Malcolm Boothroyd is spreading a simple message.
Reject what he calls the “Pasloski plans.”
Better yet, rip them up. Literally. To illustrate the point.
That’s what the young Yukoner did in front of several hundred people who had braved minus 30 temperatures to pack a public meeting on the Peel in Whitehorse this week.
Boothroyd, a founder of the Peel Youth Alliance, doesn’t want the Yukon to miss the opportunity to create a great wilderness legacy by protecting an entire watershed.
He reminded the audience that in many other parts of the continent all that’s left to protect is a single creek or a pond.
The remains of his torn up “concept” maps, strewn across the floor around the podium, put a big smile on the face of another speaker, Sarah Jerome.
“I just love this,” said Jerome, pointing to the bits and pieces as she settled in behind the microphone.
Growing up on the banks of the Peel River, just south of Fort McPherson, the Tetlit Gwich’in woman talked passionately about what the region means to her.
“I call it God’s country,” she said. “This is where my late parents raised us….They were the keepers of the land. They taught us that we have to take care of this beautiful land up there.”
She’d prefer to see 100 per cent of the watershed protected from industrial development, but noted the Gwich’in Tribal Council had agreed to the compromise of 80 per cent in the final recommended plan.
“I am so happy tonight to see so many people here that are supporting our efforts,” she said. “And I want to say mussi cho from the bottom of my heart. “
Mount Lorne resident Clara Sharp said she’s so upset at the way the government is dealing with the Peel plan she just had to stand up and say something.
“I think that the Peel [issue] is way bigger than the wilderness in which we all live and have to protect and have to really fight for. I think our democracy is also under siege - not just territorially, but federally. But what the hell do we do about it?”
No pasaran!
After living in the Yukon for more than 30 years, Whitehorse resident Jean Francois Deslauriers said the land is as important to him as ever.
“I’m here today again to say ‘No pasaran!’ - you will not pass,” he said.
“Ever since the Yukon Party government was elected and came up with this fantasy to challenge us like that, to reject the plan that we had put in place, as Yukoners, as a people, ever since they did that, I’ve seen the greatest resistance movement that I’ve ever seen in the Yukon,” he said.
Werner Rhein, who is with Yukoners Concerned About Oil and Gas, said his group helped convince the government to put a moratorium on oil and gas development in the Whitehorse Trough earlier this year. Now it's turned its attention to fracking and is also concerned about the Peel plan.
"The Pasloski minority is not respecting the majority of Yukoners,” he said.
NDP environment critic Kate White told the audience that a campaign this week outside the legislature to get drivers to honk in support of the Peel is working.
“Let me tell you when they honked for the entire Question Period, and it was hard to concentrate, and if you’re not sure that’s effective, let me tell you they heard you yesterday,” she said.
People sitting in the public gallery every day, wearing their Protect the Peel t-shirts, and watching the politicians at work, also has an impact, she said.
She told the crowd she wished she could wear one in the House, but she can't because "it's unparliamentary."
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