Category Archives: Indigenous Nations

Forests, Indigenous Nations

Tla’amin Nation set to reclaim forest stewardship with $80M logging licence deal: ‘A generational opportunity’

IndigiNews, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Tla’amin Nation set to take back control over a large piece of its territory, after signing a deal to take over a company’s licence to log more than 1,540 square kilometres of forest in their homelands.

The nation agreed to buy the tree-farm license for the massive parcel — about 13 times larger than the City of Vancouver — from Western Forest Products for $80 million on Feb. 19.

The license for the Stillwater Forest Operation covers a vast majority of forest in the qathet (Powell River) area, where Tla’amin is located. 

Continue reading Tla’amin Nation set to reclaim forest stewardship with $80M logging licence deal: ‘A generational opportunity’ →
Indigenous Nations, Politics

Fact-Checking MP Aaron Gunn: Are Private Property Rights Actually at Risk?

In the most recent round of a social media war of his own making, MP Aaron Gunn makes the misleading claim that the government is sending homeowners letters that their property may now belong to First Nations. 

His statement is based on a notification that the city of Richmond sent out to property owners within the boundaries of the old Cowichan summer village of TI’uqtinus, in October 2025. 

To put this in context: the land should have been made into a reserve. Instead senior colonial officials ignored their government’s instructions to protect the settlement and purchased it themselves in a series of transactions between 1871 and 1914. After a lengthy lawsuit, the Supreme Court of British Columbia restored title to the 800 of the village’s original 1,846 acres ‘over which they have proven sufficient and exclusive occupation.’ 

Continue reading Fact-Checking MP Aaron Gunn: Are Private Property Rights Actually at Risk? →
Indigenous Nations, Politics

MP crashes out over harmless land acknowledgements

Local Chiefs reassure Aaron Gunn: “Chillax, bud.”

press release from the four cited First Nations

March 11, 2026

Chiefs from four First Nations communities are urging the public to please approach Aaron Gunn with no caution whatsoever. He is completely harmless, though momentarily unsettled by the alarming possibility that someone might acknowledge the land before a meeting.

Yesterday on social media, the MP appeared to crash out and demand to speak to the manager of land acknowledgements, a position that observers confirm does not exist.

Continue reading MP crashes out over harmless land acknowledgements →
Indigenous Nations

Food security and community memories are the key ingredients of a new Tla’amin cookbook

IndigiNews, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Denise Smith cherishes her childhood memories of her parents harvesting and preparing traditional ɬaʔəmen (Tla’amin) foods — from hunting deer in the forest, to fishing for perch on their territories, and for cod in the ocean.

Though her mother passed away when she was young, Smith remembers her “being that person that was always doing something with food.”

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Indigenous Nations History

RCMP ordered to pay damages for failing to investigate Catholic school abuse claims

By Bob Mackin, Prince George Citizen Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) decided March 2 that the RCMP discriminated against Indigenous people who accused the Mounties of failing to properly investigate claims they were abused at Catholic-run Immaculata Elementary School in Burns Lake and Prince George College in the 1960s and 1970s.

“Accommodating the Indigenous crime complainants by ensuring they were told that they could report allegations of abuse, be given an update about the outcome of the investigation into their allegations of abuse, and not be repeatedly offered a polygraph would not have interfered with the RCMP’s duty to conduct its investigations in the public interest,” CHRT member Colleen Harrington wrote in the 145-page decision, which was originally expected in early 2025.

Harrington ruled, on a balance of probabilities, that race and national or ethnic origin were factors in “some of the adverse differential treatment or denial of service that was experienced by some of the complainants and their witnesses in relation to the RCMP’s investigations.”

Continue reading RCMP ordered to pay damages for failing to investigate Catholic school abuse claims →