In a continuation of their battle to depose Lower Kootenay Band Chief Jason Louie, his brother and father are working to scuttle a proposed heli-skiing partnership with Retallack, a company based in Nelson and New Denver.
Robert Louie Jr., who has a law degree but is not a lawyer, said last week that he and his father, Robert Louie Sr., have joined with band members who are opposed to a Retallack/Lower Kootenay Band Agreement.
Louie Jr., who is prohibited by The Law Society of British Columbia from representing himself as a lawyer, said the LKB negotiations with Retallack have not been transparent.
Expressing a concern “with the secrecy that took place leading up to the joint submission buy Retallack and Chief Louie.
“Gone are the days when a proponent takes the Chief out for dinner and a hockey game to get the approbation to go ahead and have their way with the land,” he said. “The problem here is that the information and money stopped at the door of the Band Council. That Band members didn’t know that a mountain in their traditional territory was going to be forever altered by Retallack.”
Retallack has a proposal into the provincial government that would give it tenure over a 700 square kilometre portion of the south Purcell mountain range, from near Kootenay Lake to St. Mary’s Lake near Kimberley. The proposal includes 33 helicopter-accessed bike trails and daily heli-skiing in the winter. The Lower Kootenay Band—Yaqan Nu?kiy—is named as a partner in the proposal, which includes some of its traditional lands.
Louie Jr. said he has had teleconferences with personnel in the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, which can approve or deny the proposal.
He said that it “is the Band Council and Chief that jumped into bed with Retallack—not the Band members. No right-thinking Ktunaxa would co-sign an agreement that denudes part of a mountain, displaces our wildlife, and demolishes our cherished huckleberry patches.”
The father and son team have added to the groundswell of opposition by East Shore residents who do not want the wilderness disturbed and who fear that their quiet lifestyle will change with helicopters routinely flying overhead.