I think the Haida Nation believes that the whole perspective feels like fearmongering in the sense that somehow these economic opportunities are going to change hundreds of years of colonialism, the Indian Act, and residential school experiences that have really been at the core of what's happening in our communities. Our people rely on their culture, their language, and their harvesting. That's who we are, so the proposition of putting these ships through our territory and putting those things at risk will truly destroy us.
What we have right now is a foundation of our strong, revitalizing culture. We're seeing a shift on Haida Gwaii of us coming back. For us it's been more about trying to take control of our resources and do it sustainably. It's the same thing if you look at our history around logging and things like that. We were never anti-logging. It's all about doing a thing sustainably and responsibly. Right now we set the allowable annual cut on Haida Gwaii as an example to show you that we understand there's a balance to be made here.
I think the politics are making it an unreasonable environment in which to say that we are averse to those things. We can't put the risk just on us. The thing about the people spearheading those kinds of projects is that it's fine for them to say it's going to end poverty and change their communities, but if anything goes wrong, it's coming through my backyard, and we just can't accept that.