FILE PHOTO: Okanagan Indian Band chief Byron Louis
Image Credit: Submitted
February 28, 2020 - 2:00 PM
Okanagan Indian Band chief Byron Louis and councillors are showing their support for the Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs through a letter issued to the prime minister.
In the letter, OKIB chief and councillors expressed their concern for the environmental impacts of a pipeline running from Alberta to the B.C. coast and support for Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs who are “currently attempting to protect their land by blocking TC Energy Coastal Gas Link pipeline.”
“We understand that GasLink will not only carry gas from Northern British Columbia obtained by fracking - a method that causes great stress on the land and those of their relations that inhabit the land, but also traverses… spawning grounds for salmon,” they said in the letter.
READ MORE: The latest on protests across Canada in support of Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs
“Canada’s history is replete with instances of First Nations people forcibly removed from their land. Whether by government policy or police action, the result is the same, economies and cultures are destroyed,” the OKIB chief and council said in the letter.
“Consultation and reconciliation demand respect for rules and systems of government that were in effect in this land long before people with Western European ideas of governance immigrated here.”
The OKIB chief and council have asked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to take these points into consideration regarding future Indigenous relations.
The open letter was posted on the OKIB Facebook page, as well as on its website.
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