Thank you.
We were talking about best practices for indigenous engagement. I just want to tell you that the best practices are here in B.C. That's the way the LNG project got approved for LNG Canada. It was a $40-billion project and it was 15 years in the making. I know they've been in B.C. for six years, but really it's 15 years since LNG first came to our table.
It's been a painful exercise, because in 2004 when the Haida court case came out—the duty to consult and accommodate—nobody really understood what that was, including first nations. Everybody is trying to figure this out.
In the three years after the court case came out, industry and governments were still following the same old playbook. It was basically just come and sit and talk to the first nations, but there was no real sincerity about doing anything. There were a lot of hard meetings there that were taken. I'll just give you an example of some of the things that were said at our table from industry after the court case came out. This is what industry said to us at our table. “We are here to listen, but we're not obligated to do anything. You know the federal government fully supports our project.” My favourite one was always, “Our interests are more important than yours.”
Look at the context of what was going on in my territory, Kitimat. At one time it had the highest per capita wage earners in Canada, but if you went seven miles down the road to my community, we had nothing. We were broke. We were in deficit. Canada was always coming in and threatening us with remedial management and third party management, but we turned that around. Once we turned it around to become a healthy organization, we turned our efforts towards economic development, specifically engagement with major project development.
I started as a council member in 2003. I worked there for eight years before I became a chief. Then I resigned as chief to run as an MLA, to see if I could get LNG across the finish line. However, in those days, in 2003, I believed the rhetoric that industry was bad, the government was bad, the white man was bad, and we needed to kick them all out. It wasn't until my fellow councillors told me that I should review some more of the issues, especially on poverty and unemployment, that I realized I was living the wrong story.
I turned my attention to how I could fix the poverty and unemployment. The programs we developed were mainly around reducing the welfare list, which didn't make any sense, as I concluded a year later. They also revolved around education, which also didn't make any sense after a year, because in both cases there was no opportunity for a job.
If anything, when I realized I had to change my approach, there were two things I wanted to do: empower individual first nations members in my community, and get my council off the dependency of federal program dollars.
When we're talking about the LNG story in B.C., we're talking mainly about the approach the B.C. government took. They came to it kicking and screaming, just like everybody else. In most cases, I saw a distinct difference between the way the province was consulting versus the feds. I understood it. Ottawa is too far removed.
However, B.C. was consulting on the ground on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. They're still consulting today on the permits that have to be implemented under the environmental assessments. At the same time, I had to change the mentality and the approach of my people towards our structure, towards economic development and towards engagement with government.
In 2010, I hired my first lobbyist for the council. The directive to him was that he should teach us about government—teach us about what government is trying to achieve. When my council realized that we were trying to actually achieve the same things, it paved the way for LNG, especially in 2012, when Christy Clark came to help us get LNG across the finish line.
Back then, as chief councillor, my request to my members was to find a way to raise the welfare rates. I even got a request from a band member to co-sign for a truck, even though he didn't have a job. Today, because of the LNG agreements, the conversation is completely different, absolutely turned around on its head.
Now we have the younger generation—I'm talking 30 or 40 years old and younger—not wanting any council help. They're not wanting handouts. They're getting mortgages in their own right, buying their own vehicles and going on holidays. Going on a holiday might seem like a trite type of perk when you're talking about first nations, but we're talking about people who could never even fly to Vancouver, let alone the Philippines, Las Vegas or beyond.
I know you guys are short on time here, but some of the things I see that held us up and are continuing to hold up first nations in B.C. are in three categories: politics, misguided policies and manipulation.
In terms of politics, there is still this narrative here that somehow we have to keep first nations with programs and program dollars. There's this idea that somehow we have to get them back on the land, when on the other hand first nations are already combining those two interests on their own. They don't need that from any level of government.
If anything, if we're talking about what is good practice in terms of getting a project across the finish line, we're talking about implementing case law. We're talking about implementing the Haida decision, and we're talking about section 35 of the Constitution, because those principles are actually fairly sound. There's not some distinct road map that comes underneath it, but those principles are good principles for everybody to follow. That's what made LNG successful in B.C. Now we're starting to go the other way.
The other way I'm talking about is the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. I don't oppose this. What I don't understand is what the principles behind it are. How do you define it? How do you legislate it, given the principles of case law and how all three parties in terms of LNG are all starting to understand the rules of the game, and we're all trying to go after a common goal?
I'm seeing this in the legislature in B.C. One of the biggest issues in B.C. was consent versus veto. I could see the politics around it. In fact, the B.C. government in its environmental assessment categorized consent such that it will allow the first nation in question to have consent, but only in specific areas, and only if the government allows them to have it.
I don't think that's what the first nations were thinking about, and this is the problem with UNDRIP. In my opinion, UNDRIP came 37 years too late for B.C. We could have used that before section 35 of the Constitution came in 1982, but right now Canada and B.C. have defined rights and title in consultation to such a high degree. Why do we want to undo all this with vague, unclear principles that aren't based in case law?
This is very confusing for the layman, but it's very clear for the leaders at the B.C. level, leaders at the federal level and progressive first nations leaders who can see a road map to prosperity and away from the poverty and unemployment.
The manipulation I'm talking about is mainly coming from what is a big topic nowadays, and that's foreign influence. I came across this last year when I reviewed Vivian Krause's work there. By the way, I thought she was a conspiracy theorist as well, but when I looked at her facts, I started to see what she was researching in terms of the money coming across the border, the organizations actually using it and the charitable foundations that were abusing the legislation of Canada. I could see that this is a bigger problem than what was happening in my community.
Unfortunately, the aboriginal leaders in question don't see this. They are either ignorant about the whole issue, or they are apathetic. That's why this is basically being allowed to continue in first nations communities.
But 22 elected first nations leaders from Prince George to Kitimat and down the channel actually all approved LNG with no foreign influence, no third party influence, no NGOs, nothing. Now the question is who has authority in B.C. Is it elected leaders, or is it hereditary leaders?
When people talk about this foreign influence and these NGOs that are using this money coming across the border, they think it's just one direct campaign when in actuality it's not. This money and the organizations that do this spread their influence in a number of different ways, and they don't just go out directly to oppose projects. They actually spread their funding around and spread their people and resources around to different organizations and different people.
You'll find them in different ways. To the first nations' credit, a lot of the first nations on the LNG project started to keep them out. They said, “No, that's not our mandate. We're not trying to shut down projects. We're trying to raise the level of environmental standards here and we're trying to incorporate cultural standards”, which actually happened in the LNG project in B.C.
In terms of best practices, the last thing I'll leave you with is that LNG in B.C. is a good story. The road map in terms of how it was done is a road map for best practices, but there are two big problems I see structurally with first nations in B.C. if we want to continue this. The first nations are sorely lacking in corporate memory, and they're sorely lacking in continuity. Whatever was done two or three years ago, or whatever that direction is, that can be undone in a few short years, because the institution is just not designed for long-term viability.