in British Columbia. Skeena BC Liberal MLA Ellis Ross, who wrote a similar open letter punishing Leonardo DiCaprio on the same issue last year, said it was time for Canadians to stop making fun of what foreigners were saying about our resources or energy development. . “People needed our pure LNG long before this energy crisis and now they need it more than ever,” he said, referring to the supply crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
