Premier's ally fights to keep golf course

By IAN BAILEY 

Friday, July 13, 2007

Globe & Mail

VANCOUVER -- Gordon Campbell is about to face a new campaign "to put more pressure on the Premier" to back off a plan to cede a popular golf course in his riding to the Musqueam Indian band.

And a key engineer of the effort is one of Mr. Campbell's political fundraisers and a long-time political associate.

Marty Zlotnik, a Vancouver park board commissioner, has criticized the Premier's policy on the University Golf Club and helped draft a strategy to mobilize opposition to it that includes polls, policy development and fundraising.

"If we are going to put enough pressure on the Premier to move away from the UBC course as part of a settlement, much more pressure is needed," Mr. Zlotnik wrote in a pitch for public support, obtained by The Globe and Mail.

To that end, Mr. Zlotnik and Bob Hindmarch, former athletics director at the University of British Columbia, are seeking minimum $100 donations over the next month.

Their campaign will include a poll to see if the public would rather give the Musqueam land other than the 120-acre golf course, ads in local papers, and an attempt to counter Musqueam claims that the urban band of about 1,200 needs more land.

The west-side Vancouver activists, who live in one of the city's most affluent neighbourhoods, say the Premier's easiest alternative would be to give the Musqueam land equal in size to the course, which opened in 1929, in the University Endowment Lands around the University of British Columbia.

They say that they have 1,300 signatures on a petition backing their views, which they will deliver to the Premier's riding office.

The province is negotiating the fate of the golf course with the Musqueam after an appeal court ruled that Mr. Campbell's Liberal government was wrong to sell it to UBC for $11-million in 2003.

But the talks have outraged constituents in Mr. Campbell's Vancouver-Point Grey riding, golfers and others who fear the Musqueam would allow the property to be developed.

The Premier and Aboriginal Relations Minister Mike de Jong have declined detailed comment on the talks, but have said that all British Columbians must accept the adjustments involved in land claims.

Musqueam Chief Ernie Campbell has said the course will remain as it is until 2033 if his band obtains it.

"This is totally preposterous to assume that we would roll over and be happy with a deal that would disenfranchise our children and future generations," said the statement from Mr. Zlotnik and Mr. Hindmarch.

They suggest the best way to counter Musqueam claims that they need more land is to study how many Musqueam families there are, how much land each has today and what has been given to other native bands in cash and land to settle claims.

They would also like an estimate of what the nearby Shaughnessy Golf Course will be worth in 26 years.

The Musqueam are expected to take control of that property in 2032.

"Where do we as a society say that, yes, we feel an obligation, but given your resources you have more than enough to satisfy your needs and must now manage your resources for you and your heirs."

The Musqueam community lacks "economic generators" on their limited land base, "but are worth more than most other bands in B.C.," says the statement, noting that the native band needs cash as well as land.

The province either wishes to ignore the facts "or are not prepared to confront the Musqueam with the question of when is enough enough," the statement says.

"If the answer is that it's never enough, then we should not as a society participate in any further settlements with the Musqueam.

"We don't believe this is the case. [We] think those involved have not looked at the urban native bands in the proper light."