Tag Archives: Saulteau First Nations

Energy, Indigenous Nations

Local First Nations’ loss of Montney Reserve ignites 20-year legal battle for justice

By Manavpreet SIngh, Energycity.ca, Local Journalism Initiative

The Montney Reserve, famous for oil and gas, represents a conflict that resulted in a lengthy legal battle for land and Treaty rights following a complicated history between Canada and Indigenous people.   

In 1945, the Department of Indian Affairs forced the Fort St. John Beaver Band from the Montney Reserve, and the land was given to returning veterans from the Second World War, according to the Doig River website.

Doig River First Nation members said First Nation leaders during the 1940s couldn’t read or write English — an essential factor in the loss of the Montney Reserve land. 

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Energy, Indigenous Nations

Blueberry River First Nations beat B.C. in court. Now everything’s changing

By Matt Simmons, The Narwhal, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

Apart from a little pocket of land on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, Blueberry River First Nations territory is an industrial wasteland. At a walking pace, it only takes about three minutes to stumble onto some kind of development. It’s a land of pipelines, clearcuts and gas rigs. But things are about to change.

After winning a hard-fought case before the B.C. Supreme Court in 2021, the Treaty 8 nation reached a final agreement with the province on Jan. 18. The agreement charts a path forward from a past where the province excluded the community from resource decisions and infringed on the nation’s constitutionally protected rights. Two days later, B.C. signed agreements with four neighbouring nations: Doig River, Halfway River, Saulteau and Fort Nelson. Collectively, the agreements represent a way out of conflict and a shared goal to heal the land. 

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Energy

Proposed B.C. coal mine gets axed over ‘significant’ environmental effects

By Natasha Bulowski, Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The federal and British Columbia governments have rejected a proposed open-pit coal mine over its environmental impacts.

The Sukunka open-pit coal mine near Tumbler Ridge, B.C., would have produced three million tons of coal per year to sell to steel manufacturers overseas, according to Glencore, the company behind the project. The federal government announced the rejection — based on B.C.’s environmental assessment process — on Dec. 21. 

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Energy, Environment, Rivers & Oceans

B.C. will soon decide the fate of four projects with big climate and biodiversity impacts

By Matt Simmons, The Narwhal, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

B.C. Premier David Eby’s newly appointed cabinet is about to decide the fate of a handful of proposed projects,  each of which comes with a slew of implications to biodiversity and  climate. 

While provincial ministers wrestle with the decisions, delegates from across the country and around the world are gathered at COP15,  the United Nations biodiversity conference in Montreal. The aim of the  conference is to secure government commitments to slow the global  biodiversity crisis underway — the crisis is sometimes referred to as  the sixth mass extinction and is the first to be human-caused.

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Energy, Indigenous Nations

16 First Nations sign equity agreements for Coastal GasLink

By Natasha Bulowski, Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

If the Coastal GasLink pipeline is completed, 16 B.C. First Nations will have a combined 10 per cent ownership stake in the project.

All 20 First Nations with existing benefit agreements along the pipeline route were offered the opportunity to become business partners through equity ownership, according to TC Energy Corp.’s announcement on March 9.

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