VICTORIA: The BC division of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) will begin a radio ad campaign on Thursday, November 18, urging British Columbians to phone, fax, e-mail and write their Liberal Members of Parliament to demand amendments to the Nisga'a treaty.

"The BC government refused to hold a referendum on the Nisga'a treaty. Now the federal government wants to ram it through Parliament, and only holds hearings in BC after being forced to show up by the official opposition. Meanwhile, the public is shut out and BC's government MPs are in hiding," said CTF-BC director Mark Milke. "Taxpayers have been ignored, so we're asking them to tell Liberal MPs in BC what they think by calling them directly at their constituency offices."

The radio ads, to air on Vancouver-area stations, will ask listeners to contact Ted McWhinney, Lou Sekora, Sophia Leung, Hedy Fry, and Raymond Chan. The CTF will also post the names, constituency numbers and addresses of all government MPs in BC (David Anderson and Herb Dhaliwal along with the aforementioned list) on the Federation's website.

Milke noted that none of the seven federal Liberals who represent BC in government are on the Nisga'a committee now touring BC, (today in Prince George, Thursday in Victoria, and Friday in Vancouver.) Five government members on the committee are from Ontario. The four other government members are from Nunavut, Labrador, Quebec and Manitoba.

"Federal Liberal MPs have made it abundantly clear through their actions what they think of BC's taxpayers. It is now time for BC's taxpayers to tell those MPs what they think of those actions, and to demand treaties that bring equality to all Canadians and not division," said Milke. "The federal and BC governments have bargained away core principles of democracy and taxation with representation. Taxpayers must let MPs know such crude political games are unacceptable."