Tag: native-american

Tribal nations in Alaska press for role in Canadian resources talks

  • This article was written by Nathan Vanderklippe and was published in the Globe & Mail on November 20, 2025.
The Red Chris mine expansion in northwestern British Columbia is among the projects designated by Prime Minister Mark Carney for fast-track approval.

A group of Alaska tribal nations has gone to the B.C. Supreme Court to demand a seat at the table in Canadian resource development – including a mine expansion that is among the nationbuilding projects Ottawa has selected as pivotal to economic development.

The Alaska groups argue that their historical use of what is now northwestern B.C. makes them Aboriginal peoples of Canada under the Constitution Act, saying that status should guarantee them the same rights to consultation as Canadian Indigenous groups.

The petition for judicial review, filed Wednesday, adds a potential new complication to Canadian plans to bolster a domestic economy buffeted by U.S. tariffs. Now, a different set of U.S. interests is seeking the ability to constrain those plans.

The Alaska legal challenge is part of an escalating effort by U.S. tribal groups to assert rights in Canada in the wake of the 2021 Desautel decision, in which Canada’s Supreme Court found that the Lakes Tribe in eastern Washington state should be considered Aboriginal peoples of Canada, given their historical use of land that is now B.C.

In the years since, several U.S. groups have used the decision to assert themselves in Canadian affairs.

The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, which includes the Lakes Tribe, has demanded the right to shape how its history is taught in B.C. schools. In northwestern Washington, the Lummi Nation says it should have a say in major infrastructure construction in the Vancouver area, including a port expansion and highway improvements.

Those claims have created conflict with Canadian Indigenous groups. Earlier this year, Osoyoos Indian Band Chief Clarence Louie warned that Canadian leaders must “wake up” to a creeping erosion of sovereignty as U.S. groups seek to advance claims.

In June, the province of British Columbia declared, in an order-in-council, that Alaska tribal groups cannot be a “participating Indigenous nation” in the review of six mining projects.

But “that itself is illegal” under the provincial Environmental Assessment Act, argues John Gailus, a B.C.-based lawyer acting for the Alaska tribes. The petition filed in B.C. seeks to have that order quashed, and asks the court to either find that several Alaskan tribes are participating Indigenous nations in a mining review − or force the province to make such a decision.

Those tribes have a legitimate expectation to consultation, Mr. Gailus said, because they fit the definition of Aboriginal peoples of Canada as defined by the Desautel decision.

But the Province of B.C. has not included them in formal consultation processes. Instead, it has provided notification of developments in the permitting process.

“We’re getting these notices but there’s nothing we can do about it. We are powerless,” said Esther Reese, president of the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission, or SEITC, which counts 14 member tribes.

Ms. Reese is Tlingit, and her clan traces its lineage to the Stikine River, in whose watershed the Red Chris mine is partly situated. That gold and copper mine began production in 2015, yielding concentrate that is shipped to Asia for smelting. The mine is seeking to transition to underground mining, a change that could allow it to boost Canada’s copper output by 15 per cent according to Newmont Corp., its majority owner.

The Stikine flows from a region of Northern B.C. dubbed the Sacred Headwaters before crossing into Alaska, reaching saltwater not far from Wrangell, where Ms. Reese is tribal administrator.

In September, Red Chris was among the projects designated by Prime Minister Mark Carney for fast-track approval as part of a bid to bolster a Canadian economy battered by U.S. tariffs. Mr. Carney noted the participation of the Dease Lake, B.C.-based Tahltan Nation as a partner in Red Chris, calling the project “an important step in reconciliation and further developing the potential of Northern B.C.”

Canada’s prioritizing of the mine has made it a greater priority for groups in Alaska, Ms. Reese said.

“The fact they’re fast-tracking that mine and we don’t have a say makes this even more of an emergency for us,” she said. A catastrophic mine failure, she said, would jeopardize “our whole way of life. We’re salmon people.”

Earlier this year, Skeena-Wild Conservation Trust, an environmental advocacy group, found that mine tailings are seeping into the environment at a higher rate than predicted, raising risks to fish and to the dam’s structural stability.

Newmont, in response, said it had installed new seepage interception systems and was updating its dam safety review. The company declined to comment

Mining companies in B.C. have already reached out to tribal groups in Alaska through the SEITC, providing “ample opportunity to provide input into the assessment process” for several current projects, said Michael Goehring, president of the Mining Association of B.C. He accused SEITC of receiving funding for its legal action from “Earthjustice, a large pro-bono law firm based in the U.S. that is more interested in stopping BC mining than advancing an appropriate level of consultation for the Tribes.”

Earthjustice has worked closely with SEITC on other legal challenges, but Mr. Gailus said the group is not funding the current court application.

In a statement, the B.C. government said its environmental assessment office “will continue to fulfill its constitutional obligations by consulting with U.S. Tribes when there is a credible assertion of Aboriginal rights under the Canadian Constitution and a potential for these rights to be impacted by a proposed project.”

It’s not clear, however, who has the authority to declare that a U.S.-based group meets that criteria.

“Government has to make that decision,” Mr. Gailus said.

But, he added, the Alaska tribes under the SEITC are Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian, each of which is also an Indigenous group based in Canada.

“All three of those are Aboriginal peoples of Canada,” Mr. Gailus said. So do the Alaska groups “have a right to be consulted because they are Aboriginal peoples of Canada? We say yes.”

I’m Anishinaabe, and work in oil and gas. Am I betraying my people?

This opinion was written by Kaella-Marie Earle, an Anishinaabe from Wiikwemkoong and Aroland First Nation. She is an emissions engineer at Enbridge Gas and vice-chair of the Indigenous advisory committee at the Canada Energy Regulator. It was published in the Globe & Mail on November 16, 2024.

Band councillors from the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation hold up a Two Row Wampum Belt during a 2013 hearing in Toronto by the National Energy Board regarding an Enbridge pipeline.

Being Anishinaabe and working in the oil and gas sector isn’t easy, and increasingly I find myself reflecting on how I got here and what my purpose is, Kaella-Marie Earle writes

I grinned out the car window as my good friend Denise Boyer Payette reminded me of the day we first met – a moment that neither of us could have predicted would lead me into the very industry I once strongly opposed.

”The first time I met you, you slammed a book on the table and declared that the university should divest from oil and gas. And I thought to myself, ‘I’d follow you anywhere,’ ” she said with a laugh.

It’s strange how things turned out. No one expected me, least of all myself, to become an engineer in oil and gas. Yet here I am.

As I grow older, I spend more time reflecting on how I got here. Being Anishinaabe in the oil and gas industry hasn’t always been easy, and it still isn’t. I often ask myself: Am I betraying my people? Am I really standing up for Anishinaabeg? Am I acting out of love for the land and indinawemaaganidog – all my relations?

Turtle Island is burning, flooding and enduring drought at unprecedented rates. Our animal relatives are disappearing, and disease plagues the land. It seems that every week, new assertions of rights through legal means inspire oppositional reactions from government and industry instead of collaborative ones. It echoes the end-of-world aadizookaan, stories Anishinaabeg have passed down from time immemorial. But perhaps inside of this story, there is hope.

Waubgeshig Rice’s Moon of the Crusted Snow is such a story. In it, the world ends, and Anishinaabe are finding ways to survive. But what stood out to me is the deeper message: Our teachings, the Anishinaabe way of knowing, offer a returning pathway to safety. In many of our aadizookaan, it’s when Nanaboozhoo, a spirit and trickster figure, and the animals return to those teachings that they find a way out of their world-ending predicaments.

These aadizookaan make up the identity of Anishinaabeg. As Globe journalist and author Tanya Talaga writes, this is “The Knowing,” a process of returning to who we are, to the stories, land and relations that shape us. For Anishinaabe people, belonging comes from knowing where we’re from. It’s the foundation of safety, something that Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – which may have been inspired by Siksika (Blackfoot) teachings – emphasizes as being essential to human well-being. Psychology Today further defines belonging as the principle from which all other needs flow.

So, who am I?

I am Anishinaabe from Wiikwemkoong and Aroland First Nation. I was born in Sudbury – N’Swakamok – on Atikameksheng and Wahnapitae territory. My father, an electrician turned engineer, immersed me in the world of energy. Some of my earliest memories are of him describing his work with stars in his eyes, designing power systems, or showing me photos of the projects he managed. I grew up in an energy house; it’s no wonder energy became an important thread in my life.

But my identity also carries the weight of my family’s history with Indian residential and day schools. Those schools severed my connection to Anishinaabemowin, my language, and disrupted the knowing of who I am. As a child, the stories of what happened to my relatives felt like a haunting secret – a terrifying truth that hovered over us but rarely got spoken aloud. Learning about Canada’s genocide against my people as an adult fuelled an ancestral rage in me. Many of my relatives did not have the privilege to allow themselves to feel. And my anger fuelled a journey to reclaim myself.

I threw myself into Anishinaabe teachings. I ran experiential learning camps to revitalize Anishinaabe knowledge. I poured my heart out at Anishinaabe women’s talking circles, made my own drum, sang and went to ceremonies. I listened to young people share their grief at the Feathers of Hope event in Thunder Bay. I beaded and crafted leather mitts out of deer hide and rabbit fur. I bathed in cedar water and breathed in the cool air of Animkii Wajiw in my mother’s homeland in Treaty 9. I watched the soft glow of the grandfather and grandmother asiniik – sweat-lodge stones that symbolize wisdom, our ancestors and the knowledge of the land – and I prayed.

I grieved for myself and my family. The grief enveloped me. And I let it, for a while. It was another end of the world, after all. But the grief couldn’t last forever. I transformed it into advocacy.

I’m an emissions and industrial decarbonization engineer, working on designing the future of net-zero operations at the Dawn Hub storage facility. Not out of resignation, but purpose. To protect my people, and myself, in the best way I can. To impart hope and confidence in others.

Colonization has always been intertwined with resource extraction – especially mining and energy. I’m a staunch Sudburian, and Sudbury has been a mecca of environmental devastation. It taught me well. For a long time, my place felt clear: I stood against all of it, any action that harmed the land. Climate change activism became an expression of my Anishinaabe identity. It felt like a reclamation of myself. I found my voice, speaking out at university, calling for divestment from oil and gas, organizing against pipelines such as the Northern Gateway and the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, and even joining Al Gore’s Climate Reality training.

To my friend Denise’s earlier words, I was outspoken, and decided I’d become an environmental engineer. I finally knew who I was. It lit a fire in my heart. I’m made of the land, and I’ll protect it. Because protecting it is protecting myself.

Then I got a co-op interview at Union Gas (now Enbridge Gas).

Waaseyaa ndzhnikaaz, Wiikwemkoong minwaa Aroland ndoonjibaa, mkwa ndodem, Anishinaabe kwe ndaaw. My name is Bright Light. I belong to Wiikwemoong and Aroland First Nations. I’m of the bear clan. I’m Anishinaabe.

Haudenosaunee teachings, shared with me by Joe Martin from Six Nations, introduced me to the Two Row Wampum – a legal agreement between settlers and First Nations that says we travel together, side by side, without interfering with one another. In my mind, I imagine it as a peaceful weaving, with two parallel and equal threads. But Canada hasn’t honoured these types of agreements. Instead, our paths are knotted together, with colonialism’s threads binding us in historic disregard for the self-determination and inherent rights of our peoples.

For me, existing in the oil and gas industry is about untangling those knots, and honouring my bear clan duty to protect the people and promote peace. These teachings, along with years of soliciting advice from elders and other Anishinaabe leaders, live in my bones.

My first job interview in oil and gas was in 2018 (working in gas pipeline construction), and six years later, I’m still here. I’m an emissions and industrial decarbonization engineer, working on designing the future of net-zero operations at the Dawn Hub storage facility. Not out of resignation, but purpose. To protect my people, and myself, in the best way I can. To impart hope and confidence in others.

I want to stand up for First Nations’ human rights in energy. I want to build up the capacity for allyship for First Nations among those who hold power in this country. I want to stand up for the implementation of harm-reducing strategies in oil and gas through an industrial decarbonization and transition in energy. I want to protect energy security.

I want to redefine the way engineers and other energy professionals understand “the safety of the public” – our highest and most revered value – to more readily include First Nations, Inuit and Métis people. I want to redefine safety through an Anishinaabe lens so that people understand the safety of the land is our safety. I want to work with the best energy professionals in the world to redefine what energy looks like for the betterment of the land.

I genuinely believe in the goodness of the people who exist here. It isn’t what I expected. But I’ve been heartened to meet young oil and gas workers keen to reduce emissions, as well as front-line workers who have fed their families for generations from the pipeline business and are looking to protect their livelihoods. Many kind people in leadership have made space for me to be authentic. And I have been. The expansion of the way people understand safety here has been instrumental in a change of praxis: one that is kinder to the land, and one that inspires and empowers people to create a more just and sustainable energy future.

Anishinaabe teachings tell us to always approach with the spirit of humility and friendship. When you prioritize both of these, blended with the four basic concepts of decision-making authority, land stewardship, respect for our culture, and including our governments and laws, much of the non-technical risk to energy and mining will be mitigated, energy transition and remediation plans will be strengthened and we’ll be starting to build a new way to develop resources.

It’s not perfect, and I don’t have all of the answers. But what I do know is that oil and gas is where I expect the most exciting and innovative energy transition change to stem from.

It’ll take a village to steer ourselves out of this end-of-the-world we are currently finding ourselves in. But armed with my knowing, I lean confidently into it. Our ancient aadizookaan confirm that the future of energy needs Anishinaabe. And our people, together with the energy industry, can build a more self-determining and prosperous future.

We can strengthen each other and write the story of a more just energy future. So aambe – let’s go.

‘We’re not asking to break Canada’

Six Nations says Crown could owe trillions of dollars over mismanagement of Grand River lands

This article was written by J.P. Antonacci and was published in the Toronto Star on September 28, 2024.

“They said we wouldn’t suffer any losses when we lost our homelands” in upstate New York after the war, says Lonny Bomberry, director of Six Nations’ lands and resources department and elected council’s point person for the land claim lawsuit.

According to Six Nations of the Grand River, it was one of the biggest frauds in Canadian history — the swindling of almost a million acres of land that underwrote the growth of modern Canada while leaving the Haudenosaunee people bankrupt.

Now, a lawsuit launched 40 years ago about a centuries-old land claim is inching closer to trial.

Almost exactly 240 years after the Haldimand Proclamation of October 1784 granted 950,000 acres along the Grand River to be enjoyed by the Haudenosaunee in perpetuity as compensation for allying with the British during the American Revolution, Six Nations elected council wants the Crown to own up to its alleged dereliction of duty as a treaty partner.

And they want their money back — with interest.

“They said we wouldn’t suffer any losses when we lost our homelands” in upstate New York after the war, said Lonny Bomberry, director of Six Nations’ lands and resources department and elected council’s point person for the lawsuit.

But Six Nations alleges much of the land granted by the Haldimand Proclamation — approximately 10 kilometres along both sides of the full length of the Grand River from Dundalk to Lake Erie — was improperly managed by the Crown, with the Haudenosaunee not seeing the proceeds.

According to Bomberry, within a few decades, “Six Nations was broke, and they’d lost all their land.”

What is the case about?

The lawsuit, filed in Ontario Superior Court, hinges on two questions — whether the Haldimand Proclamation was meant to be a treaty between Six Nations and the Crown, and whether Ottawa and Ontario defrauded Six Nations of money and territory.

The Crown’s position is the land grant was not a treaty and did not obligate the government to keep the territory as a reserve, while Six Nations contends the Crown’s promise of land in perpetuity was a treaty whose obligations and responsibilities remain.

From the original 950,000 acres granted by the Crown, Six Nations controls less than five per cent today — approximately 46,500 acres near Haldimand County that encompasses Canada’s most populous First Nation.

Much of the rest of the Haldimand Tract has been extensively developed, with the cities of Kitchener, Waterloo, Brantford and Guelph within the territory.

In its statement of claim, Six Nations argues the Crown breached its fiduciary duty to prevent the “exploitation” of the tract lands by not evicting non-Indigenous squatters and by using monies intended for Six Nations to fund public works projects without any compensation paid to the Haudenosaunee.

The band council alleges the Haldimand Proclamation bound the Crown to “ensure that all monies or other assets … were managed prudently and accounted for.”

Ottawa’s statement of defence said the Crown is not to blame for Haudenosaunee control over the tract shrinking over time.

“Over decades, the Six Nations people made a series of valid surrenders and sales of lands within the tract,” the statement said, rejecting the accusation Canada and Ontario “have been at fault in their dealings with the Six Nations.”

Based on the legal system of the day, the defence argues “the Crown has acted honourably and as contemplated by colonial and post-colonial Crown policy.”

And as most of the land transfers predate Confederation, Ottawa argues modern-day Canada is not to blame for any mismanagement.

Where did the money go?

As laid out in the statement of claim, starting in the 1780s and continuing into the middle of the next century, some Haudenosaunee allowed non-Indigenous settlers to farm parcels of land within the tract.

Proceeds from these land leases and sales were to flow back to Six Nations for 999 years in a “continual revenue stream … dedicated for Six Nations ‘perpetual care and maintenance.’ ”

But Six Nations alleges the Crown allowed some parcels to pass to third parties without having been legally surrendered by the Haudenosaunee.

Instead, the claim says, “records show that the Crown used those revenues to finance operations in developing Canada with little or no return to Six Nations.”

Six Nations research that will be submitted in evidence alleges money that should have been held in trust was instead used to fund McGill University and the Law Society of Upper Canada, pay off Canada’s war debt, underwrite banks, and finance railways and public works projects like the Welland Canal.

“People don’t know it, but Six Nations had a large part in building this country,” Bomberry said.

What does Six Nations want?

The lawsuit does not seek the transfer of any land to Six Nations.

Rather, elected council wants an accounting of how the nearly million-acre Haldimand Tract was whittled down to the existing reserve, and what happened to the proceeds from land that was meant to be sold, leased or otherwise put in trust for the betterment of band members.

Six Nations also seeks “satisfactory compensation” for “thousands of acres of Six Nations lands legislated away, expropriated, flooded and used by the Crown.” Based on calculations by Bomberry’s department, were a judge to determine Six Nations has been defrauded, the damages owed by the Crown could be in the trillions of dollars.

“It is a huge, huge case,” Bomberry said.

“You have to look at the money that was involved at that time and convert it. Compound interest, the value of the land. It’s enormous.”

But Bomberry hopes the Crown settles before things get to that point.

“We’re not asking to break Canada, or Ontario,” he said.

“We’re hopeful that the Crowns will come to their senses and say, ‘Look, this is too big. Let’s talk about settling this.’ ”

That position is reflected in a 2019 paper from the Six Nations lands and resources department called “Land Rights: A Global Solution.”

“Six Nations of the Grand River understands that Canada does not have enough money to bring historic land issues to resolution under the existing land claims policies,” the paper reads.

The department called for revenue sharing through “a new perpetual care and maintenance mechanism that would benefit the Six Nations Peoples and their posterity to enjoy forever, while continuing to share the Haldimand Tract lands and resources with our neighbours.”

The money from what would likely be the biggest land claims settlement in Canadian history would be used to improve life for Six Nations residents, many of whom do not have reliable access to clean drinking water, Bomberry told The Hamilton Spectator.

“There are a lot of things we need in the community. A lot of things,” he said.

Previous efforts to settle with the Crown have fallen short, but Bomberry predicts a settlement is inevitable.

Who else is involved?

Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation successfully applied to be an intervener in the case, as the Haldimand Tract falls within MCFN’s traditional and treaty lands.

MCFN does not seek compensation for itself and supports Six Nations’ efforts “to hold the Crown accountable for its mismanagement and abuses.”

An application from the Haudenosaunee Development Institute to intervene on behalf of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Chiefs Council — the traditional government of Six Nations — and all Haudenosaunee people within and outside the Six Nations reserve was denied.

The judge acknowledged the Haudenosaunee Confederacy existed prior to the elected band council, which was created in 1924 by Ottawa and installed after the hereditary chiefs and clan mothers were forcibly removed.

The Haldimand Tract, therefore, predates the creation of the elected council by about 140 years, and as such, HDI argues elected council has no right to compensation for an agreement to which it was not a party.

Justice Jasmine Akbarali further acknowledged HDI’s participation in ultimately unsuccessful negotiations while the lawsuit was paused to see if a settlement could be reached.

But Akbarali rejected HDI’s argument that elected council is not entitled to compensation, blocking the institute’s attempt to “put an end to the litigation in favour of nation-to-nation negotiations” between the Confederacy and the Crown.

The judge also noted the “long history of conflict” between the Confederacy and elected council over which governing body is legitimate.

What is taking so long?

The size and scope of the land claim has made for a protracted legal process.

“The action is extremely complex,” Akbarali wrote in the preface to her judgment.

“The breadth and the depth of the issues raised in this action are significant. The action covers about 250 years of history and involves a large tract of land.”

Six Nations sued the government in 1995 after slow progress toward resolving the band council’s 29 individual land claims along the Haldimand Tract, of which only one was settled.

The parties put the legal action on hold after Indigenous land defenders occupied a planned subdivision in Caledonia in 2006. Instead, Six Nations elected council and the Confederacy tried negotiating a settlement with Ottawa and Queen’s Park to resolve the land claim and financial issues.

But talks fell apart a few years later, and the litigation resumed in 2009.

Further muddying the waters, Canada and Ontario each argue the other should have to pay any damages that are awarded to Six Nations, and have filed cross claims to that effect.

Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney General declined an interview request for this story.

“As this matter is before the courts, it would be inappropriate to comment,” spokesperson Keesha Seaton said in an email to The Spectator.

An interview request to the Atsation torney General of Canada was referred to Indigenous Services Canada and Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada.

In an email, ministry spokesperson Jacinthe Goulet said Ottawa “is working in co-operation with the other parties to prepare for trial.”

Goulet said the government’s position is reflected in the website focused on the litigation, and declined further comment, citing the ongoing court case.

What’s next?

When this matter will see the inside of a courtroom remains anyone’s guess.

Trial dates have been pushed back for years, and while Bomberry said a pretrial motion is scheduled for mid-December in Toronto, the provincial spokesperson said nothing is on the docket.

Should there be no settlement reached beforehand, the trial will be in two phases, Bomberry explained.

First, the court would decide whether the Crown is liable for the alleged losses Six Nations experienced. Next, the court would consider what happened to the land and monies and rule on damages.

In the meantime, Canada’s expert witnesses started recording video testimony in late August.

“Three of their witnesses are elderly and sick, and (the government) wanted to get their evidence recorded for the trial judge before something happened,” Bomberry said.

The former lawyer and band councillor, who has been involved in this legal action since the late 1980s, said Six Nations is “in a better position than we’ve ever been.”

“We have things in sight now, you know. Things are going to happen,” said Bomberry, who is motivated by the need to rectify what he calls “the obvious and grievous injustice that was done to the Six Nations people in taking almost all of their land and practically all of their money.”

“It’s so monumental a miscarriage of justice that it cries out for justice,” he said.

“And that’s what’s going to happen.”

‘‘ It’s so monumental a miscarriage of justice that it cries out for justice. And that’s what’s going to happen.

LONNY BOMBERRY DIRECTOR OF SIX NATIONS’ LANDS AND RESOURCES DEPARTMENT