BURNABY, B.C. — First Nations and environmentalists had one question for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the start of National Energy Board hearings on the controversial Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.
"You said no. Where are you?" asked Audrey Siegl of the Musqueam Indian Band, to a cheer from a crowd of protesters gathered outside a Burnaby, B.C., hotel on Tuesday.
"Stand with us if you're going to stand with us. We need more than just words."
The effects of climate change are going to have a devastating effect on coastal British Columbia First Nations within the next few decades, according to a new scientific report.
“First Nations fisheries could decline by nearly 50 percent by 2050, and coastal First Nations communities could suffer economic losses between $6.7 and copy2 million,” lead researcher Laura Weatherdon told Indian Country Today Media Network.
Peaceful camp occupancy continues at Site C dam construction site
ROCKY MOUNTAIN FORT CAMP, BC, Treaty 8 Territory, Jan. 18, 2016 /CNW/ - First Nation members today called on the Canadian and British Columbian governments to embrace a three-point plan that will protect lands at imminent threat of destruction as preparatory work continues to build the Site C dam.
A clever argument about a detail in the federal-provincial agreement to co-operate when reviewing the Northern Gateway pipeline won the day in B.C. Supreme Court on Wednesday.
It resulted in a declaration by Justice Mary Marvyn Koenigsberg that B.C. abdicated its responsibility and breached the honour of the Crown by failing to consult with First Nations during the process of reviewing the planned crude-oil pipeline from Alberta to Kitimat.
One of the more intriguing demands by those opposing the Site C dam is that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau step in and block its construction, using the argument that the dam infringes First Nations' rights and poses environmental risk.
The odds of the Trudeau government taking such an extraordinary action are, of course, fairly remote. But the root of the argument -- that the dam tramples on First Nations' rights -- remains very much alive even while the dam's construction proceeds every day.
A B.C. Supreme Court ruling Wednesday that brought a halt to Enbridge’s $7.9-billion Northern Gateway project could have wider environmental implications for the province.
Justice Marvyn Koenigsberg found the B.C. government abdicated its statutory duties and breached its duty to consult First Nations when it signed and failed to terminate an equivalency agreement that handed the federal National Energy Board sole jurisdiction over the environmental assessment decision-making on the project.
The 2015 House of Assembly directed the Council of the Haida Nation to maintain a closure of the commercial herring fishery in Haida territorial waters in 2016 to allow time to address the long-‐term management and conservation of herring stocks.
Following the directive from citizens of the Haida Nation, Fisheries and Oceans Canada in consultation with technical staff and other groups, gave notice this December that the fishery would be closed in 2016. This closure does not affect the traditional roe-‐on-‐kelp fishery.
Saying the utility was "reckless" and escalating tensions, Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs Grand Chief Stewart Phillip called on BC Hydro to "back off" a First Nations encampment near Site C dam construction Friday.
On Friday, the UBCIC issued a release supporting a small group of campers living on the south bank of the Peace River at Rocky Mountain Fort, an 18th-century fur trade post that will be inundated beneath the $8.8 billion project's reservoir.
