Latest News

(Coast Salish Territory / Vancouver BC – March 4, 2016). On February 29, 2016, the Federal Court of Appeal overturned the 2014 Specific Claims Tribunal ruling in favour of the Williams Lake Indian Band’s village site specific claim, and took the unusual step of rendering a new decision based on the facts of the claim. 

“Indigenous peoples have known for thousands of years how to care for our planet. The rest of us have a lot to learn and no time to waste.” – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, speaking at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21) in Paris, France, December 2015.

(Coast Salish Territory/Vancouver, B.C. – February 22, 2016) The Stewards of the Land at the Rocky Mountain Fort Camp on the Peace River have been dragged into the Supreme Court of British Columbia for protecting their way of life.

VICTORIA –First Nations, labour, environmental and legal organizations are calling on the B.C. and federal governments to suspend construction of the Site C dam pending completion and full consideration of an independent review by B.C.’s Auditor General.

(Coast Salish Territory / Vancouver BC – February 11, 2016) The Union of BC Indian Chiefs congratulates the Akisq’nuk First Nation on the just resolution of its specific claim at the Specific Claims Tribunal. On February 5, 2016 the Tribunal ruled that Canada breached its legal obligation to the Akisq’nuk First Nation by failing to correct an 1887 land survey error and again in 1915 when it failed to protect additional grazing lands from alienation. Both historical events resulted in significant losses of reserve lands and according to the Tribunal Chair, Justice Harry Slade, expose a series of “missteps, an outright betrayal, and inaction” on the part of Canada during the reserve creation process in British Columbia.  

(Coast Salish Territory/Vancouver, B.C. – January 26, 2016) Today the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal issued a landmark decision confirming that First Nations children in Canada have received inequitable child welfare funding, that this discrimination must cease, and that they must receive equitable child welfare funding going forward.  163,000 First Nations children are affected by the case and the child welfare funding shortfalls on reserves and in the Yukon are 22% to 38.5%.

(Coast Salish Territory/Vancouver, B.C.- January 23, 2016) The Stewards of the Land at the Rocky Mountain Fort Camp on the Peace River are anxious as BC Hydro’s have ordered members of Saulteau Safety & Security to increase their on-the-ground presence to allow Paul Paquette and Son’s Contracting to continue the clear-cutting of the south bank of the proposed Site C dam site.  UBCIC continues to denounce BC Hydro's deliberately provocative and thuggish efforts to fast track construction on the proposed Site C project despite the legal uncertainty of the project.

Vancouver – The following is a joint statement from the United Steelworkers, the BC Federation of Labour, the First Nations Summit, the Union of BC Indian Chiefs and the BC Assembly of First Nations marking the fourth anniversary of the Babine sawmill explosion: