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Bearing Down on Bare Mountain
by Ingmar Lee
It's been difficult to write current updates about the "Bear Mountain Interchange vs. Treesit" issue of late. The convoluted twists and turns of the tale where Babylon meets bush at the edge of Victoria are evolving so fast, that news by the time of writing is usually already obsolete.
The giant cloverleaf interchange project proponents - namely the City of Langford, Ministry of Transportation, Bear Mountain developers and Golder Associates - have been steadily crossing priorities off their lists in advance of the destruction, and are chomping at the bit to go.
In a state of apparently premature excitement last November, the proponents jointly announced that the forest would be bulldozed come mid-December.
That date has now come and gone, and the developers final
obstacle, - a tough and determined crew of skilled tree climbers and
their hundreds of supporters - defiantly continues to stand in the way.
As the treesitters continue to perturb the issue at this seeming 11th
hour, there have been numerous terse RCMP incursions into the forest,
interspersed with regular harassments by belligerent Langford bylaw
poseurs.
Meanwhile, the construction of a comprehensive forest defence
infrastructure has openly continued. Cooking and heating fires burn
24/7. Non-violent civil-disobedience workshops are conducted. Large
demonstrations have been held. Banners have been hung, trenches are
being dug, more platforms are being erected, canopy-height traverse
lines are being extended, the occupation of the forest continues, and
all the while the RCMP stand by.
In a blatant smear attempt, the
apparently vegetarian Mayor of Langford, Stew Young - who has never
deigned to take the 15 minute walk from his office to meet the
tree-sitters - was recently "shocked and disgusted" to learn that some
of them eat venison and rabbit occasionally.
Still, no arrests.
We
expect that the Mayor prefers not to have the tree-sitters arrested
through the many legal options currently available to him, and is
pleading with the judiciary for a court injunction instead.
This
travesty of justice has been the corporate/government modus-operandi
for dealing with pesky citizen dissent on environmental matters.
Protesters who are arrested by court injunction have no opportunity to
defend themselves by fair trial in British Columbia.
Considering Mayor
Young's close relationships with the Bear Mountain developers,
arresting the protesters through normal channels would not be
desirable. That would allow them to make their case in court, where all
the wheelings and dealings, such as the Western Forest
Products/Campbell government land scam which made the Bear Mountain
development possible, could be carefully exposed.
It was postulated
that the Bear Mountain Interchange consortium might be having trouble
getting their desired court injunction, and this was why the RCMP has
been put on hold.
Turns out, it isn't the Mayor's lack of a
court injunction that's holding up the project, apparently they've now
got problems getting their financial ducks in order.
On August 8/07 in
a letter to the Goldstream Gazette, Mayor Young wrote that "we estimate
that the Spencer Road interchange and connections to it will cost
approximately $30 million.
Developer contributions will fund this
project."
But public money had already been invested into the project
when the City of Langford secretively bought out the Leigh Road
neighbourhood to make way for the project.
Then at a September 19/07
public consultation meeting, Bear Mountain #2 Les Bjola, promised that
the developers would cover the entire cost of the interchange. Two
months later, in a ridiculous display of fiscal irresponsibilty,
Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon tossed $5,000,000 of provincial
money into the Bear Mountain Interchange pot. But now it appears that
the Bear Mountain developers will not be putting up any of their money.
We have learned recently that it's actually Langford citizens
who are slated to pay $25 million for the Bear Mountain Interchange,
essentially assuming all the risk, and covering the debt of the Bear
Mountain developers over the next 15 years.
Mayor Young and Langford
council held a secretive meeting two days after Christmas – no press of
public were notified - where they hatched, and passed through 3 readings
in a single meeting, their scheme to borrow $25 million to pay for
their little mega-project.
The Bear Mountain developers, apparently,
will pay out their "contribution" in installments through 2018. That
is, of course, if they don't just up and declare bankruptcy one day,
and move onto other projects, under different names.
Although
it's true that this beautiful patch of forest has significant,
potentially show-stopping features such as culturally modified trees
and numerous karst sinkholes which were missed in the Golder Associates
bogus Environmental and Archaeological Assessments which greenwash the
project, the main reason for the blockade has always been about Bear
Mountain.
Bear Mountain is clearly the interchange project's sole
beneficiary. It will do nothing to alleviate traffic congestion along
the Trans-Canada Highway corridor out of Victoria. The proponents claim
that a new interchange will eliminate the traffic light at Spencer
Road, but Langford is just about to add another traffic light a
kilometer down the highway at Amy Road!
Having built out Phase
1 of its monster-house, condo and golf-course project as far as it can
using existing access infrastructure, the Bear Mountain developers
desperately need this interchange to carry on with Phase 2, which will
double its current size.
Numerous citizen groups throughout the CRD are
now mobilized to fight this interchange, and thereby thwart this
massive, unethical blast and smash project. To those of us who are
worried about rampant, sprawling monster-projects springing up all over
Vancouver Island. We cannot allow the Bear Mountain developers to set
precedents for the future of our island and must stand up and demand
ethical development now.
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