A few hundred native and non-native protesters across British Columbia are preparing to descend upon the Sun Peaks Resort next week, in an effort to re-ignite the debate over the resort’s controversial expansion, which has resulted in dozens of arrests and violent confrontations over the past four years. While the resort and the provincial and federal governments have dismissed native claims to the land, native groups say the government is ignoring the Aboriginal Title and Rights to the land they have used for centuries and never given away.

The Sun Peaks Resort, 50 km northeast of Kamloops, is a popular year-round, three-mountain resort that just happens to have been built on Secwepemc land. Unbeknownst to the increasing number of visitors to the resort, the Secwepemc Nation never ceded, surrendered nor released their land in any way and continue to hunt, fish and live off the land — which they refer to as Skwelkwek’welt.


Despite their strong ties to the area, the Secwepemc were not consulted when the provincial government approved the resort’s $70 million expansion plan in 1997. Both the provincial and federal governments have since rejected the Secwepemc’s claims to the land for a lack of evidence that meets the specific targets of comprehensive land claims. But native leaders say these guidelines should have been dropped when the Supreme Court of Canada changed the face of treaty negotiations in British Columbia with a landmark decision called the Delgamuukw case. It removed the specific constraints of land claims and opened the door for more abstract definitions of traditional land use. It confirmed that Aboriginal peoples do have title rights to land when that land wasn’t given away, and that native groups have to be consulted or compensated when Crown Land is involved.

“The Sun Peaks expansion is a clear violation of our legal rights,” says Arthur Manuel, a spokesperson for the Skwelkwek’welt Protection Centre. “Legally [the provincial government], went into a situation where other people have clear propriety interests. They did so recklessly and carelessly and with very clear motives that they’re doing it. The government shouldn’t act this way. The provincial and federal government have basically misled the free market economy by saying they have clear and exclusive, 100 per cent jurisdiction to decision making in regard to the land. That kind of thinking is out of date.”

Sun Peaks’ and the provincial government’s decision not to consider the Secwepemc’s opposition to the expansion led to a number of demonstrations and clashes at the resort between native people, the police and Sun Peaks workers and residents. For attempting to peacefully assert their rights, the Secwepemc have been subjected to 54 arrests, the destruction of their property and continuous harassment. The province has kicked them off their land and transferred it to Sun Peaks without their consultation. The Secwepemc have taken a more low-key approach since the height of the conflict a few years ago, but have recently begun to try and put the issue back in the spotlight by getting non-native protesters involved, including anti-globalisation star Naomi Klein.

“The campaign has been strong in the past and a lot of people across Canada and the world know about the issue. But because the community has been targeted heavily by police, they are trying to bring up the issue again and involve people outside the community,” says Harjap Grewal, a member of Vancouver’s No One Is Illegal, which is helping organize buses to go to Sun Peaks for the August 29 protest.

The Secwepemc are calling on the provincial government to recognise the Aboriginal Title rights they should have been awarded from the Delgamuukw case, which would give them a say in how the land would be used. But instead, the Gordon Campbell government only solidified outdating negotiating of the process through its controversial treaty referendum in 2002 that was boycotted by most of BC.

The Sun Peaks Resort, which is owned by the Japanese Nippon Cable Company, did not return phone calls by press time. On their website, they have a 17-page report on native relations, in which they claim their right to the land and dismiss the Secwepemc protesters by stating that “the majority of First Nations in the area do not support the activities of the handful of demonstrators in the Sun Peaks area and the information published by this group should not be considered reflective of the beliefs of the local community: native or non-native.”

Sun Peaks has entered into a few small joint ventures with native bands and a number of native groups have come out publicly to say they do not support the demonstrations. Manuel says these are token agreements of three to five million that are meant to buy complacency and are not worth much when compared to the overall development. He also says some chiefs have told him that they won’t support the demonstration because it is helping fuel racism against native people in the community, which is a problem that goes much deeper than Sun Peaks.

While Sun Peaks will be embroiled in complicated debates over land ownership and Aboriginal rights for years to come, the underlining issues of racism and poverty that native people face everyday will not go away. Sun Peaks continues to grow every year and is considered the economic linchpin of the area. With the upcoming 2010 Olympics, the BC government is heavily promoting ski resorts and real estate for economic development. Earlier this year, condos at Sun Peaks were sold at record prices— as much as $485,000—and the newly built Delta Hotel has rooms for as high as $600 a night.

Meanwhile, Manuel says most of the people of his band live off of social assistance and depend on hunting and fishing off the land for survival. But the resort’s expansion will clear cut two more mountains for ski hills, and the hotel, which was built on important cultural and hunting grounds, allegedly has a major sewage problem. “That’s why indigenous people get upset when those interests are disturbed by the province,” says Manuel. He says he is frustrated that the federal and provincial governments have let these issues go unsettled for future generations as that his daughters, members of the Native Youth Movement, have been arrested and had their cabins destroyed for protesting against the expansion.

Getting the provincial government to recognise the Delgamuukw case will be difficult. The Gordon Campbell government continues to sell provincial land to private corporations, without bothering to disclose any of the details or involve native groups. The BC Rail deal, which was sold to CN Rail with a 990-year lease, is being protested by the Seton Lake band, who say the government ignored their Aboriginal title to the land. But BC native leaders remain confident that they will win their rights through the courts.

“The provincial government put itself in a precarious legal problem by ignoring Aboriginal title rights and thumbing its nose at the Supreme Court of Canada,” says Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs. “This arrogant disregard to consult and accommodate native people will form the basis for lawsuits to come. The legal landscape continues to shift and change in favour of First Nations. The provincial government has placed themselves in a precarious legal position and they can no longer afford not to co-operate.”

The Haida Nation won their case for Aboriginal Title in the BC courts and are now fighting the case in the Supreme Court of Canada. A decision is expected any day, which would have a dramatic impact on the Sun Peaks protest. While Gordon Campbell flaunts and obsesses over the BC economy, native leaders are hoping that the public will put enough pressure on the government that its racist and illegal disregard toward native rights will only hurt the province in the long-term.