The First Nations Leadership Council is committed to changing the course of First Nation-Crown relations in BC in a way that empowers First Nations and results in real, concrete change to our children, families, and communities. The FNLC has identified the upcoming provincial election as a critical turning point in which First Nation voters have the potential to significantly shift not only the focus of the election but the outcome as well.

(Coast Salish Territory/Vancouver, B.C. – December 20, 2016) The Union of BC Indian Chiefs (UBCIC), supports the Neskonlith Indian Band’s demands that the province rescind a permit issued for logging 28 hectares of Secwepemc territory near Harper Lake south of Chase. The Crown cut blocks are just above Neskonlith reserve #2, an ecologically sensitive area for Rocky Mountain Elk and a contentious area near the land disputed in the 1999 Harper Lake Logging Case. 

(Coast Salish Territory/Vancouver, B.C. – November 03, 2016) The Union of BC Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) remains steadfast in their outright opposition to the Kinder Morgan (KM) Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) Pipeline, despite today’s sunny report by the Ministerial Panel. 

(Coast Salish Territory/Vancouver BC – October 14, 2016). Yesterday a tug boat carrying nearly 200,000 litres of diesel crashed in Seaforth Channel, near the Heiltsuk community of Bella Bella.  Leaking fuel continues to threaten the pristine environment in the Great Bear Rainforest.  

September 22, 2016, Montreal/Vancouver—First Nation and Tribal Chiefs gathered today in Musqueam Territory (Vancouver) and Mohawk Territory (Montreal), to sign a new continent-wide Indigenous Treaty — the Treaty Alliance Against Tar Sands Expansion — that commits already some 50 First Nations and Tribes from all over Canada and the Northern US to working together to stop all proposed tar sands pipeline, tanker and rail projects in their respective territorial lands and waters.

URGENT REQUEST FOR SUPPORT

Treaty 8 Territory/Peace River Valley/ British Columbia

Our people, Prophet River and West Moberly First Nations, have been fighting the Site C hydroelectric dam project (“the project”) for close to five decades. The project threatens to flood three of the largest rivers in our territory: Peace, Moberly, and Halfway Rivers. Over 107 kilometers of river valleys and their tributaries could be under water including ancient burial sites.

(Coast Salish Territory/Vancouver, B.C. – August 10, 2016) Yesterday marked the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People, yet on this day Vancouver stood witness to violent acts against Indigenous women in their efforts to raise awareness to the environmental devastation caused by Imperial Mines’ Mount Polley tailings dam two years ago. August 4, 2016, marked the second anniversary of the failure of the tailings dam at Mount Polley which is now considered to be the worst mining disaster of its kind in Canadian history. The dam burst flooded Hazeltine Creek with 2.5 billion gallons of contaminated water and 4.5 million cubic meters of metals-laden silt destroying the creek, contaminating Quesnel Lake and endangering the very livelihoods of the many First Nations and non-First Nations communities throughout Secwepemc Territory.

(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.

(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.