“Sometimes you don’t see what the solution is until it comes. There’s always a solution. That’s what my father told me,” said Russell Tiljoe.
Around 200 Wet’suwet’en members attended a meeting in northern B.C. on Wednesday afternoon to show their support for the controversial Coastal GasLink pipeline being built through their territory.
The first speaker at the event in Houston was Russell Tiljoe, a man in his 80s with 10 children whose father was a hereditary chief in the Beaver clan.
Tiljoe said he attended the meeting, organized by the Kitimat-based pro-LNG group The North Matters, because he believed in employment.
He said that in the past the provincial government would issue permits and commence projects in Wet’suwet’en territory without consulting chiefs.
Back then, chiefs “didn’t want very much. Just one cent in every dollar so our children don’t go to sleep hungry at night.
“Back in those days First Nations people didn’t have much of a chance of getting a good job. We had to take the jobs that nobody else wanted,” Tiljoe said, adding that the pipeline offers economic hope at a time when the lumber industry is struggling.
“Sometimes you don’t see what the solution is until it comes. There’s always a solution. That’s what my father told me.”
David Carrigg – Vancouver Sun – Feb 19, 2020.
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