Secwepemc CBI Team to Support Tsilhqot’in Nation

Chief Roger William doing a drum song alongside Chief Alfonse at t
Published: 
Oct 14, 2014

By Brian Noble

Indigenous peoples recognize that one of the most effective means to protect both their tangible and intangible cultural practices is to exercise their own legal authority over them. This is especially challenging when faced with provocative colonial arrangements that deny Indigenous peoples’ jurisdiction. 

But the horizons do change, as is clear with the recent landmark Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) decision, Tsilhqot’in Nation / William v. British Columbia, which included the first ever declaration of Aboriginal Title in favour of the Tsilhqot’in Nation. Although the consequences of the decision will only be known as new relations between the Province, Federal Government, and the Tsilhqot’in unfold, the matter of control and exercise of Tsilhqot’in laws within their territories has certainly been reinforced. This is a unique opportunity to implement Indigenous territorial authority on the ground. The Tsilhqot’in people have invested life-times of energy, over several generations, to protect their authority within their territory, with legal cases on their own spanning more than 20 years until the recent SCC decision.

Now, scholars and Secwepemc partners from the IPinCH-supported community-based initiative on Secwepemc Territorial Authority have been asked to share their experience and insight, indeed their “method,” with the Tsilhqot’in people, related to advancing Indigenous laws, governance, authority and land relations, within this shifting context of Aboriginal Title.

The Secwepemc Territorial Authority project has been examining how Secwepemc law applies all across Secwepemc territory, and how through laws, and through the exercise of tangible and intangible cultural practices, this authority is asserted and persists to this day. Following in the footsteps of his father George Manuel, who founded the “Fourth World” movement of Indigenous Peoples worldwide, Secwepemc co-leader of the project Arthur Manuel, has dedicated much of his life to aiding Secwepemc grassroots people to bring recognition to the economic, political and legal reality of their territorial authority. This will, once in place, foster better relations with Canadian people regarding the totality of Secwepemc “People’s Heritage.”

The Secwepemc Territorial Authority project started by bringing together both Secwepemc and settler thinkers, committed to understanding how to build better relations. Secwepemc activists, elders, and leaders, as well as Osgoode Law Professor Kent McNeil, IPinCH co-investigator Political Anthropologist Michael Asch, and IPinCH Director George Nicholas, have joined project leaders Brian Noble and Arthur Manuel in dialogues on how principles of Secwepemc protective land use and law including ancestral burial practices, knowledge practices, berry picking and hunting, extend readily and legitimately to authority in decision-making in large scale resource extraction and development projects being approved by Provincial and Crown agencies.

The Secwepemc project’s approach to supporting the implementation of territorial authority, and bringing leading scholars into the conversation, is now being expanded upon in dialogues between the Secwepemc project team and representatives of the Tsilhqot’in Nation. This is generating much wider synergies around the importance of Indigenous peoples legal authority across their lands, and establishing more robust conditions for advancing Indigenous / Crown reconciliation. To this end, a series of conference calls, workshops and other communications are moving forward in coming months. This includes an upcoming workshop with several of the noted experts, co-hosted by Thompson Rivers University (TRU) and the Tsilhqot’in Nation and organized by TRU Law Professor Nicole Schabus. The gathering will be held in Williams Lake in November. 
 

Images: Chief Roger William of Xeni Gwet'in (named in the Tsilquot’in Decision) doing a drum song alongside Chief Joe Alfonse (Tsilquot’in Nation Chief) at the Assembly of First Nations General Assembly (photo: A. Manuel); Tsilquot’in territorial map included in the Supreme Court of Canada decision (Appendix Tsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia, 2014 SCC 44; source); Brian Noble with Chief Roger William (black hat), and Chief Joe Alfonse (white hat) with legal scholar Constance MacIntosh (foreground) (photo: A. Manuel).
 
For more information, see "Tsilhqot'in First Nation granted B.C. title claim in Supreme Court ruling"(CBC news, June 26, 2014).