This is an important Letter to the Editor, written by Cleve Higgins, a member of the family who had their working tree farm in Mooseland expropriated by the NDP government of Nova Scotia in order that it could be turned over to a penny-stock mining company out of Australia.
It appeared in the Chronicle Herald on Saturday 16 August 2014. Reproduced here without permission.
Organize now against industry land grabs
An
open-pit gold mine in Moose River; a gravel quarry in Fogartys' Cove.
The common thread is that they involve government expropriations on
behalf of industrial extraction companies. This poses a serious threat
to landowner rights in Nova Scotia and to the health of the land and
water.
There are only three laws in Nova Scotia that allow a
private company to request a government-issued expropriation: the
Mineral Resources Act, the Petroleum Resource Act and the Pipelines
Act. In other words, these extractive industries have a special status
in the Nova Scotia legal system, with privileges that are granted to no
one else.
This is what makes expropriations of the Fogarty
family, or the Higgins family, legally possible. A real respect for the
land and landowners’ rights demands an end to these expropriations. Of
course, advocates for the extractive industry (including those employed
by the Department of Natural Resources) will argue, as they have
recently done in this paper, that these expropriations of private land
are extremely rare.
This hides the ugly truth on the ground,
which is that companies use the threat of expropriation to pressure
landowners into selling. If they’re going to take it anyway — why not sell?
These laws get used when principled landowners are completely
unwilling to sell land to an extractive company that is going to leave
it irreparably scarred.
Furthermore, advocates for industry
will argue that their projects are for the “public good," that it will
mean jobs closer to home, so we won’t need to travel out west for work.
We can’t help but wonder what “public good" they are talking about.
Nova Scotians whom we know appreciate things growing on the land, clean
water, and the sustainable industries and tourism that depend on them.
Some of us might go out west for work when we have to, but when we see
the legacy of extractive industry — the black pits of tar sand extending
to the horizon or the vast fracking zones — then we’re glad to come
back to Nova Scotia, to the beautiful pieces of land we grew up on.
When advocates for extractive industry talk about the “public good,"
they’re referring to one thing only: money. And most of that ends up
in their own pockets. For the rest of us, their expropriations of the
land never have been for the public good and it never will be.
We need to think ahead to what expropriation
for extractive industry is going to mean in the years to come. If
shale-gas fracking is ever permitted in this province, then the
Petroleum Resource Act will allow fracking companies to request
expropriation of private land for their numerous drill pads and other
facilities.
In Moose River, we made the mistake of waiting
until the expropriation request came before we started fighting it. For
all of you who are concerned about fracking, and who don’t want to see
your land expropriated for a fracking drill pad or other extractive
project, you need to start organizing now. Find out what projects
might become active in your area, and talk to your neighbours about how
you’re going to collectively refuse to allow your land to be taken.
Finally, we should all look to the inspiring example of the Mi’kmaq
people, who have been respecting and defending this land for a very long
time. Barbara Low is a Mi’kmaq woman who spoke at one of the public
meetings on fracking in Port Hawkesbury, and she got right to the
point: “I want to make it clear that we want the land to be safe and
secure for future generations, and we will not allow fracking to happen
on Mi’kmaq territory."
Together, we can all protect the land from the extractive industries and their expropriations. Cleve Higgins is a member of the Higgins family who had land expropriated in Moose River Gold Mines.