Tag Archives: Sto:lo Tribal Council

‘We are salmon people’: First Nation leaders in B.C. demand audience with fisheries minister

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Editor’s note: The Klahoose, Homalco and Tla’amin First Nations are among the 102 First Nations demanding that fish farms be moved onto land.

It’s been nearly five years since Tribal Chief Tyrone McNeil has pulled salmon from the Fraser River and strung fish over wooden racks to dry in the wind, preserving food for his family and his people’s ancestral traditions. 

He and other First Nations leaders and communities in B.C. dependent on salmon are grieving the ongoing disappearance of the fish that defines them. And they are angry Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) continues to deny their constitutional right of first access to fish, said McNeil, president of Stó꞉lō Tribal Council. 

Continue reading ‘We are salmon people’: First Nation leaders in B.C. demand audience with fisheries minister

102 BC First Nations call for fish farms to be transitioned onto land

Representatives of 102 First Nations, from across British Columbia, voiced their support for the transition of open-net pen fish farms out of BC waters.

 The First Nations Wild Salmon Alliance hosted a press conference in Vancouver on Tuesday April 5, 2022.

Continue reading 102 BC First Nations call for fish farms to be transitioned onto land

First Nations Disproportionately Impacted By Opoid Overdose Crises

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Indigenous people are being disproportionately impacted by the opioid overdose crisis during the pandemic, according to the First Nations Health Authority in B.C. But the overdose crisis is not just a story about numbers, Dr. Shannon McDonald, FNHA acting chief medical officer, said in an interview with Canada’s National Observer on Monday.

Continue reading First Nations Disproportionately Impacted By Opoid Overdose Crises