Current Problems: Government Commitments to Truth and Reconciliation
Exploring Stakeholder: "Government of British Columbia"
Updates on this page: 47
April 19, 2024
UN puts spotlight on attacks against Indigenous land defenders, journalists
Indigenous peoples around the world are harassed and killed at alarming rates. Will the world act? Tear gas is deployed by police during a Maasai rights demonstration outside the Tanzanian High Commission in Nairobi in 2022. Ben Curtis / AP Photo APTN News: When around 70,000 Indigenous Maasai were expelled from their lands in northern Tanzania in 2022,...
April 2, 2024
Frustrated with government, Gitxsan Hereditary Chiefs wavering on support for B.C. pipeline
As tensions in northwest B.C. persist over pipelines, court-ordered injunctions and police enforcement, Gitxsan Hereditary Chiefs demand government respect and dialogue Nearly a decade after signing agreements for a major pipeline project, support from the Gitxsan Hereditary Chiefs appears to be fraying. Photo: Matt Simmons / The Narwhal The Narwhal: On a bitterly cold morning in...
March 11, 2024
Painful discrimination still confronts too many Indigenous people: Ken Coates for Inside Policy
Canada has a long way to go before Indigenous peoples can be assured of fairness before the law or consistent acceptance in Canadian society. March 11, 2024 in Ken Coates, Inside Policy, Columns, Latest News, Indigenous Affairs Program, Social issues NationTalk: McDonald-Laurier Institute: Inside Policy – Most Canadians believe that life is getting better for Indigenous peoples in the country and...
March 9, 2024
Brian Mulroney’s complicated relationship with Indigenous peoples in Canada
From laying the foundations of Nunavut to the Oka crisis, the former PM’s legacy was one of contradictions CBC News: The late Brian Mulroney’s legacy with Indigenous peoples in Canada is marked by its contradictions — failures remembered for their good intentions, successes accompanied by catastrophic disappointments. The former prime minister is praised by some Indigenous leaders for creating a...
February 29, 2024
AFN National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak Calls for Continued Support for B.C. Land Act Amendments
NationTalk: Unceded Algonquin Territory, Ottawa, Ontario) – Assembly of First Nations (AFN) National Chief, Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, expressed disappointment and concern, following the British Columbia (B.C.) government’s decision to pause the proposed amendments to the B.C. Land Act. “I am disappointed by the B.C. government’s decision to pause the proposed amendments to the B.C. Land...
February 29, 2024
Why Did Trans Mountain Dig Through an Indigenous Burial Site?
The company’s plan was to ‘micro-tunnel’ in Secwépemc territory — but that fell through. An explainer. The Tyee: Trans Mountain says it is in the process of wrapping up work to install its pipeline through a sacred Secwépemc site, bringing its expansion project one step closer to completion. The new collaborative work from Debra Sparrow...
February 22, 2024
NDP Hits Brakes on Land Act Reconciliation Plan
Opposition forces government to relaunch consultations; Cullen blames misinformation. The Tyee: Facing public backlash encouraged by opposition parties, the B.C. government has cancelled planned changes to the Land Act, Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship Nathan Cullen said Wednesday. While the government said the changes were necessary to allow it to enter into land-use...
February 15, 2024
What does the duty to consult First Nations, Inuit and Métis mean?
And why some advocates say Canada needs to move from consultation to consent CBC Indigenous: You’ve probably heard the phrase duty to consult, or failure to consult, when it comes to governments and their relationships with First Nations, Inuit and Métis. But what does it actually mean? Stemming from three Supreme Court of Canada decisions in 2004...
February 15, 2024
B.C. resets talks on plan to give First Nations more say over public land
The Globe and Mail: The British Columbia government is conducting an intensive series of meetings with industry and outdoor recreation groups this month, in an attempt to assuage concerns about its proposed changes to the law that governs Crown land. The province plans to amend the Land Act in the spring legislative session to pave...
February 14, 2024
Is BC ‘Returning All Traditional Lands’ to First Nations?
Plans to bring the Land Act into line with DRIPA have caused a furor. An explainer. The Tyee: Anyone reading about proposed amendments to B.C.’s Land Act might believe there are major changes afoot. Private property is at risk. Outdoor recreation is threatened. Water access, mining, forestry and agriculture all now hang in the balance as the...
February 13, 2024
B.C. regional chief decries ‘fear mongering’ over proposed changes to Land Act
Terry Teegee says suggestion changes would allow First Nations a ‘veto’ is false and inflammatory CBC Indigenous: Recent reactions to proposed changes to B.C.’s Land Act are a threat to reconciliation, B.C. Assembly of First Nations Regional Chief Terry Teegee says. “This is fear mongering at its worst,” said Teegee. The province’s NDP government is drafting amendments to enable agreements with Indigenous governing bodies...
January 11, 2024
BC Hydro must pay up for overcharging remote First Nations
BC Hydro has been ordered to repay the Gitga’at First Nation in Hartley Bay more than $700,000 after unfairly charging them an extra annual fee for electricity for nearly a decade. Photo of Hartley Bay village / Gitga’at Economic Development Facebook Canada’s National Observer: BC Hydro has been ordered to repay a small coastal First Nation...
January 5, 2024
First Nation appeals court decision
B.C. Supreme Court ruling could transform the mining claims system in Canada Fly camp with Lindquist Peak in the distance on the Deer Horn property, 120 kilometres south of Smithers, B.C. Courtesy of Tony Fogarassy First People’s Law Report: CIM Magazine – Leaders of the Gitxaała Nation applauded a British Columbia Supreme Court ruling that...
January 1, 2024
Consulting Indigenous communities on critical minerals is key to net zero ambitions
PUBLISHED DECEMBER 31, 2023 UPDATED JANUARY 1, 2024 The Globe and Mail: Two years ago, First Nations leaders made clear what Canada must take to heart if it wants to be a global player in critical minerals and the energy transition: The only road to net zero runs through Indigenous lands. That is, any efforts to develop...
December 9, 2023
U.S. Indigenous group in Canada competes for territorial claims against Canadian Indigenous nations
NATHAN VANDERKLIPPEINTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT NELSON, B.C. FOR SUBSCRIBERS The Globe and Mail: PUBLISHED YESTERDAY UPDATED 4 HOURS AGO A U.S. Indigenous group has established a formal presence in British Columbia and is pushing for government recognition and funding, two years after a Canadian Supreme Court ruling declared it “an Aboriginal people of Canada.” The office of the Sinixt...
November 2, 2023
Protecting Human Rights Defenders Globally: Does Canada Mean Business?
NationTalk: Slaw – Businesses are deeply implicated in abuses of human rights defenders worldwide. In 2021 more than “a quarter of lethal attacks were linked to resource exploitation,” according to Global Witness. Indigenous Peoples are disproportionately attacked. Over 40 percent of fatal attacks targeted Indigenous people who make up only 5 percent of the world’s population....
October 12, 2023
A need for action on reconciliation
NationTalk: Winnipeg Free Press – Each year, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation prompts us to take stock of the progress we are making, as a country, on the journey towards reconciliation. Often this progress — or the lack of it — is measured by counting how many of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s...
October 11, 2023
‘How is that reconciliation?’: Hereditary Gitxsan Nation chiefs rally for their rights
Gitxsan Nation hereditary chiefs marched through the streets of Vancouver on Wednesday to assert their rights. Photo by Isaac Phan Nay for Canada’s National Observer Listen to article Canada’s National Observer: Hereditary chiefs from the Gitxsan First Nation marched to BC Supreme Court in Vancouver on Wednesday morning, demanding an end to RCMP suppression of Indigenous-led...
October 1, 2023
B.C. Conservative leader under fire for likening teaching of sexuality, gender to residential schools
Social media post on National Day for Truth and Reconciliation ‘enraging’: survivor CBC News: The leader of the Conservative Party of British Columbia is under fire for a social media post that critics say appeared to compare teaching students about sexual orientation and gender identity to the genocide of Indigenous children in residential schools. John Rustad,...
September 20, 2023
BC Assembly of First Nations Strongly Opposes Bill C-53, Urges Rejection of Unconstitutional Act Threatening Section 35 Rights
NationTalk: (Lheidli T’enneh Territory/Prince George, B.C.) – The BC Assembly of First Nations (BCAFN) unequivocally supports the Chiefs of Ontario, together with First Nations leaders, communities, and individuals across the country, in resolute opposition to Bill C-53. This legislation, introduced by Canada without proper consultation, poses a grave threat to First Nations’ inherent, constitutional, and...
August 8, 2023
Matriarchs oppose new government structure in Haida Gwaii
Group fears agreement will wipe out matrilineal lines Haida women wearing regalia for photo before government confiscation at HlG̲aagilda late 1800s. Photo: APTN File APTN News: British Columbia and Canada have bestowed government status on the Council of the Haida Nation (CHN), upsetting the nation’s matriarchs who fear the loss of their female-led society. “I’m...
July 6, 2023
National Inuit leader skipping premiers’ meeting over matter of respect
Natan Obed says relationship with premiers still a ‘long ways away’ from one needed for true reconciliation CBC News: The leader of the national organization representing Inuit turned down an invitation to meet with Canada’s premiers next week over the inclusion of non-rights-holding Indigenous groups. Natan Obed, president of the Inuit Tapirit Kanatami (ITK), told...
June 15, 2023
Métis Nation British Columbia Committed to Positive and Respectful Relations with First Nations
NationTalk: June 14, 2023 (Surrey, British Columbia) Métis Nation British Columbia (MNBC) is committed to positive and respectful relations with First Nations and acknowledges, upholds, and respects the rights and title of First Nations in British Columbia. MNBC recognizes that Métis rights in British Columbia are different from the rights of First Nations. We acknowledge,...
May 9, 2023
Federal Court of Appeal Allows Judicial Review of Bait-and-Switch Approval of Emergency Towing Vessel Contract on BC’s Coast
NationTalk: BELLA BELLA, BRITISH COLUMBIA – Heiltsuk Horizon is welcoming a Federal Court of Appeal ruling that allows a judicial review of a complaint the company filed against the federal procurement process to acquire two emergency towing vessels meant to protect BC’s coast against marine oil spills and other maritime accidents, as part of Canada’s Oceans...
April 11, 2023
Western premiers blast Lametti for suggesting Ottawa might ‘look at’ provinces’ power over natural resources
Lametti told an AFN meeting he would examine calls to rescind Natural Resources Transfer Act CBC News: Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and three western premiers are calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to disassociate his government from comments made by his justice minister — who promised last week to “look at” a decades-old law that...
February 22, 2023
‘This Place Felt like a Torture Chamber’
Melanie Mark resigns as an NDP MLA and raises big questions about BC politics. The Tyee: Melanie Mark quit as a B.C. MLA Wednesday and shared her frustrations as the only First Nations woman elected to the legislature and to serve in cabinet. While Mark listed many accomplishments that she’s proud of, she also said...
January 27, 2023
SCO Urges Prime Minister to Include First Nations Leaders in Health Meeting
NationTalk: ANISHINAABE AND DAKOTA TERRITORY, MB — Today, the Southern Chiefs’ Organization (SCO) is calling on Prime Minister Trudeau and the Government of Canada to ensure that First Nations leaders are included in health discussions on February 7, 2023. “Health care systems are in crisis. They are not meeting the needs of First Nations people, and...
December 15, 2022
At this rate, Canada won’t meet Truth and Reconciliation calls until 2065, report suggests
Seven years after the TRC released its final report, Canada has much work to do, Yellowhead Institute says. The Toronto Star: Canada has completed only 13 of 94 calls to action outlined by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, seven years after its final report, a new update shows. “Survivors (of residential schools) are ageing, and many...
November 15, 2022
Study reveals 99%+ of Indigenous people surveyed in BC have faced discrimination when using their Indian status card
NationTalk: (xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil Waututh)/Vancouver, B.C. – Indian status card holders face stigma and discrimination on a daily basis when presenting them at stores or to officials, according to a landmark study commissioned by the Union of BC Indian Chiefs. The full report is titled “They Sigh or Give You the...
June 30, 2022
Tŝilhqot’in Nation Condemns Destructive B.C. Moose Harvest Allocation
Williams Lake, B.C.: The Tŝilhqot’in Nation is condemning the B.C. government’s destructive moose harvest allocation for the Chilcotin Region in recent days and expressing its opposition, in the strongest terms, to B.C.’s drastic escalation of Limited Entry Hunts (LEH) for moose in Tŝilhqot’in territory. Tŝilhqot’in people depend on moose for sustenance and cultural survival. For...
December 11, 2021
24th anniversary of Delgamuukw-Gisday’wa decision
Union of BC Indian Chiefs – UBCIC marks the 24th anniversary of the Supreme Court of Canada’s ground-breaking Delgamuukw-Gisday’wa decision, which confirmed the continuing existence of the Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan Title and Rights, contrary to provincial claims that their Title, if it had existed, had been extinguished. On December 11, 1997 the six members of...
November 21, 2021
25th Anniversay of the RCAP Final Report
Prime Minister’s Office – “25th anniversary of the final report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples”. The five-volume landmark document outlined 440 recommendations on Indigenous governance, nation rebuilding, lands and resources, treaties, economic development, and social policy, and called for the renewal of the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples and all orders of...
November 18, 2021
Wet’suwet’en Coastal GasLink protests
Toronto Star – Fifteen people, including Indigenous elders, media and legal observers, had been arrested by the afternoon, according to Jennifer Wickham, a spokesperson for the hereditary chiefs and their supporters. Wickham stressed they had been acting peacefully. Wickham said armed RCMP officers in tactical gear with canine units and heavy machinery moved into the...
September 14, 2021
Native Women’s Association of Canada Political Party Report Card
NDP Liberal Green Conservative Bloc Québecois A B B D D Rights of Indigenous Women & MMIWG2S 4 5 5 2 1 Self Determination & Decision-Making 5 5 5 4 5 Reconciliation & residential Schools 5 3 4 3 3 Environment & Climate Change 5 4 4 1 1 Clean Drinking Water & Public Services...
September 14, 2021
Native Women’s Association of Canada Political Party Report Card
Native Women’s Association of Canada – NWAC commissioned Nanos Research to compare the parties’ platforms with the 11 policy issues NWAC determined to be of primary importance. Those policy issues include: human rights self-determination reconciliation environment clean water housing child welfare justice and policing employment and economic development, and health care. The result is a...
June 15, 2021
AFN/Canada Race Race Relations Foundation poll
Assembly of First Nations – Thirteen years after the Government of Canada offered a formal apology to the survivors of the residential school system and families, 68 percent of Canadians polled still say they were either unaware of the severity of abuses at residential schools or completely shocked by it. A poll conducted by the...
December 15, 2020
TRC Commissioners comments about pace of Reconciliation
APTN – The three commissioners of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Senator Murray Sinclair, Chief Wilton Littlechild, and Dr. Marie Wilson, are issuing a public statement expressing their concern about the slow and uneven pace of implementation of the Calls to Action released by the TRC five years ago today… While they acknowledge important and...
October 15, 2020
Wet’suwet’en protests against Coastal GasLink
Union of BC Indian Chiefs – Coastal GasLink called in the RCMP to remove a group of Wet’suwet’en women and community members who are holding ceremony at a proposed drill site for Coastal Gaslink’s pipeline. UBCIC stands in solidarity with the Indigenous land defenders who are protecting the Wedzin Kwa, the river that sustains and...
February 6, 2020
Wet’suwet’en Coastal GasLInk protests
Union of BC Indian Chiefs – RCMP began aggressively raiding Wet’suwet’en traditional and unceded territories under the watch of the Provincial and Federal Governments. Chief Don Tom, Vice-President of the UBCIC concluded “Using armed force to take Indigenous peoples off their unceded and traditional territories against their will is not reconciliation, it is colonialism in...
January 7, 2020
8 Ways to champion Human Rights
Toronto Star – Toronto Star identified eight ways that Canada can champion human rights in the 2020s, including the following: First step is to adopt overdue legislation making the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Canada’s framework for rights and reconciliation. And to show we truly mean it: address mercury poisoning at...
January 6, 2020
Wet’suwet’en Coastal GasLInk protests
Hereditary Chiefs of all five Wet’suwet’en clans have rejected BC Supreme Court Justice Marguerite Church’s decision granting an interlocutory injunction, which criminalizes Anuk ‘nu’at’en (Wet’suwet’en law), and have issued and enforced an eviction of CGL’s workers from the territory. “Canada and the B.C. government have both pledged to implement the UN Declaration on the Rights...
July 11, 2019
The Council of The Federation, bi-annual meetings of the Federal, Provincial and Territory Premiers
Refusal to allow leaders of the Assembly of First Nations, the Métis National Council, the Inuit Tapariit Kanatami and the Native Woman’s Association of Canada to participate in the main body of meetings with a primary focus on climate change within each jurisdiction. As has been noted by numerous media, Indigenous peoples are on the...
July 9, 2019
Towards Justice: Tackling Indigenous Child Poverty in Canada
Upstream – Failure to reduce the level of poverty among Indigenous children. Tracking Indigenous child poverty and non-Indigenous child poverty trends between Census 2006 and Census 2016, it’s clear that these differences have not markedly changed over that 10-year period. “Towards Justice: Tackling Indigenous Child Poverty in Canada” co-authored by the Assembly of First Nations...
January 10, 2019
Wet’suwet’en Coastal GasLink protests
What happens when you engage Hereditary Chiefs in the Process vs excluding them? Union of BC Indian Chiefs – “There are not a lot of similarities between the Broughton and the Unist’ot’en engagement with the Province (as stated by Premier John Horgan). In June, government-to-government work between our three Nations and the Province was confirmed...
February 16, 2018
Native Women’s Association of Canada
Collectively, NWAC represents a multitude of Nations of Indigenous women who are First Nations, Métis, Inuit. These women represent non-status women and girls and rights holders with Treaty rights, inherent rights, Métis rights, human rights and gender-based rights. As a representative of Indigenous women, NWAC will provide the required gender-based perspective. In order to achieve...
July 20, 2017
NWAC excluded from Council of the Federation discussions
Native Woman’s Association of Canada requested the Council of Federation to include NWAC in all Nation-to-Nation discussions, the work of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (National Inquiry) in the scope of improving the socio-economic status of Indigenous women, and the need for a community-based prevention model to drive the...
July 17, 2017
Indigenous leaders boycott Council of Federation meetings
National Chief Perry Bellegarde, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK) President Natan Obed and President Clément Chartier of the Métis Nation of Canada (MNC) held a press conference today in a show of unity over their concerns regarding the full and effective participation of Indigenous peoples in intergovernmental forums, including the Council of the Federation meeting taking...
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