The Syilx/Okanagan Nation and the Okanagan Indian Band released joint statements today addressed directly to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau showing solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs.
Grand Chief Dr. Stewart Phillip, Chair of the Chiefs Executive Council of the Syilx Okanagan Nation, authored a letter of support for the hereditary chiefs urging Trudeau to work in good faith by “charting a pathway forward that respects the Wet’suwet’en Title and Rights and full and meaningful implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”
That means fully engaging an ongoing dialog with the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs, as opposed to the “heavy handed efforts to smother their voice,” Phillip told the Osoyoos Times.
The letter was intended “to encourage Canada and British Columbia to go beyond just paying lip service to resolving this situation. They have to actually make concrete commitments and follow through. To date, all we’ve heard is a lot of rhetoric,” Phillip said. “I think because the Wet’suwet’en are enjoying enormous support right across the country, ours is just another voice.”
In another signed letter to Trudeau, Chief Byron Louis and the council of the Okanagan Indian Band stated that they believe the land in question falls under the jurisdiction of the Wet’suwet’en heritary chiefs, as established by previous BC Supreme court rulings.
The letter also references the potential environmental impact the GasLink pipeline could have on places of cultural and environmental importance, carrying gas obtained by fracking across “the sacred headwaters of the Talbits Kwah (Gosnell Creek) and Wedzin Kwah (Morice River) – both spawning grounds for salmon.”
The letter from the Okanagan Indian Band goes on to state that they believe the refusal to hear from the hereditary chiefs as a legitimate form of government is a “calculated and insidious attempt” to divide the community, declaring that the federal government’s actions are “not in the spirit of proper consultation and trample all attempts at establishing true reconciliation as articulated by the Supreme Court of Canada and the UN in its Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”
Further, the letter addresses the removal of First Nations people from the Wet’suwet’en camps, calling these actions possibly illegal and “especially egregious”.
The Okanagan Indian Band concludes the letter by asking that the federal government to take these points into consideration when making decisions regarding “Indigenous-settler relationships” in the future.
Sophie Gray, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Osoyoos Times
