Isn’t it wise to ask when controversy arises“Who will benefit financially?”

The sub-chiefs and elected (Indian Act) band council chiefs who support the Coastal GasLink pipeline will gain – briefly – from the pipeline project. They have an understandable conflict of interest.

The hereditary chiefs, who are responsible for protection of the entire territory, do not.

This muddies the waters, but doesn’t change a number of basic truths: 1) Our government still acts in a colonial way with our indigenous peoples; 2) Peaceful demonstrators have been jailed; 3) Unceded indigenous territories have been invaded by a multinational fossil fuel company and the RCMP; and  4) We are in an existential climate crisis, so we should be investing in transitioning away from fossil fuels, not building new fossil fuel infrastructure, including methane (natural gas) pipelines.

Our only hope is to conserve and to rapidly build a sustainable, renewable energy economy. The human economy is entirely dependent on the natural economy.

If we persist with the status quo, global heating will soon reach the ecological ‘tipping point’, after which humans will lose any control over exponential heating, exacerbating mass extinctions on Earth.

Our choice: political expediency or rapid transitioning to a better future for all. What do we wish for future generations?

Molly Mulloy

RR7 Belleville