VANCOUVER - A seven-member Okanagan Nation Alliance has launched legal action against the provincial government over the First Nations treaty process in connection to overlapping claims by neighbouring aboriginal bands.
Alliance Grand Chief Stewart Phillip says the lawsuit calls into question the legality of the B.C. treaty process itself, with a central issue being that First Nations have the right to protect their own property.
At the centre of the B.C. Supreme Court legal action is an agreement signed between the province and the Ktunaxa (duh-NAK'-ah) Nation Council giving the Cranbrook, B.C., band 242 hectares of land in the West Kootenay in the first stage of a treaty.
Phillip says the province didn't consult with their bands before signing the agreement.
He says the land signed away includes village sites, hunting grounds and other cultural heritage sites important to members of the Okanagan alliance.
Another overlapping treaty agreement that's caused a stir over recent weeks has occurred near Terrace, B.C., where the Gitxsan First Nation threatened evictions of the railway, foresters and fishermen in a dispute over land it claims, but was handed to two neighbouring First Nations in a treaty agreement.
