A $400,000 feasability study by the Okanagan Nation Alliance looking at the establishment of a national park in the South Okanagan - Similkameen was released last Tuesday.
Oddly enough, the study, which has been underway since last year and highly anticipated in some circles, was released to the public on February 26 with few local media present to witness what some sources say was an otherwise organized event.
It’s also strange if the organizers of the news release actually chose not to invite local media to the event. The First Nations study certainly raised a few issues that local press would have liked to investigate further - issues that call into question the process by which a national park might be created rather than whether or not it should be created.
Taking note of information gleaned from our sister publication The Penticton Western News, whose reporter Mark Brett was one of the few local journalists in attendance, the local First Nations study was paid for through a $400,000 payment by Parks Canada, to the Osoyoos Indian Band ($200,000) and the Lower Similkameen Band ($200,000). (The size of those payments would not be public knowledge had the Western not made a Freedom of Information request to obtain them.)
According to the Western article, a working group of the Okanagan Nation Alliance prepared the study, staging workshops and meetings to gather input from band members. Two legal opinions relating to the protection of aboriginal land title and rights, was also obtained.
We will probably never know how the $400,000 was spent in the study (and we should, considering that it was taxpayers money). It’s also interesting to note that the $200,000 that went to the Lower Similkameen Indian Band works out to a per capita grant of $414 per person. One would be curious to know how $200,000 was spent in what appears to have been a simple assessment of band members’ opinions.
The study also wishes to reopen the contentious issue of expanding the park boundaries, to include areas that have a history of land use unrelated to national park activities, such as mining.
Another aspect of the feasibility study that could be considered disturbing involves the proposed “caveats” to be bestowed on local First Nations bands, including such things as hunting and “employment opportunities.”
It would appear that Parks Canada and local First Nations bands are bent on repeating mistakes of the past by creating a situation of “special status” upon one interest group over another.
Seems that these groups have not learned the consequences of negotiation that creates special privileges for a single group.
In this case, the granting of special hunting and employment rights to one group, while withdrawing them from another, discriminates against every non-native who has ever used the lands in question for recreational purposes similar to those to be bequeathed to natives, should a national park be established.
In making rules for national park land use favourable for one group of people at the expense of others, the conclusions of the feasibility study will very likely increase local animosity between those who feel there are benefits and those who don’t.
If we were actually having a genuine debate about the national park - one that began with the common theme that the area needs protection and worked towards a consenus of just how much protection is needed - there wouldn’t be a need to play local groups against each other like this.
For many residents, the current debate has nothing to do with a national park’s existence.
It does, however, have everything to do with the present methods being used to achieve that end.