Band cries foul over land claims

The provincial government is in a conflict of interest because a company managing public pension plans has a 25 per cent interest in a forestry firm involved in a land-claim dispute with the Hupacasath First Nation, band chief councillor Judith Sayers charged yesterday.

B.C. Investment Management Corp., which manages public pension plans, invested $166 million in Island Timberlands in 2005 through two numbered companies, Sayers said.

"We were suspicious that something was up when we couldn't reach accommodation after two years. We did some research and then we found the numbered company," said Trevor Jones, Hupacasath chief executive officer.

The Hupacasath are heading back to B.C. Supreme Court at the end of May to ask for a neutral third party to step in and supervise negotiations, Sayers said.

In 2004, the province approved Weyerhaeuser's removal of 70,000 hectares of private land from tree-farm licence 44 even though the land, in the Port Alberni area, was claimed as traditional territory by the Hupacasath.

Through sales and takeovers that land is now controlled by Island Timberlands.

In 2005, B.C. Supreme Court ruled the Hupacasath had a strong prima facie case for aboriginal title to those lands, and Justice Lynn Smith ordered a two-year consultation so the province could address Hupacasath interests, such as protection of community watersheds, sacred sites and ungulate winter range.

That has not happened, Sayers said.

"Not only has consultation and accommodation not occurred, as ordered by the court, but environmental destruction has accelerated on these lands, which the owners are using for log exports and real estate development," she said.

Poor logging has resulted in landslides into fish-bearing streams and no buffer zones around rivers, apparently because rules for logging on private lands are so lax, Sayers said. "We would like to ask the public whether it is ethical for the B.C. government to be investing in companies which are devastating our land."

However, Finance Minister Carole Taylor said in an interview that the province has no knowledge of what investments are made by the corporation.

"BCMIC has been set up by law to be completely independent from government so we are not involved in any investment decisions," she said.

BCMIC deals with government pension funds and other groups, such as universities and colleges, have the option of using the investment corporation.

A 1993 court decision said there must be complete separation of investment and political decisions, Taylor said. "It is the law that government cannot be involved in these investment decisions and we are not."

Forests Minister Rich Coleman said government is trying to be "fair and accommodating with the First Nations on this issue."

The NDP and environmental groups say it is another example of fallout from government's decision to allow forest companies to pull private lands out of tree farm licences.

Communities such as Port Alberni have been left in the lurch, said Alberni-Qualicum MLA Scott Fraser in question period.

"Why did this government put their pocketbook and their friends ahead of the workers, communities and First Nations in the Alberni Valley?" asked Fraser, who would like to see a forensic audit.

Recently, withdrawal of private TFL lands on southern Vancouver Island resulted in a bitter battle over development as Western Forest Products put high-profile waterfront land on the market and, yesterday, Western Canada Wilderness Committee called on government to reinstate a Forest Land Reserve on private forest land.

Since 2004, about 120,000 hectares of coastal forest lands have been removed from TFLs, said WCWC campaign director Ken Wu.