Blueberry River First Nations suing province for Treaty 8 breach

The suit is also questioning future development in northeast B.C., including Site C and natural gas extraction that will be required to feed the province’s LNG industry.

“Blueberry’s ancestors would not recognize our territory today,” writes Chief Marvin Yahey.  “It is covered by oil and gas wells, roads, pipelines, mines, clear cuts, hydro and seismic lines, private land holdings, and waste disposal sites, amongst other things.”

Chief Yahey adds, “The pace and scale of development have accelerated in the last 25 years, and are now at unprecedented levels.”

Treaty 8 dates back to 1900, when the Blueberry River First Nations agreed to open their land to the crown on the basis that their way of life would not be disturbed, according to legal counsel John Rich. This includes hunting, trapping, fishing, and gathering traditional plants and resources through their lands – something Chief Yahey says is no more.

“It is the cumulative impact of the thousands of provincially authorized activities, from water withdrawals, to major industrial projects such as the Site C dam, which have destroyed our way of life and threaten our continued existence as a people,” writes Chief Yahey.

The northeast portion of Blueberry’s territory, the Beatton watershed, is the most heavily impacted, says Chief Yahey and Rich. They say studies have found that development in a 500 metre radius of the watershed causes 90.8 per cent of their land to be disturbed. When outside the Beetton watershed area, industrial development causes a 66 per cent disturbance.

They say this is a result of high-density linear industrial features and land clearing.

“Less developed areas to the west are under increased pressure from oil and gas development, and the approved Site C dam threatens to flood a vast portion of the southern territory,” Chief Yahey writes in a press release. “Progress plans to supply Petronas’ Pacific Northwest LNG facility in Prince Rupert with its holdings in Blueberry’s territory.”

Chief Yahey says the economic benefits of industrial exploration are minimal.

“Despite the devastating impacts of oil and gas activities on Blueberry’s way of life, we have received few economic benefits from the province,” writes Chief Yahey. “Under previous agreements, we received less than 0.1 per cent of provincial oil and gas royalties, even though the bulk of these revenues come from our territory.”

Chief Yahey says the response from the province has also been minimal at best.

“The province continues to approve major industrial undertakings in our territory without full appreciation that each new approval brings our unique culture closer to extinction,’ writes Chief Yahey. “This is a grave situation that the province continues to ignore.”

Chief Yahey says he fears things will get worse in the near-future with the “LNG ‘gold rush’ we are witnessing in our territory today.”