"Where are the Liberals on Chinese Communist State Coal Mines in B.C.?
In 2006 Mr. Bill Bennett, as Minister of State for Mines, welcomed the arrival of Canadian Dehau in B.C. with a warm letter to Dehau chaiman, Liu Naishun, on its coal Gething project near Hudson Hope. HD Mining is described on Dehau's website (www.dehau.ca) as a co-partnership company.
Dehau and HD are private B.C. companies. They are owned, financed and controlled by the Chinese Communist state. These are not ordinary, private corporate investors. Despite all the glowing media from China about the financial rise of middle and upper classes, the Communist state is a corrupt, oppressive totalitarian dictatorship. It runs extensive gulags and black (i.e., unofficial) prisons. Dissent is crushed and a letter like this would send the writer to the gulag for ten or more years.
China is investing around the world in resources. Angola, Kenya, South Sudan, Brazil and Iraq are a few examples. It seems since 2006, B.C. has also become a third world country that needs Chinese state investment. Private investment is one thing. Allowing the Chinese totalitarian state into our province is quite another.
The Coal Act states rights for an annual license to explore for coal or a lease of up to 30 years to mine coal must be granted by the cabinet minister responsible for that statute.
Dehau and HD own six coal mining areas in north eastern B.C. Dehau reports it bought the coal licences of its Bullmoose project from Kennecott, a U.S. mining company. There is no public report of how the rights to mine coal in their remaining five areas were acquired. Were they all granted by the Liberal government under the Coal Act? The ironically named Freedom of Information Act does not allow us access to cabinet and ministerial decisions. Will Ms. Clark tell us how the rights to these five areas were granted? Do the B.C. Liberals still supports access to B.C. coal by the Chinese dictatorship?"
Gary MacDonald,
Cranbrook, B.C.
