Indigenous Peoples

In an increasingly explosive political climate in the Kitimat area over a controversial vote on the Northern Gateway pipeline, the Mayor of Kitimat was flash mobbed by a group of mostly First Nations people, donning "No Enbridge" shirts at a Haisla girls basketball championship on Sunday. "No Enbridge!  No Enbridge!  No Enbridge!" yelled the packed gymnasium crowd, nearly all wearing black protest shirts. "When you're in politics for 36 years, I guess I kind of expected it," Mayor Joanne Monaghan told the Vancouver Observer Wednesday.

The Metlakatla and Lax Kw'alaams First Nations have reached an LNG revenue sharing agreement with the provincial government. The deal, announced today by Premier Christy Clark, provide the two First nations with a portion of provincial government revenues from the sole proponent agreements reached fo projects at Grassy Point proposed by Aurora LNG and Woodside LNG. In signing the agreements, both the Metlakatla and Lax Kw'alaams "signal their support for co-operating in respect of prospective LNG development at Grassy Point", reads a media advisory from the province.

Leaders of the Unist'ot'en resistance camp held a press conference in Vancouver on April 7, 2014 in response to leaked information that the Provincial government is preparing an injunction against the camp. The camp is in Wet'suwet'en territory in northern BC on the route of the Pacific Trail fracked gas pipeline. BC Premier Christie Clark has staked her political future on liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, more accurately called liquefied fracked gas or LFG.

Leaders of a small native camp in central B.C. that is blocking the right-of-way of a proposed gas pipeline say they won’t be moving any time soon, even if a court orders them to. Freda Huson and her husband, Dini Ze Toghestiy, who are both Wet’suwet’en members, said they have been dug in so long on the Pacific Trail Pipeline Project route that they consider the camp their home now. In Vancouver over the weekend to attend “training workshops” for anti-pipeline protesters, Ms.

Indigenous Nations and allies of British Columbia unite to say No Pipelines! This weekend, Christy Clark’s worst nightmare converged on unceded Coast Salish Territory, Vancouver. After her surprise election, won on promises of a natural gas and resource extraction bonanza, her political future is staked to her claims of 100,000 jobs and $100 billion in royalties.

Cumulative impact is something the B.C. government does not like to talk about when consulting First Nations about resource developments. Government prefers to look at projects in isolation. So, Site C on the Peace River, for example, is assessed on its own, not in the context of all the oil-and-gas activity taking place in the region. That is not how native communities see things. To them, the question is not only what impact an individual project will have – but also what it will mean alongside all the other industrial activities in an area.

Since 2008, Warner Naziel has gone by his traditional name, Toghestiy. It means “man who sits beside the water”.  As one of the hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation, he takes neither tradition nor his duties lightly. On November 20, 2012, Toghestiy did what his ancestors would have done to people not welcome in their territory. Confronting surveyors for a gas pipeline planned in Northern B.C, he handed them an eagle feather in accordance with Wet’suwet’en law.

Monday March 31st, Mi'kmaq'i territory (Mi'kmaq Nation of the Wabanaki Confederacy) an L'nu mother & daughter shut down a closed door meeting between the Nova Soctian Minister of Energy & Oil/Gas Industry representatives. Corporations such as Encana, Shell and others were present. This action was supported by the youth climate convergence Power Shift Atlantic, which met in Halifax over the weekend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18THVaAelnk

The Hupacasath First Nation may not have succeeded the first time around, but its fight to keep the federal government from ratifying the Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Act (FIPPA) is heating up again. The tiny Vancouver Island nation has filed an appeal with the Federal Court of Appeals and expects the Crown to file by March 17.