City reviews status for New Prosperity hearings

"I said the city is walking a very fine line of respecting and building workingrelationships with First Nations as well as being aware of socioThe City of Williams Lake is hoping to gain interested party status for economic indicators. I talked about the environmental panel review of where we were as a community and the New Prosperity Mine project. why we were supporting the projHaving missed the Sept. 28 dead- , ect," she recalled. line for applying, the city applied to At the meeting, council received letters from the Tsilhqot'in National the Canada Environmental AssessGovernment and the Fish Lake Alliment Agency on Jan. 29 for consideration. ance, requesting the-city not to seek At the committee of the whole interested party status and refrain meeting Jan. 29, acting chief ad- from stating its support ofthe mine. .ministrative officer Geoff Goodall The letters reminded mayor and said Mayor Kerry Cook will have an council that in its own resolution, opportunity at the panel hearings to council said it would support the welcome the panel. project if it met provincial and fedThe city, however, does not feel eral environmental standards and if First Nations had been adequately that five minutes will be "long consulted. enough or suitable," so it has made Council is elected to speak on all an application to be a presenter. "We're hoping we are going to be issues, said Coun. Sue Zacharias. "We have to think about what is successful. We haven't indicated at best for the economy of our city and all what we're preseriting. We just want a slot," Goodall said. our citizens and it does affect the During the last review, Cook whole region. I don't know why we wouldn't support something of this wrote a lengthy presentation .. TriblJDe Staff Writer

Monica Lamb-Yorski

nature when we're already supporting other resource-based industries. I feel quite confident in the respect of relationship building. We've made tremendous progress with our First Nations neighbours." Coun. Ivan Bonnell suggested council needs to be clear. "There were two tests that we said were conditional to our support. The environmental one will be done independently, council will not be able to answer that question. "When it comes to the level of consultation and the effect for First Nations, it would be very appropriate for council to ask the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs what steps have they taken to ensure there's been adequate consultation." Whether council will be happy with the answers, Bonnell said he didn't know. "When we get to it, we can determine our steps from there." Coun.Laurie Walters asked if council was answering the questions posed by the TNG and Fish Lake AI-

Hance ill the letters. "The big part of this is they are wanting us to change our original support for the project. We're kind of doing a dance, it's not properly addressing it. We might still have to come with another follow up to this because I think now of a few times where they've come right out and said 'can you' change your support?" Cook said in a meeting with the TNG and during the council meeting in December where the TNG made a presentation, council said it is not changing its original position. "We're just getting more information, which is consistent with our resolution," Cook said. Appearing by .speaker phone, Coun. GeoffBourdon said if council seeks information from the proponent it needs to get information from' the TNG as well. "If we're going into it saying that we need to listen to both sides and that's important to us, then we cannot just say there's adequate consultation without making sure there's adequate consultation."
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