The B.C. First Nations Mining Conference late last year in Prince George, B.C. contained intensive discussion at an open mike from representatives of First Nations across the province. The microphone was open to the First Nation leadership, and the mining industry in attendance listened to input throughout the conference.
“It was within the modern day treaty making process, the recommendations that came forward front and centre, that said you have to deal with each other with respect,” said one speaker from the Dease Lake area of Northern B.C..
“What does that really mean?" he asked. "Does that mean offering as little as possible, disrespecting our people by the offers on the table? I think that here we are trying to find solutions about how to get along with industry, and how to be partners, and how to find solutions together. I think that can be most effective if we clearly understand what that word respect means.”
He said, “We wouldn’t have to coerce government to change legislation or the regulations about how we conduct business with our people if we lived respecting people and others. If industry regarded that word and its full meaning, and some of them do, I don’t paint the brush broadly, because some come to us and say, ‘We want to work together,’ but the thing is that with the climate here and the unresolved issues we need to spread that message, even to our own people. To me it’s an important word.”
Another speaker from the Treaty Eight area (north-east B.C.) said, “We were in the process of negotiating mining agreements with companies in our area, and they told the government that they were talking with us.”
He explained, “After that little bit of information was exchanged they stopped talking to us. We’ve got mining happening all over our area, and they opened another mine to start producing coal, and there is not one person from our community working in it.”
He noted with some frustration, “They offered $700 for education in our community. Seven hundred dollars doesn’t even cover the cost of busing our kids to school in Chetwynd.”
A speaker from the Campbell River area, John Henderson, former chief of the Campbell River Indian Band, said, “Up and down the coast, isolated remote communities have felt the impact of the logging industry as well as the overfishing. They are now left with very little in those communities. So the challenge that we have regards mining a sustainable resource. If the answer is no, it isn’t sustainable, how do we insure that the First Nations and non-First Nation communities are sustainable after the mining resource is gone?”
“You know as First Nations it is very difficult to do business. We get the finger pointed at us and the non-Native community won’t talk to us. We’re going through a lot of that at home right now. If we’re going to be true partners then let’s have First Nations at the table. Let us develop a partnership. Let’s talk about business.”
Henderson noted, “We’ve got all kinds of boards and associations across this country where First Nations aren’t even a part of anymore. We need a voice, whatever that may be. If we’re going to be partners with a mining company or an oil and gas company then 50 percent of that organization should be First Nation. There is no question about that. So how do we get there?”
He said, “It’s up to council members to make sure they buy into the process. But if there is nothing on the table and the end of the day what is the point? We can’t just be pawns in the business world there. “The way it comes out, it is prejudice. And that is what the non-Native community is saying to us, ‘You want the door open. You want guaranteed employment. What about us? Where are our jobs?’”
“That’s on the other side of the table. That’s got to stop. There is nothing unions and all those things that are out there.”
Henderson concluded, “It’s a long story every time we talk about partnership with non-Native organizations. How do we fix it? Like I said, there should be First Nation involvement in the true sense of the word. Because there is no BS’n about it, that’s the way it's got to be.
