Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to present before the committee this morning.

As just a quick backgrounder, I've been involved in politics in the Stó:lo area for 32 years now, so I've seen a lot of things, I've seen a lot of changes, and I have to say that the current time and the initiative before you in the form of the Yale treaty is probably the most critical and terrifying one to the Stó:lo right now. The reason I say that is because of the issue that's in front of us and the fact that the Stó:lo people are people of the river. What this treaty, unfortunately, is going to do is it's going to take away or infringe on the rights of the Stó:lo. I don't think this is insignificant; it certainly isn't. Saying fishing is important to Stó:lo is like saying air is nice to have around. It's critically important to the Stó:lo people.

The Yale First Nation.... I want to make it very clear, and it is important for this committee to know, that Yale is a Stó:lo community, no ifs, ands, or buts. My colleague will probably elaborate a bit more on that, but they are a family member of the Stó:lo. They have the same rights; they are collective rights. What we're looking at is to ensure that those rights are continued to be shared among the Stó:lo. The Yale community, a community of 150 members, of which 60-some-odd voted in favour, are on the verge of receiving, through this treaty, controlling gatekeeper responsibility for a very critical fishing area in the Stó:lo territory. This will impact in the area of 10,000 Stó:lo, so you can see the significance of the issue before us.

Imagine, if you will, if the United States of America suggested for a moment that Ontario now is going to be governed by Saskatchewan and that's it. Anything Ontario wanted to do, they'd have to go to Saskatchewan to get permission. I'm trying to find an example where people can understand what we're saying here. This land is shared by the Stó:lo, including the Yale, and should not be given to one family of the Stó:lo for gatekeeper control.

Approximately 60% of all the fish caught in the Stó:lo territory are caught in the Five Mile Canyon area, and of the 77 fishing sites that belong to the Stó:lo people, only one of them belongs to the Yale. Yale has fishing sites south of the Five Mile Canyon area, but what this treaty will do is take those 76 sites away from the Stó:lo and/or put them under control of the Yale First Nation. This is significant, for the obvious reasons I mentioned before.

I need to say this, and I don't want to use up too much of my time on details, but when I talk about the Yale First Nation being a member of the Stó:lo...unfortunately, B.C. failed in recognizing the magnitude of the dispute that's in front of us. They suggested that they were improving access to the Stó:lo by suggesting these were Yale reserves. They were first nations villages that were in the Yale electoral district, and they were called Yale first nations, but history, unfortunately, has not been shared with all of the members who are involved with voting on and enacting this treaty. They have bought into the fact that these reserves belong to them, when that is not the case. If Canada were to check their records, they'd see that it was set aside for the Indians in the Yale district, and all the Stó:lo. That in itself has created problems, because it's going to lead to alienation of lands, alienation of the ability to access the fishing sites.

We all know that treaty had a primary purpose, and that was to provide certainty not just for the governments, but also for the first nations as well. It was also to provide peace and harmony. This treaty does the exact opposite.

I want to make sure you understand that I am personally involved, as my colleague, in negotiating Treaty 7 for Stó:lo. We are in the treaty process, and we are attempting to achieve a final agreement with the governments of Canada and British Columbia. We feel there is an opportunity there, notwithstanding that there are some challenges that we're going to have to overcome. Nonetheless, it's the only game in town, and we're going to continue to pound away at it until we get something that is going to work for our people, not just our people in treaty, but also our brothers and sisters, the other Stó:lo.

Our approach is significantly different from the one before you today. I honestly feel that if we were given the time and the adjustments and amendments to this treatment, we could support the agreement in that fashion. We support Yale in their attempts to get a treaty, we supported Tsawwassen, and we support In-SHUCK-ch. All of these groups are on our periphery, sharing the boundaries of our particular core territory.

We're not anti-treaty. People would paint us as being anti-treaty, but that's not the case at all. We're in treaty negotiations.

One of the principles that the B.C. treaty-making process was founded on was that outstanding land disputes were to be resolved before Canada and B.C. entered into legislation to approve these treaties. Unfortunately, that has not happened. This is one of the fundamental flaws that has come to create the situation now, where we're before the standing committee.

There have been land disputes in the world, history has shown, and obviously there will continue to be land disputes. Resolution of these disputes must take place at the negotiating table. I fear, as I mentioned before, the terrifying experience that's on the horizon for us. There has been conflict on the river; there has been bloodshed on the river. This is a serious issue. The Stó:lo have a long history of protecting their rights and titles, and quite frankly, I don't think that history has been removed from the minds of people. There have been battles on the river and on the railway lines. The Stó:lo are not going to sit back.

This is why our group here spent a tremendous amount of time at different meetings trying to resolve this issue. We have been doing this for the last 10 years, ever since the concept of treaty has been moving forward with the Yale First Nation, but to no avail. We've used every opportunity and followed every policy rule. We're here today as well with the hope that this still could be resolved. We will continue to try to negotiate a settlement of these issues in this room or in other rooms, with the government as well as with the Yale First Nation.

There is an opportunity, we believe, to correct this and prevent the type of confrontation that is not intended by the treaty-making process. We have suggested, for the last five years, some of the ways this could be corrected. We know a precedent has been set with respect to carving out sections of the treaty until they've been resolved. Canada has done that, and it needs to do that again. I'm afraid that the conflict between the Stó:lo and the Yale First Nation is going to spill over into other areas, with respect to the governments and—I hope not—businesses. That's what we're here to try to prevent. We're working diligently. There's been unprecedented mobilization of our people to ensure their rights are protected, something I haven't seen in 32 years. It is not going to be fun to experience, to go through that again, because we have had flashes of issues. That's why I am using the word “terrifying” in relation to the direction we're going.

This is ultimately, and I can't characterize it any differently, theft of our lands and an attempt to try to transfer these lands to one of our other sister organizations. It is more than a fisheries issue. It is not simply an access issue. There are aboriginal rights and titles that are being infringed here. What I'm speaking of is the fact that this area has long been occupied by the Stó:lo. It wasn't until the gold rush and the railways and the highways that people actually moved, but we always went back there for our fishing.

While B.C. failed in that regard, to take the time to understand the issue, Canada has an opportunity to look at this and make a determination as to whether this is the right thing to do, under the concept that the treaty was there to create a harmonious relationship with the Stó:lo, or with the aboriginal people, or among themselves. I think that while they failed, Canada has an opportunity here. To do otherwise would make the Prime Minister's apologies and the statements of a renewed policy on the comprehensive claims process hollow. It would make all those comments hollow, because in essence there was an opportunity for people to step back and say, listen, let's let this comprehensive claims policy run its course, because there are some significant issues in the comprehensive claims policy that would help resolve the issues we're facing today.

But this race to conclude a treaty has usurped that, and it is going to create unprecedented conditions in British Columbia, as many other first nations are attempting to achieve treaty, if it's seen that history doesn't play a role in treaty-making. Other first nations communities in the province right now are rallying because we have been informing them of our situation. They too will be facing the same challenges, and they will be here before standing committees in the future as well.

I again want to reiterate that we have attempted to follow every single process that the BC Treaty Commission has developed for us, and we have attempted on many occasions to consult and work with the first nations—but to no avail. There were some close moments when mediation was established by the federal government. There was a recommendation made to us by the mediator that we thought was going in the right direction, but when you have one party that has already entrenched themselves in a position because they've had a sign-off from the province and the feds, how can you have open discussions and negotiations to find a resolution when they constantly play that card or refuse to come to the table?

I'm going to stop there. I don't want to use up all the time of my colleague.

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