News and event information for Williams Lake, BC - as it happens.

By LeRae Haynes

 Members from the Williams Lake chapter of the Council of Canadians took Mayor Kerry Cook up on her offer to ‘have coffee with the Mayor’ in July, discussing topics that included city water issues and the proposed Prosperity Mine project. 

“Mayor Cook suggested that we sit down with the City Council Committee of the whole, which meets every other week. These meetings are not open to the public, and are an opportunity for various delegations to meet with the whole Council,” stated John Dressler from the local Council of Canadians.

He said that if the Council decides that the topic should be discussed in a public meeting, the delegation is invited to attend a regular Council meeting.

John Dressler introduced the Council of Canadians delegation, and described the purpose of the group as a whole—to raise awareness of the concerns of Canadians in general, including things like health care, water and environmental issues. Council of Canadians member Bette McLellan addressed Mayor and Council next, asking if they felt they were making enough use of advisory committees such as the Social Planning Council and the Sustainability Committee. Another member, Ross McCoubrey, stated a series of eight questions centred on Prosperity Mine.

“Our main interest was to pose a number of questions to raise the awareness level,” John stated. “We wanted to give them something to think about. Councillor Geoff Bourdon seemed to feel compelled to answer some of the questions immediately, and a question-and-answer dialogue opened between Geoff and Ross and others as well.

“Mayor Cook invited all the councillors to respond, and at one point Councillor Sue Zacharias interjected, and said that the dialogue shouldn’t be taking place—that it sounded too much like a debate, and changed the topic,” John continued.

“It was an intense discussion about a very serious topic, but it was not heated,” he said. “Kerry Cook seemed glad to see the dialogue take place. It’s not true that the whole community is solidly behind Prosperity Mine, and this presentation did a good deal to shake that up a bit.”

City Councillor Laurie Walters said that there were a lot of good points raised. “I think that the questions were valid and thought-provoking. From my perspective, I see the need for job development, and at the end of the day, we’re going to have to be satisfied with the outcome of the environmental study,” she explained. “I still feel that Prosperity Mine would be a benefit for our community, if the environmental issues are met.”

John said that there is an urgent need for every City Councillor to read the environmental information on the environment website about the Prosperity application in order to understand the scientific opinions and concerns of the local Ministry of Environment employees. “They should remind themselves that these are local people with information about our Cariboo environment,” he said in conclusion. “They are deeply concerned.”

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