Power Struggle
Improving the energy dialogue in Canada (and beyond) through honest, non-partisan, and fact- based conversations.
The energy conversation is personal: it’s in our homes, in our hands, and now, it’s in our ears. Power Struggle invites you to listen in on honest, non-partisan, and fact-based conversations between host Stewart Muir and the leaders and thinkers designing modern energy.
Watch videos at https://www.youtube.com/@PowerStrugglePod
Power Struggle
Dallas Smith on Reconciliation, Resource Development & Indigenous Leadership
In this powerful episode of Power Struggle, Dallas Smith — President & CEO of the Nanwakolas Council and strategic negotiator for the Tlowitsis Nation — shares an honest, grounded, and deeply personal perspective on what reconciliation means on the ground in coastal British Columbia.
With decades of experience in stewardship, community building, and government negotiation, Dallas offers a front-row look at:
- The real-world consequences of shutting down ocean-based salmon farming
- How 655 acres of land are becoming a home again for people displaced since 1968
- The tension between elected and hereditary leadership in Indigenous governance
- A reimagined Canadian flag that became a symbol of unity — designed by his nephew
This conversation goes far beyond policy. It’s about resilience, pragmatism, and the leadership required to bring Indigenous priorities and resource development together in a meaningful way.
Watch now to hear the story from someone living it.
The energy conversation is polarizing. But the reality is multidimensional. Get the full story with host Stewart Muir.
Reach out to us with thoughts, questions, or ideas at info@powerstruggle.ca
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Welcome to Power Struggle. I'm your host, Stuart Muir. Our guest here in the studio is Dallas Smith. Dallas is a First Nations leader, a strategic negotiator, and the founder, president, and CEO of the Nanhuacolas Council. Dallas how's my pronunciation on Nanwakalos?
SPEAKER_00:Spot on.
SPEAKER_01:Spot on. Thank you. A First Nations organization based on Vancouver Island, working at the heart of land use, marine planning, and economic decision making for your community. It's incredible what you've accomplished. I can't wait to get into that, Dallas. A member of the Clawitese nation, Dallas has spent more than three decades at some of the toughest tables in the country bringing First Nations governments, industry, and environmental groups together to find practical paths forward. His work has helped shape collaborative stewardship and co-management frameworks tied to the Great Bear Rainforest and coastal waters here in British Columbia. Dallas is known for being direct, principled, and deeply grounded in both community well-being and economic reality. He's someone who understands how decisions actually get made and what it takes to balance culture, conservation, and opportunity. And I'm very happy and proud to say that Dallas has been a friend of mine for almost a decade as we've leaned in on some of the most important issues facing our country, our province, and really the world. So welcome to the show, Dallas.
SPEAKER_00:It's great to be here, Stuart. It's always fun to have these conversations that we started probably a decade ago and they just kind of evolve each time.
SPEAKER_01:Last time we talked, at least on a podcast, it was on your podcast, Res Dog Walkers. I really enjoy that show.
SPEAKER_00:What's it all about? You know, we're having some fun with it. Um, Res Dog Walkers was created just to get behind the scenes on what indigenous people are thinking about when it comes to management of resources, whether that's protection, whether that's development, whether it's the community benefits, whether it's ecological benefits. And so I've had some fun getting down a few layers of the onion, so to say, with some people. And the interest is growing. We're getting a fan base. Amazon Canada has linked us to that if you like this link now. So we're starting to get a bit of a viewership. You're getting some great guests.
SPEAKER_01:So what's a res dog and what's a res dog walker?
SPEAKER_00:So Res Dog Walkers is a little bit of an inside joke between myself and Isaiah Robinson, the deputy chief counselor for Kidisu Hei Hey Nation. As we've been dealing with the salmon farming issues in Canada and British Columbia that are really hitting us 40% reduction over the last five years, there's an activist who said that First Nations people should get jobs walking dogs to fill in the income loss from salmon farming. So these are$120,000 a year family supporting jobs that this activist had the audacity to say our people should be walking dogs to fill that income gap. And so I decided to call my podcast the Res Dog Walkers. It's sort of like I was watching a lot of Sons of Anarchy at the time, so I pictured it being this like gang cut, and we've got these sweaters that we had made up, but we're having some fun with it. And people understand the joke, but also understand the seriousness of the issue around First Nations economics.
SPEAKER_01:Because it it is serious stuff, and you spent a lot of time at some of the most uh crucial negotiation tables around not just salmon farming, but things like forestry, economic development generally. Um I I I think your your journey has uh impressed me for your resilience. You've been through um some of the most heated, almost you know, personalized uh uh conflicts and decision making about uh issues. I'd like to go back to where this started though, because to fully understand the the world according to Dallas Smith, I'd I'd like to hear about your First Nations upbringing and the place that you call your ancestral home.
SPEAKER_00:Nice. Well, I'm I'm from the Clowitz East Nation. Our territories are just sort of southeast of Alert Bay, um, in between Vancouver Island and the coastal mainland is where our village is.
SPEAKER_01:From uh Victoria to Alert Bay, that would be about six.
SPEAKER_00:Five, six hours of the Ross. So we're we're we're fairly remote. Um our community actually got shut down in the late 60s. Um they took our schoolhouse away, and so all of our children. First, we had children who went to residential school in the village, and then my grandfather and some of the other local leaders built a school in the community so the kids didn't have to leave. Um, but then that school got shut down and the kids were gonna have to go back to residential school again. So the community really shut down, and people moved to Port Hardy, Campbell River, Victoria, various points of interest along the coast. And so it's always been an interest of our leadership to bring people back home. Um, I myself actually grew up in a suburb of Vancouver and White Rock in the lower mainland. The school system in the mid-70s when I was born wasn't quite adequate, and there's still some social problems that weren't quite dealt with the way they needed to be for my parents to feel comfortable raising a family. So I went to suburban White Rock and got the best of the basics of elementary school and high school, but I still got to go home for cultural events, and every summer I went home and as a commercial fisherman from the age of probably 11 years old on. So every summer I commercial fished back in the territories and whatnot. So I really think in hindsight, it's helped me build a bit of a a bit of a two-eyed seeing approach to how urban people view First Nations, but also how the rural communities deal with some of these issues, and it's given me some perspective that's helped me throughout my career a little bit.
SPEAKER_01:If you look at the Northern Island and the central coast of British Columbia, there's a lot of things you you could have two-eyed seeing, but you could also have ten-eyed seeing. I mean, there's so many dimensions, be it the environmental, be it the the resource management, be it the the uh security and and uh relationship to the whole country of Canada as well as the uh issues of economic development for for your your people. Um When did you make a decision that the place you wanted to go back to was your traditional territory?
SPEAKER_00:Well, over the years, you know, the it was always stay in suburban Vancouver, go to school, get educated, and come back home to work for the people. Unfortunately, I was in a very life-threatening motorcycle accident when I was 18 years old, and I spent a couple years in and out of the hospital and some other challenges that come with severe health trauma that I went through. And so, you know, my parents decided it was best for me to go back home and I started working for the nation in various capacities. Um, my first job was actually running the microphone systems at our community meetings. And so I would set up all the microphones and run the audio equipment that recorded it. And we were just engaging the BC treaty process at that point in time. And so I spent about 18 months going from community to community, working with the elders, working with the community members on just talking about what treaty should be, what we were looking for, what we needed, all those sorts of things. And I actually was lucky enough to be Bill Wilson, one of our senior Bill Wilson just passed away last year, very forthright First Nations leader, took on Trudeau back in 1982. Um, Bill Wilson was a bit of a mentor for me, and I got to be his driver during that time. So I just really got to soak in a lot of real high-level discussions with chiefs from an observation point of view. And Bill actually went to my father and said that I had a bit of an aptitude for listening and recommended that he put me on a committee known as the Central Coast LRMP, which later turned into the Great Bear Rainforest. So I had some really small starts at First Nations employment, and then it just grew and grew. And as the opportunities grew, my responsibilities grew a little bit. And 25 years later, I'm running a First Nations Tribal Council and knee deep in some of the most important comprehensive discussions we're having about trying to find the balance between economics and ecology. It's it's an interesting times.
SPEAKER_01:You're the president of the council. Um, there are some similar organizations where the president or the leader might be known as the chief. You're you're a chief, Dallas. So of your nation.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I'm I'm I'm working with the chief. My my father's a hereditary chief, and we're going through a transition process that's been going on about four years now. Um my father was made chief in 1982, and now he's, you know, in his mid to late 70s, and he's starting to have some health challenges. So I've slowly been stepping into the role of just not quite filling his shoes, but in the decision-making role for our nation, I start to play more and more larger of a role every day.
SPEAKER_01:So you're the chief in waiting, and you have that mantle. What responsibilities does that carry in a formal and any other sense?
SPEAKER_00:Well, really, there's a certain accountability there that I've been learning over the years. I think the earlier parts of my career where I got to recommend decisions put me in a position where I'll be able to make them a little bit better. For the first 15 years of my career, I worked with many chiefs and councils, both hereditary and elected, and learned how to work with all segments of the leadership within First Nations communities. So as I get closer and closer to the de facto decision-making role of my community, I feel my experience has really put me in a place to not only learn how to make good decisions, but implement them as well. And that's one of the challenges in First Nations communities. Anybody can get up and say yes or no to something, but learning how to implement it and understand the impacts and ramifications of those decisions is something that we need to see grow a little bit. And I've been fortunate enough to have a front row seat for a lot of these great dialogues and discussions that have prepared me for what's coming a little bit.
SPEAKER_01:I often hear, particularly from people who aren't super familiar from personal experience with British Columbia, curiosity about where power comes from, where um authenticity comes from for First Nations. I mean, the fact is there's more than 200 distinct First Nations in British Columbia, and that doesn't include other indigenous groupings that also, you know, have some uh form of existence. And they're all different. Um is there anything in common? And you know, for someone who's trying to figure out, well, hereditary chiefs seem like they're a really important voice, and elected chiefs are also a really important voice, there's a competition for who's got a voice. And it seems to be one of those things that crops up in so many situations. Can you decode that for me?
SPEAKER_00:Well, there certainly is a power struggle on how decisions are made in First Nations communities. Over the last few years, we've really seen the rise of the need for hereditary chiefs and cultural leaders to be involved in the decision-making process. But we also have vast amounts of money and people's responsibilities and livelihoods at stake where there's democratically elected people in elected chiefs and councils. And so some nations have found a really good symbiotic relationship between their hereditaries and their elected councils. And some it's a bit of a work in progress. Um, but I know in the areas that I come from, we're really trying to find the right balance of accountability. And that's really one of the one of the common denominators between elected and hereditary is the need for accountability. Hereditary chiefs, you know, in the 80s and 70s, 60s, before we really got involved in substantive negotiations, were really more cultural leaders. And they made sure that the culture didn't die. They made sure that the language didn't die, and they made sure that certain ceremonies and practices were always still upheld. But as we started getting into comprehensive land claims discussions, we're internally trying to figure out who's the best position to be making those decisions. And from you know, my experience, it's really a hybrid of the two where you have elected chiefs and councils taking direction from hereditary chiefs. Um, and it's been one of the challenges I think we've had in British Columbia. You look at issues like Ferry Creek, where, you know, hereditary chiefs are working with activists to divide communities. In salmon aquaculture, we've seen a lot of hereditary chiefs play roles with the activist community in trying to shut fish farms down. But elected chiefs are working with these industries to try to find education opportunities, employment opportunities, social welfare opportunities that come from the development of own source revenue and things like that. So we're really at a bit of a crosshair moment, an intersection moment right now in how we decide how we're gonna govern our people. But I'm happy to see over the last little while that we're trying to keep those discussions in-house as much as we can. We're trying to figure out what the rules of engagement are internally so we can work with governments, companies, activists, conservation groups on what the rules of engagement with us are gonna be outwardly. So, you know, inward, we're trying to have those discussions about who is the de facto decision maker within a community. That's a bit of a work in progress.
SPEAKER_01:Now, one can be an elected chief and a hereditary chief at the same time.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. My father actually plays both roles. He has a hereditary standing that he received from his mother's community in the late 80s, but he's also been the elected accountable chief for the Department of Indian Affairs. Actually, it's called Indigenous Services Canada now. Um so there is some dual roles that are being played. But it's it's interesting to see the younger generation come in and starting to understand the roles of hereditary chiefs, but also have the capacity to play that elected role. And I think of some of the young leaders like John Jack, who's chief of the Hawaii. He's very culturally grounded, but he's educated and he's very experienced politically. Um, Isaiah Robinson, Crystal Smith, there's a lot of young, dynamic First Nations leaders who aren't afraid of the background noise around some of these discussions.
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Powell You mentioned Ferry Creek, the forestry area. There's actually no logging in Ferry Creek, which is one of the interesting things. I think the name maybe was appealing for campaigners, but um in in that part of southern Vancouver Island, it's true there were uh one or possibly more than one uh hereditary chief who said we want you to do this or we don't want you to do that. But there were also I think at least three First Nations whose leaders came out in force to say we are here to earn a living, to conduct our business in our traditional territory, and we respectfully ask you outsiders to to leave us to go about our business. And every time that request w in the form of a letter that I've seen has been issued, it's been just simply ignored by outsiders who aren't indigenous at all. Um the the use of power and authority seems to be at the heart of a whole bunch of conflicts out there.
SPEAKER_00:Trevor Burrus, it it is, and it goes back. I mean, I think of the Carmana Valley, I think of the Stein Valley, where it was activist-led. And then to gain social license, just like companies, companies work with First Nations communities as part of the social license. It's grown beyond that now, and there's much more to it in agreements and certainty and all those sorts of things. But the activist community has really linked on to the fact that they have more credibility if they have indigenous leadership within their realm of what they're trying to achieve. Coastal Gas Link was a prime example of that, where you know, the three elected councils of the Wet Souten Nation had supported Coastal Gas Link through three different elections.
SPEAKER_01:That's a natural gas pipeline. Natural gas pipeline from Alberta.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so, you know, they're the elected council who is in charge of the accountability and making sure that there was opportunity for their communities, all supported the project to have one or two hereditary chiefs joined by hundreds of activists to try not to make it happen and get divisive. We ran into similar issues in the Great Bear Rainforest up in Princess Royal Island, where the activists were trying to say no more old growth cutting in certain watersheds. And the chief of the First Nation, Chief Percy Starr of the Kiddisu Heihei, went and politely asked them to leave. And they just, nope, that you know, we're here and we're gonna stay. And eventually that confrontation led to collaboration. But it's definitely a tool in the activists' playbook now, is to bring hereditary standing to validate their cause. And it's a scary road to go down because we are having enough problems managing the growth and role of our hereditary chiefs within our community to have them used as subvertive, divisive tactics to achieve someone else's goal is very dangerous ground to go on, especially because of the tone of reconciliation right now. We were in a point in British Columbia where reconciliation is being blamed for the shortcomings in resource development. Whereas five, six short years ago, you know, under Christy Clark and Gordon Campbell, we were trying to build certainty by building relationships with First Nations communities. And now that's been turned on its side and is being made a bit more divisive. And it's unfortunate that First Nations are bearing the brunt of the lack of progress in those discussions because of the success of some activist communities' involvement with hereditarian local leaders?
SPEAKER_01:There's a very big issue in there. And before diving into that, because right now in the news in British Columbia, at the end of 2025, as we sit here, there is really a momentous public conversation that's unfolding on the direction and maybe the fates of this. But um, let me ask you, what are you building for your community south of the city of Campbell River?
SPEAKER_00:I think contributing to the British Columbia way of life and the Canadian way of life, the development of natural resources in communities like mine and dozens and dozens of others, pay for hospitals, roads, schools, and all those things. And we understand the role of the development of the sustainable development of natural resources in our communities because it goes into the coffers that benefit our society. And one of the things that we're trying to do is show how we belong in that society. While we have some rights and title and some other constitutionally protected opportunities, we're still Canadians at the end of the day and want to be able to contribute and benefit from the development of resources in our territory. But unfortunately, there's just a lot of side-taking right now that's blurred that discussion a little bit.
SPEAKER_01:Now you have acquired a parcel of land and you're developing some housing. Tell us about that.
SPEAKER_00:Definitely. As I mentioned earlier, um we have acquired 655 acres or hectares, sorry, of um private land just south of Campbell River. When our community got shut down, we had always had a vision of going back to our community and rebuilding houses. But because we live in such an isolated, remote area, the cost would be substantial. It wouldn't be financially viable to really build a community that would need our meet our size requirements in a remote community. So we worked with the local communities, First Nations communities, the Weewa Come and Weewakai Nation in Campbell River, and sought their permission to buy some fee simple land off Mosaic Force products. And now we've built our first 10 houses. We actually have elders moving in in January who haven't lived in a Cloud Seas Nation home since 1968, will now be living back in a community that we're Developing and it's called Nunaguas. Nunaguas is a quak walkie walk word for a place to come home to.
SPEAKER_01:I would like to, when the time is right, to to visit and see what you've done there because um based on what I've heard along the way, this is the result of your hard work, the that of your council, to develop opportunities that that are realistic, to be able to have you know it's it's a sense of ownership and not the Indian Act handout culture and some of the uh terrible outcomes of Europeans showing up and saying, we've got a solution for you, like residential schools and all kinds of other things. I mean, how do you feel about that?
SPEAKER_00:I I think getting off the dependency train is really gonna be valuable, not only for this generation, but future generations. The kids who are gonna be born back in our community aren't gonna wear the weight of colonization, of residential school, of some of the practices of the Department of Indian Affairs over the years that have affected our people to date. So it's kind of like a fresh start. And we've only been able to do that through the sustainable development of natural resources. Um, governments helped out where they can, but they don't have the capacity, both funding or human capacity to help all the First Nations in Canada build affordable housing. They're having a hard enough time doing it in urban centers, let alone remote First Nations communities. So for the last 15 years, we've really understood the need for our community to get involved in the economy, and this is going to be the outcome. To actually have 115 houses over the next five years developed mostly through own source revenue not only takes off the teat of dependency from the government, but it also just helps to show other First Nations that if you put your head down and you just focus on what's important for your community, you can achieve those goals. And thankfully, the business community has been very supportive. We have successful relationships with aquaculture companies, we have successful relationships with forest companies that are generational now. They're gonna be built to last because this community is gonna be there forever. This is gonna be somewhere where the clouds these people are gonna live for the rest of their time.
SPEAKER_01:So a decade ago, you were going along pretty well with these plans, and then other outside forces, including the federal government, said we're gonna take that away from you. Um tell me that story.
SPEAKER_00:It's interesting watching the development of First Nations role in resources and management and sustainable development. Um, you know, you sort of drink the Kool-Aid and start to realize that you do need to develop what's around you to invest back into your community. Some nations have made that jump easier than others. Some nations it's still a work in progress, but our nation went in and decided, okay, we're going to manage our forest resources to be able to give back to our community. We engaged in the aquaculture community because of the downfall of commercial fishing. Um, Pacific salmon have been in decline since the 50s. We've all known that. It's not really a big secret. But when aquaculture came, we saw that as an opportunity to take pressure off the wild stocks. And so our community over time embraced the aquaculture community and started developing jobs, integrated jobs up and down the food chain of the sector. We've got equity positions that we're negotiating right now with these companies to only have the federal government get worried about some quips on social media about the impact of salmon farms on wild Pacific salmon to completely do an about face. So for years, they tell us to get involved in this industry. I think it was Mulrooney's government that started the first fish farm in Kidisu Hehe territory. Over that 30 years, 17 other First Nations have gotten directly involved in aquaculture to only have the government of Canada decide by 2029 that net pen salmon farming is no longer acceptable in Canada. And so we're taking some, we're taking a stance on that because we have rights and title and we've managed this industry from its infancy. When it's first started, it really had some challenges. But through collaborative discussions, we've mitigated any impacts to the environment in this industry.
SPEAKER_01:Did the government of Canada take that decision because its own scientists said they should do that?
SPEAKER_00:It's ironic how the government of Canada has come to this position on aquaculture. For years, we spent millions of dollars on studies. The Cohen Commission, a couple million dollar study, I think it was about a$9 million study on the plight of Fraser River Sawkeye. That report said there is minimal to negligible impact on wild salmon because they swim fast, they swim past the farm so fast that there's really no impact to wild salmon from fish farms. But over the years, some activists took a couple key clips from, you know, one issue or another, and they started a bit of a snowball into a mountain of concern around aquaculture on the coast of British Columbia, to a point where the Trudeau government actually put in a policy to outlaw Net Penn aquaculture by 2029 after we had built a sustainable economy around it. So it's quite a frustrating point of events that we're at right now fighting for our future. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01:Well, when the Trudeau government was first in office, one of their advisors, a distinguished uh uh international former diplomat, uh, told them that one of the top industries to expand, and one of the most easy to expand, was aquaculture, that they should and could triple it. Triple its GDP impact. But what they did instead was cut that in half, which here we are in 2025 when the options, you know, what are Canada's options and and what are the options of First Nations in Canada to be part of the economy in a way that sustains the Canadian quality of life?
SPEAKER_00:Well, it it's so important for us to sustain the quality of life both in Canada and in our communities, and and we found a way to do that through aquaculture. It's unfortunate that governments sort of, you know, gotten cold feet about it, but our nations are standing up for our opportunities and our rights, and we're really having a really vigorous debate on what the future of aquaculture should be. Um for us, it comes down to food security, it comes down to economy, but we're also working with the aquaculture companies and their science to help us rebuild salmon habitat and salmon rearing opportunities. So we're using the technology involved in salmon aquaculture to help us rebuild some endangered stocks within our territories, but most of the general public isn't aware of that because the activists have been so successful from their soapboxes of condemning the industry that we've really had our work cut out for us to show that the values and opportunities are there. It's a$1.6 billion output to the British Columbia and Canadian economy right now. We could triple that within five years without having any negative environmental impact. The environmental footprint would still be pretty close to what it is right now, to a point where the World Bank subsidized or had a report subsidized by major conservation organizations saying aquaculture is the way forward, both with food security, with salmon stocks, and all those other things. So eventually everybody's gonna get closer to the same page on this issue, and us as First Nations are gonna keep working with people until they do. We simply aren't accepting the fact that someone in Ottawa can decide the future of our territories and our communities without having that vigorous debate and dialogue.
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Ross Powell You know, this is an issue that is so simple and relatable at a certain level. I mean, if you're concerned about wild salmon, and it's the iconic fish species, iconic animal of the west coast of of North America. And yet, why is it that diners who uh go to a restaurant and insist on wild salmon, knowing that that wild salmon had to be taken out of nature when they could have a farmed salmon? You know, I've been to Quatzino Sound where the lodge there, which brings sports fishers from all over the world to get out to friendly cove and out to these amazing places fishing for salmon, and yet it refuses to serve wild salmon to its visitors at the lodge. They serve farm salmon. And I I said, Well, you've got all this wild salmon, why would you uh they they won't do it because they refuse to to take a fish when they don't need to from the wild. Uh there's a sport fishery and there's a a whole you know rationale for that. It's a high, high value thing. It brings people from when I was there, uh New Zealand. I flew all the way from New Zealand with a family, uh God knows what that costs. But they treat each wild salmon as a precious resource. And and yet there seems to be a careless disregard for that from those who say, no, we we we have to get rid of a farm-controlled salmon that's healthy and safe for the environment and replace it with wild. I mean, i what what am I missing here, Dallas? Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00:Well, you know, the whole concept around farm versus wild has been intriguing to me as someone who's been through the Great Bear Rainforest and some of the most comprehensive forest discussions, you know, really in the world. Um, you know, farmed or endangered. That's really what it comes down to. But we're not talking blood diamonds here, Stuart. You know, this product is available on every grocery store shelf. There hasn't been a decline in the demand for farm salmon throughout North America. Consumers are buying. Consumers are still buying it. I go to the Boston Seafood Show every second year, and I go sit down with the guys from Costco and I ask them, you know, what are you hearing about the plight of farm salmon in British Columbia? They're like, all we know is we can't get enough. We can't keep it on our shelves. And so the fact that the consumers are opposing what the activists are saying should be a strong indicator for the rest of us that this is an industry we should be getting behind. And so it's interesting that we've had to really tie this issue to other discussions where we're getting support from the BC Agriculture Federation of BC or Federation of Agriculture now, both provincially and federally, are supporting us, not only because we use a lot of agriculture products for fish feed, but they also understand the food security debate. And so it's amazing how many people are coming to the side of sustainably farmed salmon within British Columbia, as opposed to the very loud but minority view of Vancouver suburbanites who seem to be against the issue, who have convinced suburban politicians that they should be afraid of the issue. But in the last federal election, salmon farming wasn't even a topic of discussion. So it these realities aren't quite meeting up at the same time. And that's been a role that we as Indigenous people have taken on is connecting these dots of these realities so common sense will eventually prevail.
SPEAKER_01:Now you've been leading delegations to Ottawa over the last year or more. What do you say when you go there? Who are you trying to talk to and what's your message?
SPEAKER_00:You know, as we've been leading our delegations to Ottawa to fight for our livelihoods in this issue, to keep our boats working, to keep our people working, you know, we really had to find a place to get some traction. In the beginning, the people in British Columbia, the elected representatives of the Liberal caucus at the time, were so afraid of the issue they wouldn't meet with us. And they wouldn't help us secure meetings in Ottawa. And so we had to go to Ottawa and get traction from MPs and senators from Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, where there's an uh there's a starting salmon aquaculture industry there. And they realize that British Columbia has learned some of the hard knocks, so we're really doing some learning coast to coast. But it was those guys who helped raise the alarm bells of the impacts to the economy that we're going to face if we keep going down this road in British Columbia. So when I first started going to Ottawa with a delegation of chiefs over the last three and a half years, the discussion's finally evolving to not should we or should we be doing aquaculture, it's how do we do it better? And that's really the discussion that our nations are interested in is how do we take a very successful industry and keep it world-class? Everybody talks about Norway and we need to do everything like Norway. Well, Norway invests millions of dollars in their aquaculture community. This government doesn't. And so we're talking about new technologies, we're talking about the infrastructure that it's going to take to invest and to implement new technologies, and clean power is one of them. Right now, to do some of the stuff that they're doing in Norway, we would have to be trucking diesel in by the barge full load, which takes away that environmental low carbon footprint that we've been trying to trying to purvey and try to show people that exist. So, you know, like I said, as we start bringing some of these realities to the table, we're having better levels of discussion now because we've taken some of the fear out of it. We've been able to isolate the activist voice in this discussion.
SPEAKER_01:A lot of personal passion. You know, Dallas, I know that you have um put yourself into this to a degree that I I just can't think of anyone else who has made the personal sacrifice. Um do you mind if I share that, you know, you you worked yourself into the hospital this year. You have put yourself at risk and and you know your your family has been by your side. Um what keeps you going through this? Because you kept going. You got back into it, and now you're here, and thank goodness. I mean, so many of your friends, we were we were heartsicked to see that you had done that, but uh the courage that you have have shown, um, where does it come from?
SPEAKER_00:My commitment to my people both in conservation and development, economic certainty is so important to me. That's something my my older chiefs instilled into me at a very young age when I first started getting to listen to chiefs have discussions and understanding the balance that is necessary is so important to me. And for the first 10, 15 years of my career was focused on the protection of the Great Bear Rainforest. We protected 3.1 million hectares of forest land for future generations. But then we realized we needed to protect the existing forest industry. And we weren't quite as engaged in it as we needed to be, but we realized that that was going to be a future. I talked about the houses that we're building. That's done through forest revenue, aquaculture revenue. So we realized that protecting areas isn't enough. You need to balance the economy with some input and some output as well. And I really feel that until we've found that balance, we need to keep working at it. And that's one of the things that continues to drive me. And I also like to think I earned some credibility, you know, in different communities, whether it be the Anglo community, activist community, governments, other First Nations, in the roles that I've played in developing the conservation economy. You know, we've really done a good job at providing stewardship opportunities. But while we did that, you know, we worked with Prime Minister Trudeau, ironically, to build a$200 million stewardship fund in the Great Bear Rainforest. We're going to have stewardship officers in perpetuity in our territories now. But when we got home from that discussion, I went for a tour of some of our communities and we still have substandard housing. We still have opioid problems. Everybody has opioid problems, but we still have social problems that only own source revenue can fix. And so until we're able to find that balance that makes sure that the elders who need housing has it, that we make sure that the kids who need to go to school have that opportunity. We make sure that the people that are sick from various forms of societal issues have that helping hand there, we need to keep working to build that economy. And that's something that's truly, truly important to me as a First Nations leader.
SPEAKER_01:And uniquely located on the West Coast of Canada. And I'd like to get into an issue that's been in the news, referred to, I think, for for those who are following it as the MOU. But that is the memorandum of understanding between the federal government, the Mark Carney Liberal government, and the Alberta government. It's a whole bunch of things in terms of de-pancaking the stack of regulations that over the last decade were just kind of dropped on top of uh the industries kind of killing a lot of opportunities here because they weren't thinking about how to reform as they added. They were just thinking about, you know, make it harder for industries they disliked ideologically speaking, um, you know, help them to go away. And and now we have a more practical turn of mind in the Prime Minister, it seems. And so one of the things is to, you know, address that stack. So letting the clean energy regulations have the effect of creating more incentive to to pursue clean energy solutions, including carbon capture, electricity intertise. Um also, most controversially, is what the Alberta government has been talking about more than Ottawa, which is getting the largest source of export income that Canada has today, which is to say crude oil, to the markets that will pay the highest amount of money for it, thus resulting in the greatest benefit for Canadians. Of course, I'm talking about you know oil from Alberta from the north. And um if you uh look at this discourse, um it hardly needs to be added that the uh the the markets that were uh that most lack um this commodity are across the Pacific. So you need to get that to the Pacific. Let's let's delve into this one because as soon as it came out, you had uh just a firestorm, including from First Nations who said they spoke for uh the First Nations on the coast and said, well, you it's impossible you can't do this. We had political posturing and positions from all kinds of actors. Um I'd like to just unpack this and and and try to understand what it means. I mean, we went through a decade where a new pipeline was built at Trans Mountain, it was finished, it goes to Vancouver, and now pretty much every day, whether people realize it or not there's a tanker going through, it's not the end of the world, it seems to be you know working out rather well. Um but there are greater ambitions ahead, and now we have the trade turmoil with the you know the the United States. Uh so that's the macro at the community level for the coast of British Columbia. What are the basic facts to understand here, Dallas?
SPEAKER_00:I think the development of pipelines specifically for natural gas oil has been evolving. Um, you know, again, we go back to coastal gas link, a natural gas pipeline from Northeast BC to the to the coast. Um we've seen NISHA um look at LNG opportunities that they're getting your final investment decision on. We've seen Heisla, you know, get there and tankers of natural gas are going to offset other fuels in other parts of the Pacific Rim now. Um TMX was really showing us that you can engineer your way through some of the concerns that exist right now. And I say that understanding the potential impacts that could happen if something goes wrong. But at the same time, First Nations on the coast are developing. Guardian programs, spill response techniques, and programs that came from issues like the Nathan Stewart and Bella Bella. The Nathan E. Stewart was, you know, a subjugated barge and it had some problems and it had some bad leaks. The community of the Heltsick Nation had to feel the impact of that. But these are all concerns that stem from the Exxon Bell D's. Obviously, Prince William Sound, there's a catastrophe in the early 80s. I think I was nine years old at the time when it happened, but we're still living with the impacts and fears of that today. TMX showed us that we can get through some of those challenges. I actually was very supportive of TMX, along with many other First Nations who bought into the opportunities to have a management role in the pipeline that goes from Alberta down into Burnaby. And as you said, there's tankers probably for a week that are leaving Barard Inlet full of bitumen that is going to other markets in the Pacific Rim. And so while I think there is a lot of marking of territory going on right now, I think these other discussions have showed us that there's always someone asking, what if? There's always a First Nations community saying, okay, I understand the concerns and I understand what the potential impacts may be. First, can we mitigate them to make sure that they're negligible? Second, what is the benefit that may come from that? And I understand that the nations on the North Coast are trying to get together to make sure that nothing bad happens in their territories on their watch. But at the same time, we watched Coastal Gas Link and other discussions show that you could technologically do some of these things and pretty much make it zero impact. And so a discussion about the potential opportunities and benefits that come is happening. It's happening in quieter rooms and in probably behind closed doors. But I know there's a number of nations along the proposed route that are having that discussion about if this pipeline happens, what things do we need to put in place to safeguard our lands and resources? But then what benefits and opportunities are going to exist from that? First, during construction stage, what kind of jobs, short-term jobs, medium-term jobs are going to be created? What kind of long-term jobs? What kind of spin-off opportunities are going to be able to be created from that? And we wouldn't be able to have those discussions as freely if it wasn't for Heisla and Nishka, Liazyms, and I know Squamish has been kicking wood fiber around in their area for a long time now. So there's a lot of nations that are proactively taking the discussion on on their own. And it's unfortunate that their dialogues are going to get diluted by the background noise of this issue, whether it be about BC and Alberta, Alberta and Canada, BC and Canada. There's some pragmatic discussions that are happening that eventually need to be part of the center stage.
SPEAKER_01:There's something unfolding right now in British Columbia, and that is the trajectory of the past half decade, but really much longer if you think about reconciliation as a generational and intergenerational project, which is that it seems as if legislation we passed in 2019, the Drepa Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is not playing out as anticipated. So Dallas, what was the promise of the reconciliation era that we thought we were embarking on in 2019?
SPEAKER_00:Well, in 2019, we had hoped the reconciliation era was gonna take more form and have more framework to it. In 2005, when Premier Campbell first introduced the concept of reconciliation in British Columbia, it was about business certainty. It was about providing certainty for operators of resource development in British Columbia to build relationships with First Nations that create long-term certainty that we could plan around. And then some of the other issues around rights and title came into it, around First Nations decision-making opportunities, around First Nations rights and title, around free and prior informed consent. And unfortunately, the governments of the previous day got so caught up in the inertia of UNDRIP and reconciliation that it wasn't pragmatically thought out. I'm probably one of the few First Nations leaders who was actually opposed to them bringing in DRIPA as a law as soon as they did, because I already had existing agreements with both the federal government and provincial governments that dictated how we communicated with each other. And it was on a vast array of issues from the environment to the economy to social services. And then you took this DRIPA Act and put it on top of it, and none of it had any conjugation to it. None of it had any flow for one to go into the other. And so we had hoped that the government was going to put more thought to how they're going to amend existing laws to envelop UNDRIP, as opposed to take UNDRIP and just sort of force everything to fit in, you know, a round whole square peg sort of discussion again. And unfortunately, it's taken on a life of its own where I don't even think we all agree on what reconciliation is anymore. We all know that DRIPA is out there. It's a guiding light that was created by the United Nations to help further the rights and opportunities for Indigenous peoples across the world. But to take that and hardwired it before thinking out how it's going to fit within contemporary discussions, I mean, I think of the treaties that sit in place right now, the modern-day treaties between Manuth, Toas, and Nishka, they don't have DRIPA in them. So now they got to take this and figure out how that fits within existing treaty negotiations that took decades to get through. And so while I don't think repealing DRIPA is, you know, the right thing to do right now, having a more condensed discussion about the impacts and realities of DRIPA and how they are going counterproductive to the certainty that they're trying to create with it need to be discussed. But unfortunately, it's a bit of a political football. We've seen the right side of the political spectrum completely go crazy about it, and the left side of the spectrum just digging right in. And the missing middle is really glaringly missing in this discussion right now, Stuart. It's really important for pragmatic chiefs who have the experience of developing own source revenue, of developing some of these policies that contribute to the British Columbia and Canadian economy to be heard as they have those discussions about how we amend those laws to make sure that we don't fall any farther back on the social side of things, but we also don't kill the certainty that we created over the last 10, 12 years as a result of it.
SPEAKER_01:You know, w you and I were having conversations. Uh I remember you invited me to your home on Vancouver Island, and one afternoon in the summer we we sat for a long time, and uh that that was before Draper was passed. And I I think to an event, you know, the the the conversations we had in Dallas led to me and my organization starting our Indigenous partnerships success showcase in early 2020, and we were trying to figure out what it meant. Does it mean going through the door of shared prosperity, of working together, of uh achieving outcomes for the nation, for all communities, for all people? Did it uh lead us maybe through a very different door of um something you know almost the opposite of that, perhaps, in the worst case, or or somewhere in between. And recently I had to look back because this issue is flared up, it's all some people are talking about right now, end of 2025. I I went back through our notes from the very first event, and I I saw there was a a lawyer, we had a legal panel. Mainly our event was about the partnerships, and we just thought if we could show the evidence of how practical people are working together to get good outcomes, maybe that is better than a sermon on telling people what they should do. And that's kind of what we did. But we did we did have a lot of demand. People wanted to figure out what is this DREP or what is this new law? It was called the Bill 41, Royal Ascent was in November of 2019. So we we said we got to get meaning on this right away. And we did we did this event January 14th, 2020. Um it was it was it was a day that still I think back on we had so many powerful voices there, but one voice on the legal panel, it was a a lawyer, a First Nations member, who then and and now is very much on the uh the DREPA implementation the way that the EB government has been doing it. This is a you know, DREPA, this new law in BC you've got is an international human rights treaty. It's not about you. And he gestured to our audience. There were lots of business people, people from professions, trades, there were plenty of First Nations there, but it probably looked from the from the stage as you know, the establishment of Vancouver and British Columbia was was in the room. It's not about you. And uh, you know, just in recent days, I've been I've been wondering whether there are those who think it's about us versus those who think it's about you or just them, you know? And is that the source of this collision that's gonna happen?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it it's unfortunate to see the different unintended uh consequences, is the word I'll use today from DRIPA and the fallout that's sort of happened. You know, I think DRIPA was a good idea, and I think it still has a role to play, but it can't take the place of actual nation-to-nation collaborative discussions that include the business community, that include the conservation community. I think everybody has a role to play in it, but I think we got so caught up in what it should be, we didn't do enough work to understand what it takes to get to that. I think of DRIPA almost like a treaty, like it's a place where you tie a bow on something after it's been done. But there's still a lot of work in the trenches that need to be done as we learn how to jointly make decisions. And an example I'll use is joint decision making is part of DRIPA, you know, um free and prior informed consent for resource development within First Nations communities. Governments of the day throughout, you know, 2009 to you know, 2020, 2020, when DRIPA was first kind of brought in, enshrined, you know, joint decision making was simply government decisions that First Nations happened to agree with. They weren't really jointly made. And so the expectations around what DRIPA was gonna do weren't thought out enough. I think it didn't manage the expectations of all the parties around it. DRIPA was supposed to be this silver bullet, or it was sold as this silver bullet that was gonna solve the business community's concerns, First Nations concerns, and government concerns. And it did, it hasn't done that. You know, it's created the space for the dialogue to happen, but the patience that's needed for dialogues like this weren't set up in this discussion. And so people are getting mad. Um, I think of the Cowajan ruling that's just come down that's really made people light their hair on fire. At the end of the day, there's a court ruling that's probably gonna get appealed. Um, I don't think anyone's gonna unwillingly lose their house, but the opportunity and almost misplaced view of what could happen is taking the main stage right now. Everybody's going to the farthest concern, whether it be on the First Nations side, industry side, investment community, everybody's taking this to the worst possible scenario. And I really think First Nations, provincial, and federal governments haven't done enough to manage that. We haven't done a good enough job of telling the society of what this discussion means and how we're gonna get to that place. We simply said that because we passed the law and we brought it into the House of Commons and we brought it into the BC legislature, that it's simply there and is gonna be successful. And there hasn't been enough groundwork done in the pragmatic reality of what steps need to be taken for that to be the silver bullet that everybody was sold it would be.
SPEAKER_01:Dallas, you've been successful in building trust where others have failed. What's your advice on how to do that?
SPEAKER_00:I really think building trust is going to be key going forward and maybe even rebuilding trust. Um, I think again, we focused too much on the legal side of some of these discussions, which make it absolute. There's nothing absolute about it yet because we haven't built that certainty. We all haven't agreed we've gotten to a place where we can tie it down in legislation and say, let's use this as guiding documents going forward, as guiding legislation going forward. Right now, we need to see some more work done at that actual hands-on level. And again, I think that's the fault of, I think the First Nations Leadership Council hasn't done a good enough job in explaining the limitations of UNDRIP to First Nations communities. I don't think the provincial government has done a close to adequate job of preparing the business community of what the impacts could or what the opportunities could be on the other side of that, of what DRIPA could be. And so what really needs to happen is some people who are actually working in the middle of it need to be given some time to be able to pull some common values out of that. I'm really big on common denominators, Stuart, because whether you're First Nations, Italian, Asian, whatever it may be, it's all human nature to start with. And there's common denominators based on human nature and human values that can really give us some momentum to bring some clarity to some of these cloudy discussions. You know, it's not as divisive as we think it is, but because of the lack of common sense in this discussion, those divisive voices are prevailing on all sides of the coin. And it's really put us back in a place where it's scary again to be talking about reconciliation. As a father of three young girls, I'm concerned that they're going to start getting treated like I did in the 80s when people found out I was indigenous. I'm fairly light-skinned. And so growing up in suburban White Rock, I didn't identify clearly as a First Nations people. It wasn't until I started getting pissed off at people making fun of First Nations people that people realized my heritage. And so the fact that our children are now put in a position where there's so much fear-mongering that could impact their growth and development as human beings is a reason why cooler heads need to step in and just take hold of this and start having some of these discussions. And like I said, these discussions are happening. They just need to be amplified a little bit. There's a lot of really good things happening in British Columbia between First Nations, the business community, conservation community, and even government. They get out of the way enough to let us do some really good things, but we're not talking about those successes. All we're talking about is the shortcomings and potential failures that current pieces of policy have us on a highway to.
SPEAKER_01:And what's the risk if we don't get this right?
SPEAKER_00:I think going, I think the risk that we encounter of, you know, stopping the path that we're on is just getting bogged down in litigation and civil disobedience. Um, we were at a pretty crucial time during the Idle No More area era. And I think of the leadership of National Chief Sean Atleo, where he just agreed to keep working with Prime Minister Harper. You know, Phil Fontaine, the Assembly and Chief National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, they just agreed to keep working with the governments. They didn't care what stripe they were, they just agreed to keep working with them to try to find some of those paths forward. And we were able to get through some of those things. I thought that the apology that was made in the House of Commons by Prime Minister Harper to Indigenous people was going to be a time to turn the page. And it was for a number of years. We started talking about development. We've seen investments in First Nations communities that have resulted in LNG, in the Alberta oil patch. They've resulted in expanding of the uh Alberta oil opportunities. In Ontario, we're seeing development on power generation opportunities. Those all started because we're able to turn the page from the anger that we had and progressively channel our energies in the same direction. If we don't keep channeling those energies in the same direction, they're going to start going in different directions and they're not going to have the ability to take care of society the way it needs to be.
SPEAKER_01:Dallas, there's just one last thing. I noticed that you're wearing uh a Canadian flag on your sleeve. Can you tell me about that?
SPEAKER_00:I'm really happy that you asked about the Canadian flag that's on my sleeve today. Um it was created by my nephew Curtis Wilson, who I know you had a relationship. He unfortunately left us too early. But Curtis was really going through some challenges on just he was a young First Nations artist. He was a member of his council in community. He was actually acting chief at the time. And he was just getting lost in a lot of the turmoil and divisiveness that was going on. And he just drew this design one night. He took the Canadian flag and put some symbols from his heritage into it. And he sent me a picture and just said, it all fits, bro. And so that's really the principle behind this indigenized Canadian flag is that we all fit at the end of the day. And for someone who had as short of a life as Curtis did with us, to be able to design something that's viral. You look at Canada Day, this flag is across the whole country. I get pictures sent to me regularly when people are traveling throughout Canada when they see this flag and they're like, is this your nephew's flag? Is this your Curtis's flag? And so this flag has really become important to us in just reminding people that while indigenous people have been here for 14,000 years, colonization has had some severe impacts for the last 200, 225 years. At the end of the day, we all fit here together. And that's really one of the driving principles that I have, especially since Curtis passed away. His dreams have sort of become my goals of a united Canada. And having the opportunity to be able to carry on a legacy that he developed through just a beautiful piece of artwork, but have that shown as an illustration of how it does all fit together is just something that's going to help us as a society as we go through things.
SPEAKER_01:That was a big blow to the family, to the community, um, and I think to Canadians. I mean, considering what he created. Um what when you think about that flag? Uh can you uh interpret what the artwork is? What are the particular motifs that are uh appearing in this?
SPEAKER_00:When Curtis first sat down to to work on this piece, like I said, he was a little bit conflicted and trying to figure out his role really. In the world. And so he first started just doing what came naturally to him. He was such a master artist at a young age that he was able to bring in pieces from some of his family's totem poles that existed in old villages. He was able to incorporate some of his pieces that he had developed over time. So each of the ovoids and different insignias come from different places in Curtis's history, some from his past, some from his present. And the fact that this is really part of his future is so fitting because it does all fit. Curtis was able to take what he learned as a child, what he learned as kind of a young adult, and then some of the values that he started, some of those values that he started to implement as a young man just all fit in where he was going. Curtis was amazing because he was educated. He was culturally literate. He was the leader of our dance group. So all the youth who were learning the dances and the songs, Curtis was instrumental in not only making sure that they learnt them, but there is funding available to make sure that those kids were able to build their own regalia and sew their own button blankets and do those things. Curtis was just so instrumental in making it all work that this flag is just such a perfect piece to commemorate him because it is going to have that legacy. It is going to be one of the things that makes it through some of the trials and tribulations that we're going through right now. And while we lost him at such a young age, he had such an impact on so many people across different segments of society that there's so many people who take personal reflection, like you. You know, you got to meet Curtis and spend some time with him. Christy Clark, when I was running in 2017 for the BC Liberals, Curtis was one of my campaign managers. And he was able to, you know, introduce this piece to those discussions when he'd introduce me at different events. And so there's different people from subsets of society who have a personal touch to this one piece of art that it gives me confidence that we're going to get through some of these challenges.
SPEAKER_01:Well, millions of people have seen that, and it just seems to resonate, as you say, it's always on Instagram on July 1st on Canada Day. People are talking about it, they're sharing it like crazy. What makes them feel so good and positive about it?
SPEAKER_00:I think people feel positive about this piece of work because they can see themselves in it. You know, we always hear different blasphemies around the Canadian flag. People don't like their flag touched. But this is one that gets beyond that. Um, not only because some of the people who knew Curtis, who were proudly fly it all the time, but people can sort of see, okay, Canada's still there, but there's an indigenous touch there that's part of it. That makes up Canada. And I think most of the general public really want to see us all succeed as Canadians, but they see the role that First Nations need to play in helping us get there. And I think that's what makes this piece so special and makes people relate to it.
SPEAKER_01:Dallas, um, I I always try to find out whether a guest on power struggle feels optimistic or pessimistic or something else about the future. Where do you sit?
SPEAKER_00:You know, Stuart, some days I feel optimistic, pessimistic, and ambivalent all at the same time. But just being through what I've been through, I know there's always a better tomorrow. I know if we can get through today, tomorrow's going to be a little bit easier. And that's really a philosophy that I've tried to carry on through the challenges that I've faced in my life, but even politically over the last number of years, just having the ability to have discussions like this with people from the conservative side of the flag equation, with people from the left side of the equation, with the Green Party. The fact that people are still willing to have these discussions with me and other First Nations leaders makes me pretty confident that we'll get through some of these challenging times right now.
SPEAKER_01:This has been Dallas Smith with me, Stuart Muir, on Power Struggle. Thanks for tuning in, whether you're listening to this or seeing it on YouTube. Please share it, like it, comment. We always answer our comments and come back next time. Thank you for supporting Power Struggle. And thank you, Dallas, for being here.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you, Stuart.
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