B.C. faces potential transborder claims by U.S. Indigenous citizens across the province.

Author of the article: Chief Robert Louie for Vancouver Sun

Prioritizing B.C. First Nations is the legally and morally right thing to do. It supports local economies and helps fight rural economic disparities.

Should a U.S.-based tribe that already receives hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding, including for hydroelectric power impacts on the U.S.-side of the Columbia River, receive millions more and consultation status for the same kinds of impacts on the Canadian side?

It’s a question our Syilx Okanagan Nation is being forced to ask after the U.S.-half of our previously unified nation, the Washington-based Colville Confederated Tribes, decided recently to rewrite history and claim one of its 12 tribes — the Lakes Tribe, what they now call the Sinixt Confederacy — is a distinct nation, deserving rights and compensation in Canada.

If you are the chair of the Colville Tribal Business Council, the answer to the question is yes. In an interview on Oct. 7, Jarred-Michael Erickson said “all the money” from hydroelectric revenue from B.C.’s Arrow Lakes should be going to his organization.

He was responding to our chiefs’ decision to break a years-long silence and sound the alarm on transborder consultation as a critical issue for British Columbians.

We did so because we learned of plans by the B.C. government to consult the Sinixt Confederacy on expansion plans at Big White Ski Resort, in the heart of our nation’s territory, near Kelowna.

This was on top of their expanding claims to other parts of our territory, including the Arrow Lakes. B.C. faces potential transborder claims by U.S. Indigenous citizens across the province. Whoever forms the next government must tread extremely carefully, or risk opening a Pandora’s box.

Our nation’s own story is a cautionary tale.

In 2021, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in R. v. Desautel that a U.S. citizen and member of the Colville Confederated Tribes had an Aboriginal right to hunt in Canada. Following that, the tribes rewrote history and claimed the Arrow Lakes as their own. In the era of reconciliation, their Sinixt Confederacy found sympathy as the previously “extinct nation” was welcomed back to reclaim its territory.

The only problem was the story was untrue. As our own Syilx Okanagan Elders — respected language speakers, knowledge keepers, and Sinixt descendants — confirmed at the trial, our Sinixt lineages are alive and well in Canada. The truth is the Sinixt have always been part of the Syilx Okanagan Nation, just like other nsyilxcәn-speaking communities such as the Similkameen, Spamoxin and Inkameep. We have one language, one culture, one land, and one people.

It was the imposition of the Canada-U.S. border in 1846 that divided us. It was hydroelectric flooding and colonial impacts in the Arrow Lakes that dispersed us. We moved into other parts of our territory: The Colville reservation in the U.S. and sister communities in the Okanagan.

The painful irony is that our Syilx Okanagan Nation, in good faith, supported our U.S. relatives at the Desautel trial by providing evidence of the continued use and occupation of the Arrow Lakes by Syilx people of Sinixt descent, including the many members of our communities in Canada.

That our relatives turned away from our previous Syilx unity declaration, and began seeking to exclude us from our own territory is painful beyond words. It is also a cautionary tale of bad-faith actors and why the stakes are so high.

While the decision to draw the border along the 49th parallel was not made by our people, it now exists. Our Indigenous communities and systems of governance have adapted to this reality. While our kinship ties remain, we have adopted different citizenships and different forms of self-governance.

In the case of our U.S. relatives, they have been enriched by U.S. federal funding and large swaths of treaty land. Their campaign to claim more territory in Canada is strategic and well-funded. In contrast, in Canada, we are still using our self determination to protect and advance Syilx Okanagan Nation rights and title, as we have done since time immemorial.

Our position is clear: We support the limited right of our relatives to hunt in B.C., but when it comes to consultation, rights and title in this province, B.C.-based First Nations must always be the priority, and there should be no double-dipping for U.S. tribes.

As of last week, we have the backing of NDP Leader David Eby, who issued a joint statement with us affirming “First Nations located in B.C. must always be the priority and primary focus of all levels of government including the province of B.C.,” and recognizing “the Syilx Okanagan Nation’s representative role in relation to Sinixt people in Canada.”

The B.C. Greens have endorsed this position, and we hope the B.C. Conservatives would to.

British Columbians are on our side: In a Castanet straw poll last week, 83.1 per cent of 7,632 respondents voted no when asked: “Should U.S. First Nations be consulted about land use issues in B.C.?”

For years we have kept quiet, trying to resolve this issue internally. But as the Colville Business Council rejected our offers to meet and mediate, they made advances with government ministers and regional staff.

The provincial plan to consult it on expansion at Big White was the straw that broke the camel’s back. We decided British Columbians needed to know what was happening, and what was at stake.

Whoever forms the next B.C. government must prioritize the interest of B.C. First Nations. It is not just the legally and morally right thing to do, it is also an effective way of supporting local economies and addressing rural economic disparities through the kinds of development we welcome in our territories.

Robert Louie is chief of the Westbank First Nation, a community of the Syilx Okanagan Nation.

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