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Indigenous peoples recognize that one of the most effective means to protect both their tangible and intangible cultural practices is to exercise their own legal authority over them. This is especially challenging when faced with provocative colonial arrangements that deny Indigenous peoples鈥� jurisdiction.
But the horizons do change, as is clear with the recent landmark Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) decision, Tsilhqot鈥檌n Nation / William v. British Columbia, which included the in favour of the Tsilhqot鈥檌n Nation. Although the consequences of the decision will only be known as new relations between the Province, Federal Government, and the Tsilhqot鈥檌n unfold, the matter of control and exercise of Tsilhqot鈥檌n laws within their territories has certainly been reinforced. This is a unique opportunity to implement Indigenous territorial authority on the ground. The Tsilhqot鈥檌n people have invested life-times of energy, over several generations, to protect their authority within their territory, with legal cases on their own spanning more than 20 years until the recent SCC decision.
The Secwepemc Territorial Authority project has been examining how Secwepemc law applies all across Secwepemc territory, and how through laws, and through the exercise of tangible and intangible cultural practices, this authority is asserted and persists to this day. Following in the footsteps of his father George Manuel, who founded the 鈥淔ourth World鈥� movement of Indigenous Peoples worldwide, Secwepemc co-leader of the project Arthur Manuel, has dedicated much of his life to aiding Secwepemc grassroots people to bring recognition to the economic, political and legal reality of their territorial authority. This will, once in place, foster better relations with Canadian people regarding the totality of Secwepemc 鈥淧eople鈥檚 Heritage.鈥�
The Secwepemc Territorial Authority project started by bringing together both Secwepemc and settler thinkers, committed to understanding how to build better relations. Secwepemc activists, elders, and leaders, as well as Osgoode Law Professor Kent McNeil, IPinCH co-investigator Political Anthropologist Michael Asch, and IPinCH Director George Nicholas, have joined project leaders Brian Noble and Arthur Manuel in dialogues on how principles of Secwepemc protective land use and law including ancestral burial practices, knowledge practices, berry picking and hunting, extend readily and legitimately to authority in decision-making in large scale resource extraction and development projects being approved by Provincial and Crown agencies.
