No, I think what you need to understand is that, when the government says we're going to do consultation, if nobody shows up, they consider that consultation. What resource developers have done in the past is call the band office and ask for the grand chief, the “Grand Poobah”, and say we want to do this, do you agree or not? It's just a telephone call sometimes. It's not just on the government's back. It's also on the developers' backs. What is happening is that there's no respect for indigenous law, which says we must fight to protect the waters, the fish, the birds, the lands, everything, so that there is going to be a sustainable way of life in the future.
As it is, the majority of water that we see is either not drinkable so we have to put it through a sewage system.... I'm not going to speak on behalf of the Wet'suwet'en, but I do know that this is not a definition of democracy. This is more a definition of good business practice than anything. Even then it is sorely lacking in good faith and in goodwill. It is really about the money, and at the end of the day—I'm going to use a cliché—you can't eat money.
Those of us who are land defenders we are viewed as the troublemakers. We are viewed as the unreasonable ones who don't want to progress. I'm progressing here. I'm here in front of you using Zoom. It's not that I want to live the way my ancestors lived, not at all, but I do want a safe and healthy environment for the children and youth to be able to grow up in. I don't think living beside an oil refinery, or tailing ponds because of resource extraction, is a healthy way. I don't think that attacking the salmon run is also a very smart and intelligent way of using the land.