David Eby, B.C. Premier, passed through the Kootenays last week, with the goal of connecting with leaders of the Ktunaxa First Nation to hear their perspectives and concerns.
He met with aq’am nasu’kin (chief) Joe Pierre and councillors on Oct. 10 to discuss a few topics, notably the drug crisis and wildfire recovery from the St. Mary’s River wildfire that burned through the community in July.
aq’am released a Declaration of a State of Emergency in August amidst a wave of drug-related deaths that rocked the community. The document outlined five calls to action to protect residents, including shifting funds towards addiction support for families, and taking steps to mitigate the harmful effects of gangs, which bring drugs into the community.
It was sent out to a variety of federal and provincial political bodies including the RCMP, Crown Counsel Prosecution Services, First Nation Health Authority, The Province of British Columbia’s Attorney General, The cities of Cranbrook and Kimberley, Emergency Services Society, B.C First Nations Leadership Council, and Ktuanxa, Shuswap, Kootenai and Salish First Nations to garner political action.
Pierre and Eby also discussed wildfire mitigation and protection. In the wake of the wildfire that ripped through ʔaq̓am in the summer and destroyed seven homes, the community has been working to cultivate a relationship with B.C Wildfire Service and Cranbrook Fire and Emergency Services to share information and resources. A B.C Wildfire Service team researched traditional Ktunaxa burning practices as a method of fire control, while the premier’s office has a team that is connecting with communities across the province to get input on the fires, including ʔaq̓am.
“We have an independent team that’s going in and meeting with different fire affected communities, including First Nations, where they’ll be saying, ‘what happened?’, ‘what can we learn from this?’, ‘what can we do better next time?’” remarked David Eby in an interview with the Cranbrook Townsman.
Eby paid a visit to the Townsman office on Oct. 11 for an interview with the editorial staff.
Additionally, the Province seeks to introduce legislation that would require more cooperation between regional districts, municipalities and First Nations when developing emergency plans.
“We just introduced a new bill that we hope to become law, an emergencies act, that requires regional emergency plans between the regional district, municipalities and First Nations and they have to work together under the law in developing these plans,” said Eby.
“One thing that we’ve seen is that the floods, the fires, the droughts don’t respect municipal or First Nations or regional district boarders, and coordinating plans in advance saves a lot of time, energy and grief when disaster actually shows up. We’re trying to encourage regions to be ahead of the curve on this stuff in a more cooperative way through this new law.”
In a separate interview with the Townsman, nasuʔkin Joe Pierre reported that if it wasn’t for local fire services and controlled burns, more of the community would have been lost.
“Their part in the wildfires this year was huge,” said Joe Pierre, in reference to Cranbrook fire department. ” It was immense. If it wasn’t for the Cranbrook fire department, the news stories would be reporting more houses lost in the community than what we did lose … I know that the Cranbrook fire department saved houses for us this summer.”
ʔaq̓am undertook a prescribed burn near the Canadian Rockies International Airport in the spring to reduce accumulating dead wood and other combustible material to mitigate wildfire damage. The project was the result of over four years of planning and research.
Pierre said the burn worked to their advantage when the wildfire arrived in the summer and aided in controlling the size and direction of the fire.
“The size of the fire, the intensity of the fire that we had out there this summer, if it wasn’t for that prescribed burn, it would have gone directly towards the airport itself. There’s a likelihood that it could have encompassed the entire property of the airport.”
“B.C Wildfire Service were able to move their own resources to other parts of the fire and they didn’t actually have to worry about the prescribed burn area itself, because they knew that the prescribed burn area was doing what it was supposed to do. It was acting as a barrier.”
Pierre said that burning is a Ktunaxa cultural practice that was historically used to manage forests, and that these customs are now being studied by the government.
“Regular burning was a part of our cultural practices pre-contact times when it was just Indigenous people in this province. A part of forest management was regular burning. We used fire often and all over Ktunaxa homelands.”
“B.C. Wildfire Service, during the evacuation and during the fire, they actually had a research team come to ʔaq̓am. They were researching our fire. They were very interested in our prescribed burn. We want to make sure that whatever research happened on our fire gets out there broadly to the rest of the province.”
As for the drug crisis, it’s been an issue that has been difficult for ʔaq̓am to manage.
“It’s been something that my community has been really struggling with this past year,” said Pierre. “We have had a number of opioid deaths in our community … The opioid crisis has literally affected 100 per cent of the community of ʔaq̓am. We’re just a small little community, but disproportionately we have been affected by it.”
“With the population that Cranbrook has, an opioid death can be absorbed by the city, whereas an opioid death in ʔaq̓am, it is felt by the entire community. That’s why I say we’re being affected disproportionately.”
“There are citizens in larger communities that can say, ‘well you know, my family, we actually haven’t had direct contact with the crisis.’ That’s not true at ʔaq̓am. It is affecting everyone.”
The province of B.C declared a public health emergency as a result of increasing overdose deaths in 2016 and ʔaq̓am has yet to see large-scale action.
“It amazed me how much attention went to Covid so quickly, so intensely, and yet we still have this crisis … It doesn’t seem like it’s getting the same attention that Covid got,” said Pierre.
“I think there needs to be more of a Covid-type reaction to the drug problem and I don’t think we’ve seen anything close to that.”
It remains a complex and multifaceted issue. Pierre explained that drugs tend to fuel other types of crimes like theft and gang activity, so there are usually multiple inter-related issues happening at once. Different judicial bodies deal with different types of crime, so it can be difficult to prosecute illegal activity in overlapping spheres.
“Because we are a reserve, we are a federal entity, but we do have crown counsel. We have federal crown counsel and provincial crown counsel, and so of course their jurisdictions are different and of course they deal with different levels and types of crime,” he said.
Eby agreed that the situation is complicated.
“The number of police officers that serve multiple communities that are quite far apart from each other, their ability to respond. By perhaps supporting tribal police or other more local solutions, we might be able to address some of those issues,” he remarked.
The emergency declaration released during the summer asks Canada and the province of B.C to increase the services available to ʔaq̓am community members who have drug addiction or have family members who have an addiction. It also mentions plans for a council-appointed task force or for law enforcement to to monitor ʔaq̓am lands in accordance with the Trespass and Access to ʔaq̓am Lands Law, 2017.
Still, the drug crisis remains difficult to navigate.
“It feels a little bit like trying to clear space in water,” said Pierre. “That would be impossible. You’ve got water, you try to clear space. Shhhhh [it fills again]. For my little community of ʔaq̓am that’s really what it feels like.”
Pierre explained that collaboration and communication is important, particularly between First Nation communities, since this is not just an issue that extends to ʔaq̓am, but to all of Canada.
When Pierre met with chief of Keewatin Tribal Council Walter Wastesicoot, he discovered that their communities suffered from the same problems, despite being located in completely different areas of the country. Keewatin Tribal Council represents 11 communities in northern Manitoba, most of which are fly-in.
“Basically we were saying the same things to each other,” Pierre recalled. “We both understood exactly what the other was saying. It’s just an eerily similar conversation and eerily similar problems and reactions from his community.”
“I think what we’re needing to do is to just be in communication with First Nations communities that are dealing with what we’re dealing with.”
