Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs – Indian Government Today! (Spring, 1978)

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UNION OF BRITISH COLUMBIA INDIAN CHIEFS
SPRING, 1978 |



— CONTENTS ——

INTRODUCTION ............... ly 2S
INDIAN GOVERNMENT ........... 4,5, 6
Perse ¢ 5 amee-e ys AED A OM Oe 7, 8, 9
SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ... 10, 11, 12
EEWUGATION wise fine eee ewe me le Tey Te

OUR FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL... .... 15, 16



OUR COVER:

For many years, this design of the Eagle, the Bear and the Whale, representing
the sky, land and waters of our province, has been the symbol of the Union
of B.C. Indian Chiefs. This year, at our Annual Assembly, we will choose a
new symbol! to represent us; a new symbol of the new direction the U.B.C.1.C.
is taking. We thought it would be fitting to use the old design, one last
time, to remind us of our past and to look forward to our future.







INTRODUCTION



The theme of the 10th Annual Assembly of the Union of British Columbia
Indian Chiefs, is Indian Government. This magazine has been prepared by the
staff of the U.B.C.I.C. to give you an idea of the scope of Indian Government
and some of the basic areas over which we should exercize responsibility and
control. In preparing this magazine, we concentrated on the basic philosophy
of Indian Government as outlined by our President. We have tried to make the
content as clear and as interesting as possible.

George Manuel’s concept of Indian Government is complex and comprehensive.
[t rests on the two fundamental needs of all people: land and power. A just
Aboriginal Rights Settlement in B.C. will affirm our rights as Indian people:
to control our own lives and the means to live for the rest of time. We must accept
no less if we are to survive. Indian Government is the mechanism through which
we can exercise Indian control. By accepting the principals of Indian Government,
we can begin to define the areas of our lives that we want to control. We can
begin to develop the structure and administrative guidelines needed.

Indian Government will grow and evolve as we work together to make it a reality.






t our essential needs:

BE vase =



INDIAN GOVERNMENT



Knights Inlet 1881

“The land is our Culture,
and it is our only future.”

George Manuel, Nov. 25, 1977.

Before the coming of the Europeans, we
lived as one with the land and waters. We
had our own systems of government, our
own way of educating our children, our
own way of managing the land and its re-
sources for the benefit of all. In short,
we had sovereignty (full control) over our
own lives and the means to live. These are
our aboriginal rights. We have never given
up, through agreement or legislation, our
aboriginal rights to control our own lives or
the means to live.

LEGAL BASIS FOR OUR RIGHTS

The Royal Proclamation of 1763 declared
that we, the Indian people, lived under the
protection of the English Government. The
Proclamation did not take away Indian
rights to self-government and it guaranteed
that Indian rights to lanes and natural re-
sources would continue until there is an
agreement with the Crown (English Govern-
ment).

The British North America Act of 1867
created the nation called Canada, and serves

as this country’s constitution. In part, it
outlines the areas of jurisdiction of the
federal, provincial, and municipal govern-
ments and how each functions within con-
federation. Section 91-24 of the B.N.A. Act
says that the federal government is respon-
sible for “Indians and lands reserved for
Indians’. The B.N.A. Act does not state how
the federal government will fulfill its re-
sponsibility. Because of the colonial atti-
tudes of the time, the Indian Act was
legislated by the federal government to
“look after’’ Indians and lands reserved for
Indians. It was, and still is today, a means to
exercise colonial rule, which is a rule from
the outside. The Indian Act was created
without consultation with or consideration
for Indian people.

The Indian Act recognizes the Indian mode
of government as being Band Councils.
However, the authority and power of our
form of government is severely limited. It is
time to end colonial rule. We must be mas-
ters in our own house, in order to survive as
Indian people. There is no basis in the laws
of Canada to restrict the recovery of our
aboriginal rights because we have never
given up our rights to control our own
lives and the means to live.

Pole Raising at Hazelton, 1977.



Indian Government Cont'd.

KAMLOOPS INDIAN GOVERNMENT WORKSHOP

George Manuel talks about Indian control.



Chief Jacob Kruger explains his theory of
Indian Government.

ABORIGINAL RIGHTS SETTLEMENT

A just settlement of land claims in British
Columbia must include in the fullest sense
arecovery of our Aboriginal right to control
our own lives and the means to live as In-
dian people. Robert Manuel states in the
U.B.C.1.C. position paper entitled “‘Indian
Reserve Lands and Indian Government”:

“The Indian Reserve Land base we presently
possess is far too small to adequately provide
for the basic needs of all our people. Be-
cause of this fact, we experience many
problems in the area of economics, unem-
ployment, social services, housing, etc. We
find,on the other hand, our Indian Govern-
ments (Band Councils) do not possess the
real authority essential to adequately address
many of these problems.”



A just aboriginal rights settlement would
include these two components: Land and
Indian governing authority to control that
settlement. In his speech to the United
Fishermen and Allied Workers’ Union, on
aboriginal rights, March 3, 1978, George
Manuel stated:



“My interpretation as the President of the
Education Workshop at Kamloops. Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs is

that | totally reject the settlement based on
fixed amount of dollars. Regardless if it’s a
hundred billion dollars, | reject it. That’s not
what / see as a settlement. ‘‘',.2: | seeasa
settlement Is the governing auinority that
Indian people should have... . . there is
not much sense in having Aborigiiial Rights,
if we are going to have some other .nstitu-
tion control it.”

George Manuel’s vision of a just Aboriginal
Rights settlement in B.C. goes beyond the
types of land claims settlements made by
governments in recent years, which have
included parcels of land, dollars and an
extinguishment of aboriginal rights. Our
settlement would include: an affirmation of
our Aboriginal Rights, expanded reserve
lands and a recognition of our Indian
Governments (Band Councils) as a fourth
level of government in Canada within Con-
federation.

The need for a new kind of political repre-
sentation at the Federal level is clearly felt
by the amount of money we receive from
government. Even though the Federal gov-
ernment allocates millions of dollars each
year to the Department of Indian Affairs,
Indians receive and control only a small_por-
tion of those monies in the form of locally
controlled programmes. Indian Affairs uses
most of the money to support its massive
bureaucracy. In reality, we are not receiving
our fair share of the wealth of this country.
George Manuel uses the Prince Edward
Island model to illustrate this point;

“In 1970, Prince Edward Island received
$720 million for economic development.
The Indian people in that sanz year, re-
ceived through the colonial agent of the
government (Indian Affairs), $50 million
for Economic Development. That’s a big
difference, $50 million for 272,000 Indians
and $720 million for a mere 110,000
people.”

Each year tax revenue is divided by the
Federal and Provincial leaders at First
Ministers’ Conferences. It is here that the

have-not provinces such as Prince Edward
Island receive a greater share of the revenues
so that they can develop their socio-eco-
nomic base. This allows them to enjoy a
standard of living comparable to the richer
provinces.

George Manuel’s vision of Indian govern-
ment would have Indian government re-
presentatives participating at the First Mini-
sters’ Conference on the same level as the
provincial governments. We would nego-
tiate for money on the basis of need as the
have-not provinces do. Our aboriginal rights
settlement would include a recognition of
our Indian governments (Band Councils) as
a fourth level of government in Canada
within Confederation. Indian Government
when it evolves, will be entirely different
than anything that now exists. As we grow
and develop this new kind of political
autonomy, we will develop the structure of
Our government to meet our needs as

Indian people.
The Indian Government Land Claims vision

of George Manuel, as President of the Union
of B.C. Indian Chiefs, is complex and
comprehensive. It rests on two fundamental
needs: land and power. An expanded version
of our reserve lands would provide us with
an economic base that would in time gener-
ate monies so that we could eventually
contribute to the wealth of Canada. We
have the right within the Canadian Consti-
tution to exercise power over our own
lives and the means to live. Our Aboriginal
Rights settlement with the government of
Canada must be grounded on recognition
of these rights.

A just settlement will enable us to live with
dignity, to be masters of our own lives; freed
from the Colonial relationship we now have
with the Canadian government. The im-
portant task we, the Indian people of British
Columbia, face is to begin to define the are-
as of jurisdiction (areas such as fishing, edu-
cation, socio-economic development, etc.)
that we would like to take responsibility
for under Indian Government.

INDIAN FISHING:

“FISH AND INDIANS ARE INSEPARABLE”



A salmon drying rack by the Frazer River — 1950.

For the last 100 years and more, we have
been seeking recognition and assertion of
Aboriginal Rights from the governments
that have encroached upon our lands and
all our resources. For thousands of years,
we have depended on the powers of the
waters to provide food to Indian people
along the coast and along the river systems.
Abalone, clams, crabs, oysters, sea-weed,
kelp, sea urchins, cockles, mussells, sea-
prunes, seal, whale, and the many different
species of fish have been very important to
the Indian way of life through-out the cen-
turies. History shows that we have never
surrendered our lands and resources: legally
and morally, the lands should still be held
under Indian responsibility.

It is on this basis that the Union of B.C.
Indian Chiefs, under its Fisheries Portfolio,
is determining ways and means to protect
our Aboriginal Right to the fish and all that
the waters provide, and to ensure that there
is no further depletion of our marine
resources.

Today we are faced with the steady decline
of our marine resources by Industrial
pollution. The Kamloops Pulp Mill, for
example, has been dumping tailings into the
Thompson for years and has just applied to
the city of Kamloops for permission to have

Godfrey Kelly (Oct. 12, 1977)

its tailings output doubled. This will pollute
the sockeye salmon run that spawn along
the Thompson and Adams River. The Utah
Mines on Vancouver Island near Quatsino
Bay has threatened the fish and other marine
life because of its effluent. During the course
of the West Coast Oil Ports Inquiry, Indian
people forcefully presented their concerns
about the serious threat that an oil port and
supertankers would have on the Marine
Resources. A major oil spill on our coast
could wipe out the foods of the waters
forever. Fortunately, the government in-
quiry listened and announced in February
that an oil port on the B.C. Coast is not
needed now or_ in the forseeable future.
Environment Minister Len Marchand said
that the threat to fishing outweighed any of
the benefits of the oil port proposal. How-
ever, we are still faced with the constant,
daily pollution of the ocean by existing
tanker traffic along the Pacific coast. George
Manuel said in a speech to the United Fisher-
men and Allied Workers’ Union just recent-
ly,” . . . the number one enemy to our fish,
in my opinion, is industry.”

=
ky
=



Nootka man spearing fish. (date unknown)

Indian Fishing Cont'd.

George Manuel stated in the same speech to
the U.F.A.W.U.: ‘’We need food fishing. It
is our Aboriginal Right and the foundation
of our cultural survival.’’ Though fishing is
our Aboriginal Right, the Federal Depart-
ment of Fisheries is charged with the respon-
sibility for regulating our right to fish.
Regulations such as the one forcing us to
cut off the nose and dorsal fin, and the
restrictions on our traditional means of
harvesting Our marine resources are steadily
eroding the very foundation of our survival
as Indian people. The many Indians charged
with the illegal sale of fish in the last 12
months alone is degrading to all our people
and illustrates a blatant disregard for our
Aboriginal Rights.

S 2 eee
Pe —- - 2



Though Fisheries has assured us on many
occasions that Indian food-fishing is their
first priority after conservation, we, the
Indian people, are being made the scape-
goats and are being blamed for the deple-
tion of the fish. It is industry and its pollu-
tion that is causing the decline of the
resources which we depend on for food.
Fisheries Minister, Romeo LeBlanc _ told
our President, George Manuel, in late Janu-
ary, that the government is going to impose
quotas on all Indian people in B.C. This
means that we will have to account for the
fish we catch and that only a set number



will be allowed per family. George Manuel
warned the Minister that there is going to
be “heavy confrontation’”’ if quotas are
imposed on Indians.

Faced with the harassment of Indian fishing
people by Fisheries officers, the planned
imposition of quotas, and the steady pol-
lution of our marine resources, we, the
Indian, people must decide the course that
we will take to recover some degree of
control over our aboriginal rights to the
marine resources.

To our south, Washington Indians have been
struggling for a hundred years to protect
fishing rights guaranteed to them by whirl-
wind treaties adopted under enormous pres-
sure in 1855. One thing Indians refused to
give up was their aboriginal fishing rights.
Patient research and persistent legal action
led to the Judge Boldt decision in 1974
that the Indian people must be allowed the
opportunity to take 50% of the fish and to
regulate their own fishing practices if that
can be done without jeopardizing effective
conservation.
Salmon for Survial



Survival for Salmon

Seine Fishing 1951



In British Columbia we have never made any
agreement or treaty, except in parts of the
Peace River country and a few small areas
on Vancouver Island. We still retain our full
aboriginal fishing rights.

Nevertheless, non-Indian laws and regula-
tions have moved in without consulting us
and without our consent.

The Canadian Department of Fisheries now
controls our fishing rights and the means to
conserve what marine resources are left.
Fisheries call it “‘conservation,”” George
Manuel prefers the word “reproduction.”
As Indian people we cannot be satisfied
with merely ‘conserving’ the marine re-
sources that we have now, we must insist on
restoring the healthy conditions necessary

——s

Se
/- 2a.

for fish and other marine foods to reproduce
and to flourish as they did for countless
centuries before the coming of the Euro-
peans.

On January 23, President George Manuel of
the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, made a
commitment to Fisheries Minister Romeo
LeBlanc: Give us the resources to do the
research and | promise that |’ll come up
with proposals that will be constructive for
all Canadians.

Fish and Indians are inseparable. The task
we face is to ensure that our rights to this
valuable resource are never separated from
us, and, that for those unborn, the food of
the waters will be bountiful.

Seine Fishing 1978



SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT




We are all aware of the poor living condi-
tions in many of our communities. Unem-
ployment is very high and many families
are forced to live on welfare. Our people do
not have enough housing and much of the
existing housing is in poor condition, Edu-
cation, health, and recreation facilities are
often inadequate. This is the reality of life
that many of our people must face every
day. They are denied the opportunities to
provide a decent standard of living for
themselves and their families. They are
denied the opportunities which every Cana-
dian is guaranteed as a basic Human Right.

Why is this happening? We face these con-

tinuing problems because we are living.

under a colonial system of government. We
are governed by the overbearing European
culture of Canada which is threatening our
Indian way of life. Our affairs are managed
by ineffective programs controlled by the
federal government. Our own initiatives are
hampered by insufficient funding to break
out of this circle of underdevelopment. Our
people all too often lack the involvement we
need at the community level.

— APLAN FOR BRITISH COLUMBIA —

et
z=: ine <

FRASER RIVER WOMAN & CHILD WEAVING BASKETS.

10.

To change this situation we must look to
ourselves. We alone can find the answers to
our problems. We must control our lives
and our destiny as a people through our own
system of Indian Government. It is within
this sytem of government that we must
evolve a socio-economic development plan
to provide a decent standard of living for
our people.

Indian Government will provide the system
to allow Indian people to govern ourselves
and an expanded reserve system containing

re ‘ me
hs es F -



re |

The In Kameep Vineyard of the Osoyoos Band
near Oliver.

Socio-Economic Development Cont'd.

Conveyor System of The Sand, Gravel and
Readi-mix Co. Ltd. of the Lower Nicola Band
near Merritt.

sufficient resources to meet the essential
needs of our people. We will make our own
laws under Indian Government. We will look
after our forests and our rivers. We will
determine the conservation practices for
our wildlife and the timber policies for our
forests. We will plan the development of our
community buildings and services. Because
of our commitment to the land, we are the
only people who can maintain and develop
our resources for future generations.








This kind of control will give us the oppor-
tunities to provide for the basic necessities
of life. We will be able to utilize our man-
power and our resources to raise the stan-
dard of living for our people. We will be
able to develop effective administrative
methods of handling our Band affairs. We
will be able to create economic projects to
provide employment based on an environ-
mentally-sound use of our natural resources.
Socio-economic development is the part of
Indian Government which creates this kind
of social and economic self-sufficiency.



Py

- An alfalfa field on the Kanata Cattle and Hay

Co. Ltd. of the Clinton Band near Kamloops.
However, before this development can occur
on a large scale, three things must happen.
Firstly, Indian people must have control of
the development process. We have seen the
repeated failures of federal and provincial
attempts in this area. The process will only
succeed when the people in the communi-

K’SAN
WORKSHOP

Socio-Economic Development Cont'd.

ties are able to set their priorities and deter-
mine the way in which positive change will
occur. Our Chiefs and Councils must make
these decisions. Government must accept
Indian control of Indian development.

Secondly, development can only occur if
the programs and projects are carefully co-
ordinated with all other community activi-
ties. This means that a project which will use
Band land must be considered in relation to
possible future housing needs. The project
must be planned in relation to the future
size and education of the working popula-
tion of the Band. There must be experienced
managers in the community to administer
the project.

The third thing which must occur is a fair
settlement of Aboriginal Claims. The settle-
ment will provide the resources which we
must have to support socio-economic devel-
opment. We must have sufficient land for
agriculture and other purposes. We must
have access to the natural resources through
such things as special rights to crown timber
and a guaranteed share of the West Coast
fish catch.

The settlement will have to provide suffi-
cient financial resources to allow this devel-

opment to begin. Large capital investments

will be needed initially. We expect. this
funding in the same way that the “‘have-
not” provinces expect developmental assist-
ance. We are asking only that Indian Govern-
ment receive a fair share of the equalization
funding which all underdeveloped parts of
this country receive. We expect that in the
future, once we have developed the poten-
tial of our resources, we will become a
contributor to the national economy.

The settlement must also resolve the legal
and regulatory impediments we face. All
governments must recognize our right to
exemption from taxation. Provincial govern-

ments must stop imposing their regulations
on our reserves. All unwarranted external
interference in our communities must cease.

Pending settlement of Aboriginal Claims,
our communities must begin to organize
themselves for socio-economic development.
They must determine their long-term objec-
tives. They must begin: to implement a
program of comprehensive community plan-
ning to realize these objectives. This plan-
ning process will determine how the popu-
lation in the community will increase and
how many jobs will beneeded in future
years. It will evaluate the resources and the
priorities of the Band to determine what
economic development opportunities are
available.

Community planning will identify the kinds
of education and training that will be needed
to provide the manpower to administer the
socio-economic development programs plan-
ned for the community. For instance, if a
Band identifies a logging/sawmill business as
a priority, then the Band’s education pro-
gram must provide for the trained manpower
such as foresters and loggers to run it.

In addition to these activities at the Band
level, the plan for development requires on-
going work at both the provincial and na-
tional levels as well. The Union of B.C.
Indian Chiefs must provide a strong voice for
the common concerns of all the Bands in
the province. We must fight on behalf of all
our people for recognition of Indian Gov-
ernment. We must evaluate government
policy and work for the changes that are
needed. We must cooperate with the Na-
tional Brotherhood to negotiate the long-
range legislative and funding issues that will
be determined by Parliament.

A great deal of work must be done in many
areas in order to improve the quality of
life in our communities.

Te.

INDIAN EDUCATION



We are Indian people who have a past that
is filled with honour, harmony, sharing, and
respect for each other and Nature. Our
traditions of life were passed down from
generation to generation by word of mouth,
and central to those traditions is our under-
standing that we are sacred, and that our
children are gifts of the Great Spirit. It
is part of our tradition to love our children,
to be patient with them, and to treat them
with respect.

Today we are Indian people who still care
about our values, and who wish to pass these
values down to the generations to come. We
have survived the impact of European in-
vasion, and all the suffering and confusion
it brought to us. We find ourselves in the
midst of a materialistic, competitive society
to which we must relate in order to sustain
ourselves. It is within our power to live
according to our Indian traditions in the
context of a modern world. We have en-
dured. We shall prevail.

We are parents. We care about the education
of our children. It is accepted in common
law all over the world that a parent has the

13.

right to say how his child shall be educated.
Doesn't that make sense? Who knows the
child better than the parents do? The idea
of making education meaningful to Indian
children by putting it under Indian control
issimply common sense. As parents we have
the right to insist that the process of edu-
cation we begin before our children go to
school will be continued in the school. We
have the right to expect that our goals for
children will be the goals of the school. We
have the right to expect that the school will
build up the positive Indian identity of our
children.

We, the Indian people in British Columbia,
never gave up our right to control our lives
or our communities when the Europeans
arrived. We have never been conquered, nor
does any agreement exist whereby we sur-
rendered ourselves to the Government of
Canada. Even in those areas of British Co-
lumbia where treaties were signed, we kept
our rights of self government and our rights —
to hunt and fish on our traditional lands and
in our traditional waters. Our right to con-
trol the education of our children is one of
those rights. If we want to move towards
Indian Government, then parental and com-
munity control of education is very impor-
tant to us. We cannot allow non-Indians to
make our community and education goals
for us.



Our Children Today.

We know that the public and federal schools
are often irrelevant and sometimes violent
to our children, as they were to us. The
word violent is used in the sense that the
values of the school are not in harmony
with our basic values. Schools place our
children in a position of conflict between
the teaching of the school and the home.
Also, the school teaches too many of our
children the pattern of failure. We cannot
hide the fact that nearly 60% of our children
have left school by the end of grade 9 in-
spite of the fact that grade 12 is the mini-
mum for most job and vocational training
opportunities. Our students will not stop
dropping out of school until they feel that
education is worthwhile and relevant to
them as young Indian people, and they
won't feel this until we become involved
as individuals, as groups, and as a com-
munity to make it that way.

The Federal Government has the consti-
tutional, legal, moral, and financial respon-
sibility of representing the educational in-
terest of Indian people. These educational
interests can only be represented with the
full participation of Indian people. The
Master Tuition Agreement (M.T.A.) is an
education contract between the Department
of Indian Affairs and the B.C. Department
of Education. It was signed in 1969. In this
contract the Province of British Columbia
agreed to educate Indian children in its
public schools, and Indian Affairs agreed to
pay a tuition fee for each Indian child en-
rolled, plus a percentage of capital costs for
school construction. Indian people were
never consulted about this Agreement. In-
dian people did not sign this Agreement.
These facts go against the principles of local
control and parental responsibility which
are basic to Indian Control of Indian Edu-
cation.

It isimportant to remember that the M.T.A.
is only a small part of what we mean by
Indian Education. Our children are supposed
to learn the basic skills of reading, writing

14.

and arithmetic in school. The school makes
no attempt to meet the contemporary,
practical needs of Indian people coping with
the modern world. The schools know noth-
ing of our culture. The fact that 70% of the
education money held in trust for us by

‘Indian Affairs is turned over to the Province

of British Columbia restricts the develop-
ment of Indian Education as a meaningful
part of our lives:

The Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs is asking
the Chiefs at General Assembly to make a
decision as to what should be done about
this Master Tuition Agreement.

There have been M.T.A. workshops with
consultants, resource people, and people at
the Band Level. We know that there will
have to be many more M.T.A. community
workshops before the Master Tuition Agree-
ment can be changed. A booklet called
“Understanding the Master Tuition Agree-
ment” has been written and distributed
throughout the Province. This booklet is a
working booklet only. The alternatives
concerning the M.T.A. which are suggested
in the booklet are only some of the alter-
natives we might consider. What we are
hoping for at this General Assembly is
guidance as to the direction we should take.
The time is right to take some kind of action
on the M.T.A. It is the most outdated and
restrictive contract concerning the education
of Indian children in Canada. We hope you
will be able to attend the M.T.A. Workshops
at the General Assembly. We can master this
Tuition Agreement. A step towards Indian
Control of Indian Education is a step to-
wards Indian Government.




What will be our future?

at




Peg

“AS LONG AS TIME HAS BEEN COUNT-
ED THE WATERS AND THE LAND HAVE
GIVEN US LIFE. WE HAVE NEVER
GIVEN UP OUR RIGHTS TO THE BOUN-
TY OF THE SEA, THE RIVERS, THE
MOUNTAINS AND THE PLAINS. WE
MUST OPPOSE ANY DEVELOPMENTS
THAT WOULD ENDANGER OUR WAY
OF LIFE, AND OUR RIGHTS TO THE

LIFE GIVEN TO US BY THE CREATOR.

GEORGE MANUEL, President
Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs.

It is because of this commitment to the
protection of the sea and the land from all
destruction and the struggle for our rights
that the last General Assembly of the Union
of B.C. Indian Chiefs passed a resolution
opposing the construction of any oil port
on our coast.

What follows is a brief history of the strug-
gle and victory against the port and how the
team of researchers, field workers, and
lawyers set up by the Union has expanded to
serve the needs of Indian people throughout
the whole province. Presently we are work-
ing on over ten major issues concerning
the land, the sea and our aboriginal rights.

Last year a group of companies decided
the way to bring Alaskan Oil to the United
States was by building an Oi! Port on the

West Coast. The plan called for super-tankers
to come down the coast with the oil. Pro-

posals for the port included Kitimat, Port
Angeles, Cherry Point and Port Simpson.
Even the Federal Government had many
questions about these proposals and set up
the Thompson Inquiry to look into the
different port plans and what effect super-
tankers might have on the coast.

OUR FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL!!!

Oil Tankers of this size travel daily through our waters.

15,

It was the Resolution and the funding from
the Thompson Inquiry which led the Union
of B.C. Indian Chiefs to set up a team of
people to fight against any port on our coast
and for Indian Rights to sovereignty over
the resources of the Sea.

Workshops were organized in communities
across the province to gather information
about the extensive use of the marine re-
sources for our survival. The workshops also
helped to inform people about the inquiry
and community hearings. But it wasn’t just
the coast people who were concerned. |n-
dian communities all along the rivers of
B.C. which flowed into the. ocean knew
that if a spill occurred on the coast, their
fish would die also. Workshops were held
in Lillooet and Mount Currie before the
Thompson Inquiry held community hear-
ings in these two places. When Mr. Thomp-
son did come he found he had to stay longer
than planned because people had so much to
tell him about their fish and their rights to
it.



Andrew Thompson, Commissioner of the West
Coast Oil Ports Inquiry dances with Mount
Currie people.

=
aiferrs
Treaty Workshop in the N.E.

During the whole fall our field workers
would no sooner set foot in the office than
they would be off again to another commu-
nity for a meeting or a workshop. Research
was being gathered in the communities for
presentation to the formal hearings in Van-
couver. Special bulletins were published so
all people could keep informed and up to
date on the issue. A major fish forum was
held in December in Vancouver. Over 100
people attended for two days from all over
the province to discuss their rights.

The months of work and the tremendous
opposition to the port was not In vain. The
Federal Government has announced the port
is dead. The victory is ours and belongs to
everyone who raised their voices against
this port and its threat to our right to live
from the sea and the rivers.

However the team of people set up by
the Union to fight the port is not dead.
During the course of the Inquiry we became
involved in responding to many requests
from communities who were facing similiar
threats to their rights and survival. We have
become involved in doing research, providing
fieldworkers, legal advice, information and
support to Bands involved in many issues

across the province.
These include the Alaska Highway Pipeline,

the Coquihalla Highway, Site C, the Looping
of Westcoast Transmissions’ main line af-
fecting over 30 bands, the Shakwak High-
way Project, Quatsino Sound pollution,
Nazko/Kluskus logging dispute, and the list
goes on to include other Bands where
people and projects are threatening our
rights. The struggle has taken our lawyers to
the Federal Court of Canada to fight for
justice from the National Energy Board:
It has taken the Chiefs from the North
East and South East to the Parliament of
Canada to demand our rights in the face of
a proposal to build the largest pipeline in
the world.



We have learned many lessons from these
struggles and continue to learn them as new
threats to our rights appear on the horizon.
For instance, wehave learned that the studies
done by the companies and the governments
do not consider how we use the land or our

aboriginal rights. We know that the
real experts with the knowledge on how
to use and preserve the land, live in the
communities. The experts are not the con-
sultants who are paid 50 dollars an hour.
We have learned the importance of having
the information which represents our inter-
ests and rights and the importance of sharing
this with all the communities involved.

As well, in all these issues there is a common
threat that is present. The major problems
and threats to our survival and our way of
life stem from the lack of respect and con-
sideration for our aboriginal rights shown by
those so eager to develop and exploit our
land and our resources. Whether it is our
traplines and our hunting rights being ig-
nored by the pipeline companies, or our
fishing rights by the oil companies, or our
timber rights being ignored by the logging
companies, or whoever is ignoring our
rights, it boils down to the same issue.

At the present time , because the threat of
the Oil Port is over for the moment, our
team is going through a transition period.
Like last year when the resolution was pas-
sed oppossing the oil ports and creating our
group, we are waiting again to take our
direction from the General Assembly. But
time does not stop and if there is any in-
formation, advice or help of any sort that
we can give you, phone us, come and see us
or request someone come to see you. We
are looking forward to another year of
increased activity and success.

WE ARE-MOVING
MAY I, 1978

OUR NEW ADDRESS:

UNION OF B.C. INDIAN CHIEFS
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