VICTORIA – About 200 people gathered in the rain on the legislature lawn Sunday to call for a halt to plans for a third dam on the Peace River.

The rally was organized by northeast B.C. aboriginal leaders and environmental groups Sierra Club of B.C. and the Wilderness Committee. Green Party leader Jane Sterk and NDP energy critic John Horgan also addressed the rally.

Liz Logan, tribal chief and spokesperson for the Treaty 8 First Nations in the region, read a declaration written on a scroll of birchbark. It was signed by chiefs from B.C., Alberta and the Northwest Territory, where the Peace flows to the Mackenzie River and drains to the Arctic Ocean.

The declaration states that the third dam, known as Site C, would further disrupt historic gravesites, wildlife and farmland along the river.

Opposition to the proposed dam has grown since Premier Gordon Campbell announced this spring that the project would go to the environmental assessment stage.

In May, Logan led a delegation of Treaty 8 chiefs to Victoria to sign a resource sharing agreement that paid $17.8 million to the Doig River, West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations as a share of oil, gas and forest resources. At the time, Logan left the door open to talks with B.C. over Site C, although she said it would be premature until the impact of the W.A.C. Bennett and Peace Canyon dams on the Peace have been settled.

Since then, all the local aboriginal bands have spoken against the development, supported by neighbouring communities and the Assembly of First Nations national convention in July.

"This is not just for us, it's for everyone in British Columbia," Logan told the rally. "This is our only river flowing north, that we need to protect for future generations."

Horgan said the decision on whether to build Site C should be made based on scientific study, not just of the environmental impact but the economics of supplying power. He said the B.C. Liberal government ducked the economic question this spring when it exempted Site C from cost-benefit analysis by the B.C. Utilities Commission.

Sterk said the Green Party opposes all new hydroelectric development in B.C., including Site C and the various private run-of-river projects being built or considered. B.C. should diversify into wind, solar, geothermal and tidal power production instead, she said.

Sterk said the B.C. government's push to build Site C is linked to the vast shale gas development taking shape in northeastern B.C., and both the electricity and the natural gas will ultimately assist further development of the Athabasca oil sands in northern Alberta.