{"id":611584,"date":"2026-04-18T03:37:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T03:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/611584\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T03:37:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T03:37:11","slug":"b-c-judge-grants-u-s-based-indigenous-group-a-role-in-legal-fight-over-kootenay-mine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/611584\/","title":{"rendered":"B.C. judge grants U.S.-based Indigenous group a role in legal fight over Kootenay mine"},"content":{"rendered":"

A B.C. judge has granted status to a U.S. Indigenous band, which means they will have a role in a legal fight over a proposed mine in the Kootenays.<\/p>\n

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The Sinixt Confederacy<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 part of the Washington-headquartered\u00a0Colville Confederated Tribes<\/a> \u2014 is a cross-border tribe that considers itself transboundary with rights in both the U.S. and Canada.<\/p>\n

The Sinixt were deemed \u201cextinct\u201d by the government in 1956, but five years ago<\/a>, that changed when the\u00a0Supreme Court of Canada ruled the Sinixt Confederacy\u00a0an \u201cAboriginal people of Canada,<\/a>\u201d in what is known as the Desautel ruling.<\/p>\n

Now, the B.C. Supreme Court and Court of Appeal have rejected an attempt by West High Yield Resources to remove the Sinixt from a legal challenge tied to its proposed magnesium mine near Rossland.<\/p>\n

The courts found that the tribe has a direct and meaningful interest in the project.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt is big for us,\u201d Jarred-Michael Erickson, a chief with the Sinixt and Colville Confederated Tribes and chairman, told Global News.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to make sure this has an environmental assessment on it. I think that\u2019s well within the scope of what it should have been initially to start with and that we should be included in that judicial review.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Erickson added that they want to make sure the resources are protected, the water, fish and wildlife habitat.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to make sure that we\u2019re getting a thorough review and have that environmental assessment to show what those impacts could be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Sinixt say\u00a0their territory in Canada<\/a>\u00a0extends from south of the U.S. border to north of Revelstoke, B.C. but that area also encompasses the traditional territory of the Sylix Okanagan, Secw\u00e9pemc Nations and Ktunaxa Nations.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Click<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2:03
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWith territory on both sides of B.C.-U.S. border, Sinixt Confederacy seeks recognition\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Thomas Isaac, a partner at Castles, Brock, and Blackwell, who also leads the national Aboriginal law group and the national major projects team group, said this is why there\u2019s an obligation to consult with the Sinixt, following the Supreme Court of Canada ruling.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think the bigger question is, is I think people are now seeing the effects of Desautel, which really, at its core, acknowledged that U.S. citizens, United States citizens, can potentially have constitutionally-protected rights and a constitutional right to be consulted within the four corners of the sovereign state of Canada and put a burden on the Canadian government to deal with U.S. citizen rights in Canada,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Isaac added that only in Canada could we allow non-Canadian citizens to be able to limit the power of a provincial or federal government.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got folks in Alaska now claiming into northern B.C.,\u201d Isaac said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd by the way, they\u2019re not allowed to claim the other way around. And remember, Canada and British Columbia has the most robust protection regime on the planet. And I\u2019m not talking about UNDRIP. UNDRIP does nothing to protect Indigenous rights at law unless you change the Interpretation Act as we did. It has no effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Erickson said that they don\u2019t feel like the B.C. government is recognizing Sinixt rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Supreme Court recognizes us as Indigenous people to Canada,\u201d he said. \u201cYeah, it\u2019s unfortunate it\u2019s got to the way it has, and I won\u2019t say much more than that. I just hope we can, we\u2019re still willing to come to the table and have those conversations and work through it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Syilx Okanagan Nation has stated that the Sinixt People are already represented in Canada through them.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A B.C. judge has granted status to a U.S. Indigenous band, which means they will have a role…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,44,41685,230364,230365],"class_list":["post-611584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-news","tag-perspectives","tag-sinixt","tag-sinixt-confederacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}