Prince George Citizen December 15, 2018 by Prince George Citizen

Saturday, December 15, 2018 | Your community newspaper since 1916

CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN

Kris Kringle lunch Sam Hamilton, Amanda Stein and Sam Hunt were volunteering at the Child Development Centre Kris Kringle lunch in the Civic Centre Friday, selling balloons and beaded necklaces for a chance to win prizes. The lunch is one of the major fundraisers for the Child Development Centre.

Injunction issued against Nine-year-old artist designs Unist’ot’en pipeline blockade Christmas greeting cards Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca A B.C. Supreme Court Justice issued an injunction Friday temporarily ordering opponents of the Coastal GasLink pipeline to allow workers access to a disputed area south of Houston to start work on the $6.2-billion project. Since 2012, a blockade in the form of a gate has been up across the Morice River bridge – along with a camp beside the bridge – in opposition to the project. The planned 670-kilometre pipeline would send natural gas from a station near Dawson Creek to the fledgling LNG Canada plant near Kitimat. The blockade was established in the name the Unist’ot’en, a group within the Wet’suwet’en Nation, although Freda Huson and Warner Naziel were named as the defendants in Coastal GasLink’s notice of claim seeking the injunction. The injunction will come into effect on Monday and remain in place until no later than May 1, 2019. Coastal GasLink had been seeking a permanent injunction but Justice Marguerite Church found the defendants have not had enough time to respond to the company’s notice of claim and

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opted for a temporary order. In a statement, Coastal GasLink, a wholly-owned subsidiary of TransCanada Corp., said it “appreciates the court’s decision” which will allow it to move forward with pre-construction activities. The company also stressed it is only looking for access to the bridge. “The camp established next to the bridge will remain as is. In fact, we see no reason why the camp cannot continue with its activities. We simply need to use the public bridge to access our pipeline right of way.” The corridor is located about one kilometre south of the camp “and does not overlap or directly affect the camp, as some reports have claimed,” the company also stressed. The injunction comes with an enforcement order authorizing the RCMP to uphold the injunction if there is push back. “The area of the blockade is remote, the number of persons present at the blockade varies, the time for the plaintiff to perform their work is very limited and based on social media posts by the defendant, there is an indication that the defendants and their supports may not obey the interim injunction order,” Church said. During submissions on Thursday

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at the Prince George courthouse, Coastal GasLink lawyer Kevin O’Callaghan said the company had obtained all the necessary permits and authorizations necessary to build the pipeline and in the process had consulted with Indigenous groups along the route, including the office representing the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs and the five Wet’suwet’en bands recognized under the Indian Act. He said Coastal GasLink has also reached benefit agreements with all 20 elected bands along the route, including the five Wet’suwet’en bands. O’Callaghan read in portions of affidavits outlining the tens of millions of dollars at stake for the Wet’suwet’en in the form of contracts to carry out logging, clearing, road building and camp services. The company had maintained a policy of working around the blockade but with the Oct. 1 decision to go ahead with both the pipeline and the $31-billion LNG Canada project, the court was told it needs to begin pre-construction work in January to avoid delays of as much to a year further along. It was also noted that the blockaders have allowed Canfor access to carry out logging along the Morice Forest Service Road. — see ‘ANY DELAYS, page 3

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Citizen staff She’s an artistic entrepreneur and she’s nine years old. Maya McCutcheon from Fort St. James kept asking her parents for ‘this and that’ at six years old and when she was told if she wanted ‘this and that’ she’d have to earn her own money, she turned to her artistic talents as a means to an end. This year, Maya showcased her work to the Prince George & District Community Arts Council (CAC) in the spring and when program manager Lisa Redpath saw some of Maya’s work, she was interested in supporting the young artist. “It is very charming imagery and in the pile she showed us, there was some Christmas scenery,” Redpath said. The Community Arts Council sends out Christmas cards every year and chooses work from a regional artist to showcase their extraordinary talent, Redpath added. “Negotiating terms with this nine-year-old business girl was one of the highlights of my year,” she said.” Maya is really building her entrepreneurial skills. I’m smiling right now just thinking about how we struck

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our deal. Her parents are great guides for her but she did the negotiating all by herself. She is so inspirational and a real example for other young artists to follow. Really, she is a good example for any age.” It all started because Maya’s mom Mel said she grew up in a household where everything was not handed to her on a silver platter and she wanted to raise her daughter the same way. Mel said as a young person she made some budgeting mistakes and had to work her way out of it and she wanted to give Maya the skills so that her daughter didn’t have to learn the hard way. “She was wanting to buy things and her father and I didn’t want to spoil her rotten and she couldn’t do physical labour or babysit so we tried to get creative in a way that she could earn some money, learn some skills and buy some things herself,” Mel said. “I started making art when I was six years old,” Maya said. “I started in school.” Maya said they decided to make greeting cards using images she created. — see ‘IT’S FUN, page 3

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