“Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise.”

I concede that Martin Luther’s words in 1521 at the Diet of Worms were far more important than my reasons for borrowing them here, but when I decided to write this, they were on my mind. I hope you and Luther will forgive my trespass.

I take the unusual step of publishing this on my website rather than first on Common Sense Canadian. My expressed viewpoint is radical in the true sense of that word so my friend and colleague Damien Gillis, who publishes CSC, should not feel under the slightest personal pressure to publish it.

I find I no longer come close to sharing the values Canada now stands for. I’m not talking about opinions but a philosophy of life, a set of basic values.

As a core value, I value the environment above the desire of bankers and developers to make money, and of bought-and-paid-for politicians to support them. I accept the need for societal sustenance but do not accept plunder in the name of progress.

The flashpoint is the Trudeau-supported revival of the Alberta tar sands and the prime minister compelling B.C. to sacrifice both principle and its environment to the transport and sale of tar sands product to places that will be under no constraints as to its use. I believe Canada must accept responsibility for safeguarding water, land and air in places to which it exports products and services. I cannot be loyal to a country that has no such values.

By way of a quick background for those who don’t know me: I was born in Vancouver on December 31, 1931, received all my schooling here, including an LL.B from UBC in 1956. I was granted an LL.D (honoris causa) by SFU in 2009.

My career has mainly been in four areas, often overlapping: law, politics, broadcasting and writing. I have acquired some special expertise in constitutional matters, mainly (but not exclusively) Canadian. With the exception of five months in 1956 spent in Edmonton, I’ve spent my entire life in British Columbia living in the greater Vancouver area (Richmond, North Vancouver, Lions Bay, Vancouver itself) Kamloops and Victoria.

I am 6th generation Canadian on my mother’s side; my father was born in New Zealand. I’m of Anglo Scottish heritage and the Anglican faith. My politics are centre/left. My interests, reduced by health problems, are writing, reading (with my interests in history and politics) and music (classical and standard jazz). My favourite active sports in the past were flyfishing, golf and squash; for watching, baseball (my favourite team remains the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers).

I have long felt more British Columbian than Canadian. When I was B.C.’s minister for constitutional affairs working on amending the BNA Act to become the modern Constitution, I observed the perpetual second-class treatment of B.C., saw how no one cared that the Senate was an ongoing, deliberate putdown of my province, observed B.C.’s woeful lack of representation on federal boards and commissions, the lack of prime ministers from the West Coast and the utter absence oF B.C. governors-general and the disgracefully arrogant treatment of B.C.’s fishery by the federal government. The put-downs seemed endless and started early.

My generation grew up learning that Canadian explorers were Cartier and Champlain, Indians were Iroquois, Algonquin and Huron, and some limey — Sir Isaac Brock — was a ‘Canadian’ hero. I learned about Captains Cook and Vancouver, Quadra and Russian settlements in British History in a private school, and about Simon Fraser and David Thompson at UBC. I didn’t read a decent history of B.C. until my second year at UBC and knew little of the real history of the land of my birth until I was nearly 70 and interviewed Dr. Jean Barman on her classic, The West Beyond The West. I doubt one in 100 kids of my vintage could name the first B.C. premier or the rich Victoria merchants, without a suggestion of public support, who sold us out to Ottawa for a mess of potage and a railway to help Ontario grab our resources for cheap.

Let me tell you an instructive anecdote about my time as Constitution minister. I was horrified at the attitude of Ontario and the Feds about B.C. (Quebec marched to its own drummer but was still more an ally than any other, except Saskatchewan.) Their ignorance and overwhelming indifference was palpable. I attended a high-powered constitutional conference in 1979 held by the University of Toronto and there was a huge wooden bas-relief map of Canada on the wall. When it was my turn to speak, I asked the distinguished chairman what had happened to the Queen Charlotte Islands. (This was before Haida Gwaii became the accepted name.) No one paid attention (save those who joked) and in some anger I pointed out that the little oversight was just under twice the size of Prince Edward Island. It was seen as childish petulance over a matter of no importance.

We were seen as childish pests when we said, “Surely as we’re cleaning up and modernizing the BNA Act we can fix the Senate and make it fair!” Naturally, no one wanted to see fair play for B.C.

Many things make up a nation but, in my view, shared values matter more than all the rest combined. These aren’t political quarrels I have with Canada (though I have lots of those). No, these are fundamental values I can’t live without — and Justin Trudeau can’t live with. Many things make up a nation but, in my view, shared values matter more than all the rest combined. These aren’t political quarrels I have with Canada (though I have lots of those). No, these are fundamental values I can’t live without — and Justin Trudeau can’t live with.

The real reason I want B.C. out is a matter of principles, or values if you prefer. I’m not talking about political issues but basic tenets of belief.

The Meech Lake/Charlottetown Accords disclosed a basic gap between the Central Canadian elite — the people the late Denny Boyd called “Higher Purpose Persons (HPPs)” who always know best — and those ignorant idiots in B.C. who refused to accept special powers for one province.

After Elijah Harper killed Meech Lake, B.C. warned that next time, it wouldn’t be the premiers deciding but the people in a referendum. And so it was: The Charlottetown referendum was held and 67.9 per cent of British Columbians said, “We’ve had enough of your patronizing crap – get stuffed!”

Then Justin Trudeau decided (cross his heart, hope to die) to give Canadians a better voting system. To do it democratically, he said, we’ll hold cozy neighbourhood meetings around the country, then the House of Commons will meet, and the Liberal party will ram through a reformed version of first-past-the-post with a preferential ballot and presto! … by an amazing coincidence, the Liberals will have their way and carry Central Canada forevermore.

The HPPs told us that we mustn’t hold a referendum because, er, the people can’t understand these complicated issues. (Remember Charlottetown!) In fact, the HPPs were right … for the wrong reason. Trudeau understood what he was really after — a Liberal Party Permanent Election formula — and he wasn’t going to let those troublemakers in B.C. spoil it all for the elite the way they did with Charlottetown in 1992. Far safer to break your word and lay low.

While I don’t pretend for a moment to speak for my fellow British Columbians, my educated guess is that many of their values on the use of the environment differ radically from Trudeau’s “values”. That’s not what’s important, though. Even if no one agreed with my values, I must do what I believe is right.

Here are some of my values:

I am an environmentalist. When we lose our environment — when a species we’ve never heard of goes extinct, when a valley sustained by its fauna, flora and water is lost, when a run of herring ends forever — it is a huge tragedy. Reading reports from Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd breaks the heart.

Does that mean that I oppose all industry and development? That’s a silly question. We have to work, eat and survive. But in Trudeau’s Canada, development — without more than cynical lip service to the values I care about — trumps everything.

Start with fish farms. Recently the spread of disease from farms to wild salmon was scientifically demonstrated once again. The evidence has been piling up for more than 15 years. And what was the federal government’s answer to this evidence? “B.C., go fuck yourself.”

Forgive my language but that’s the only way I can translate Ottawa’s policy of sacrificing our precious resources. Does this offend your basic set of values? It certainly does mine.

LNG (liquified natural gas) in the atmosphere is the worst of all fossil fuels — worse than coal or oil — as a driver of climate change. In the case of the proposed refinery at Squamish there is the substantial added danger of pollutants into Howe Sound putting all marine life at risk. And by any standard, Howe Sound is far too narrow for LNG tanker traffic. Even the Society of International Gas Tanker and Terminal Operators (SIGTTO) says Howe Sound is too narrow for LNG tanker traffic. The Trudeau government’s response? “Tell someone who cares.”

The only environmental assessment done on the project was the equivalent of one of those old Soviet show trials — and the critical issue of the width of Howe Sound has never been assessed. The public has never been consulted.

The Alberta tar sands, the world’s biggest natural polluter, produces a tar like substance artificially liquefied, which — if spilled, especially on water — is virtually impossible to clean up as it usually sinks too quickly to be dealt with. A spill defined as ‘minor’ on the Kalamazoo River in Michigan in 2010 still has not been cleaned up, and probably never will be. The federal government has approved the Kinder Morgan pipeline to bring this material through B.C. to Burrard Inlet (Vancouver Harbour) to be shipped by tanker across the Salish Sea, through or near the Gulf Islands, through the Straits of Juan de Fuca, to the Pacific Ocean.

The company claims this will “only” add 400 tankers a year to local traffic. As the Duke of Wellington said to a man on a London street who hailed him as Mr. Robinson, “Sir, If you believe that, you’ll believe anything.”

Spills are inevitable. So are tanker collisions — serious ones. Great damage will be done to our precious sea life. Lives will be lost. And for what?

I mostly leave aside Site C — perhaps the most monstrous project of them all — because we have the opportunity in the May 9 provincial election to rid ourselves of this massive destruction of farmland and desecration of First Nations heritage — a dam built to provide power we don’t need to customers we don’t have to satisfy this Campbell/Clark/Fraser Institute-inspired madness.

A final word. Many things make up a nation but, in my view, shared values matter more than all the rest combined. These aren’t political quarrels I have with Canada (though I have lots of those). No, these are fundamental values I can’t live without — and Justin Trudeau can’t live with. None of these values destroy industry; rather, they put it and what we are deeply committed to in British Columbia on a level playing field together.

British Columbia, my home, has been pushed around for all the decades I have lived, worked, served, loved and, yes, loafed in her. I won’t be called a ‘bad Canadian’ simply because I want to protect her wildlife, because I don’t want to help uncaring capitalists and their captive governments spread ruin.

I hope you understand. It’s irrelevant if you don’t. “Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise.”

May God bless Cascadia, a land of values.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.