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FIRST READING: Carney didn't meet 'coastal First Nations,' he met an environmentalist group named Coastal First Nations
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/carney-coastal-first-nations-environmentalist-group
Coastal First Nations is an activist group endorsed by just eight of the more than 70 First Nations on the B.C. coast
This week, Prime Minister Mark Carney flew to B.C. for a meeting with “Coastal First Nations,” crediting them as ancient guardians of the Pacific Coast.
“Coastal First Nations have stewarded the waters of the B.C. North Coast from time immemorial,” he wrote in a statement.
But Carney didn’t meet with a governing body representing the more than 100 First Nations on the B.C. coast. In fact, he didn’t meet with an Indigenous governing body of any kind.
Carney met with an anti-pipeline non-profit that has done business under the name “Coastal First Nations” since 2002. Prior to that, it was called Turning Point, and operated out of the offices of the David Suzuki Foundation.
In fact, the group’s last major event before meeting Carney was a gala to celebrate its 25th anniversary.
Coastal First Nations isn’t even the name on its registration documents. If Carney had used their official moniker, his statement would have read, “The Great Bear Initiative Society has stewarded the waters of the B.C. North Coast from time immemorial.”
But the B.C. coast is home to one of the densest collections of First Nations governments in the entire country.
Of the 600 officially recognized First Nations bands in Canada, more than a tenth of them are located on the edges of the Pacific Ocean.
According to a map of First Nations communities compiled by the B.C. Assembly of First Nations, there are 72 First Nations whose reserve land is on the coast.
But Coastal First Nations has ties to just eight of those communities, representing a total of 11,236 members as of the last count by the B.C. government.
For context, in the last census, B.C. had 290,210 Indigenous people, of whom 180,085 identified as First Nations.
In short, Coastal First Nations is endorsed by just 10 per cent of the First Nations bands who could accurately call themselves Coastal First Nations. And at best, they represent just 6.2 per cent of the province’s total First Nations population. Continue…