Open letter to Premier Darrell Pasloski:
As an elder and a former government leader, I think it’s completely unprofessional for a premier to lambaste non-profit groups during a budget speech, and it’s especially inappropriate during a time of mourning for the past director of the Canadian Parks And Wilderness Society’s Yukon chapter, Michael Dehn.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s not CPAWS or environmental groups who have been leading the charge on the protection of the Peel, it’s the First Nations and the Yukon public. This issue belongs to all of us, to everyone who signed onto the Umbrella Final Agreement, and it’s time for the premier to open his eyes.
This thing about CPAWS creating a private pathway for grizzlies to go to Montana - that’s just ridiculous. Government is obviously trying to shift the focus onto CPAWS and environmentalists as the bad guys, while it attempts to justify developing the Peel. In regards to turning the Peel into a park, that has never been discussed.
This bit about not weighing Peel responses from the Outside as heavily the ones from the Yukon - we’ve got to think about our brothers and sisters downriver in N.W.T., they depend on that water. Are they outsiders too? The future of the environment is the concern of everyone, and all comments should be seriously considered.
Mother Earth will be fine - she can go to sleep for a billion years, but Mother Nature is in danger, and humanity in general is in deep, deep trouble. Politicians have the ability to change this, by protecting the integrity of the environment and our water for generations.
Simon Mervyn Sr.
Mayo