Nisga'a

... may not work in, in northern BC, and some groups have made it work.

The Nisga'a is a good example.

Yep.

Of course.

Yeah.

Uh, and look, we had, uh, L- LNG Canada Phase Two just announced the other day, as you know, and there's still talk of Susilum's LNG on Nisga'a territory with, uh, uh, We- Western potentially moving forward.

Are, are there any other big projects in central Canada that, that the, the, the Prime Minister's office is looking at that they want to drive, um, in a significant way?

way?I think the most interesting one, the one that I'm looking at the most, Jas, is what happens with this pipeline that could go to Ontario.

Is that a buying opportunity? Should we be more patient? I've also got Derek, uh, Derek Pattenden from a, a fascinating royalty company.

They've done a deal with the Nisga'a.

They have, uh, all sorts of properties that are producing money, and that's how royalty works.

I'll get into that, though, in a couple of minutes here.

So that would make it the largest gold mine in the country if it, if it were in production today by almost about a factor of two, 'cause the largest are around 700,000 ounces a year.

So it is a very big, very long life gold copper project, all in the safe jurisdiction of Canada.

And yeah, we have a, a royalty interest on that through the Nisga'a nation and, uh, cheering them on to get that into development so, you know, it can starts, starts making payments.

When you look at a p- a project like that, what kind of timeline do you have?

But as we know, uh, that's a, that's a difficult community.

It's a hub where, uh, you have Nisga'a territory to the north, uh, Kitimat, uh, in one direction, Prince Rupert another, Prince George in the other.

A lot comes together there.

They have a lot of infrastructure needs, and 13 council candidates are tussling over six seats.

Wild.

And, uh, it's, it's, it's got federal government participation, it's got provincial government participation, and, and most notably will be owned, um, in m- in a majority fashion by the Nisga'a and the Tahltan Nation, um, with a, with a strong ownership position also with Arrow Transportation.

Yeah.

So, like, these are the kinds of actual...

when it was, when it was brought in, but also, um, balances that with the, the impacts and the concerns that, that have been raised.

At the end of the day, again, I take us back to this big announcement, um, yesterday up in Stewart.

Uh, uh, we are way, way stronger, uh, as a nation, as a province, uh, um, as Canadians when we are all working together, when we can have Nisga'a and Tahltan and the industry, uh, all in the same boat, uh, rowing in the same direction as, as partners and, and co-owners in, in projects and, and, and working together.

Um, uh, that, that is, that is a huge strategic advantage for us.

The Indian Weather Service says the state has recorded nearly twice its normal rainfall over the past week.

In British Columbia, the Gitlaxt'aak Nisga'a Terrace Society says it will take between 60 to... 50 to $60,000 to repair and replace everything that was damaged or stolen during two recent break-ins.

The society provides programming on traditional cultural practices and language to members of the First Nation.

The damage includes walls torn off a smokehouse and the storage shed door kicked in.

Acting director Elijah Williams says programming has been put on pause for at least a month.

This setback is pretty detrimental as every year, every season is a harvesting season for the Nisga'a people.

It's who we are as Nisga'a.

We are always preserving for our people, and this is going to be a setback as it's going to pause some pretty instrumental programming.

But maybe they just need to go through this moment and do what they need to do and then come back in because we have work to do, and how we feel ultimately isn't gonna put food on the table nearly as much as hard work will, one way or the other.

Textor71010 writes, "You have to be a Canadian citizen to vote in Canada," it says, "and yet elected officials make decisions that affect non-Canadian citizens who live in Canada." It says, "It is no different than those who live on Nisga'a land but are not Nisga'a." Oh, and it says, "And they are affected by decisions made by Nisga'a leadership but have no right to vote for Nisga'a elected positions." Textor, I would, I would contest your assertion that it is no different.

There may be some overlapping elements that you and I could probably spend a great deal of time mapping out, but I don't know if by saying it's no different means it's completely equivalent, and I don't think it is.

I think that among the issues that we run into with Aboriginal rights and title.

And that is to resume the negotiation of, uh, comprehensive treaties of the sort that we saw in the past.

The modern alliteration of that, of course, began with, uh, uh, the Nisga'a, uh, Treaty under the, the Glen Clark, uh, regime.

Uh, it continued.

I think my signature is on six, uh, treaties with six First Nations, uh, the Mono on Vancouver Island, uh, Tsawwassen, where those issues were dealt with definitive- definitively as a part of the negotiating process.

We can and, and should critique agreements as they, uh, arise in opposition.

I certainly, uh, did that.

But I will point out this, um, in terms of the Nisga'a, in terms of the Mono.

Uh, I just had a chat with the chief of the, the Huu-ay-aht First Nation, uh, uh, earlier today.

Typically, that's something that's typically not accessible to the public markets.

The company has created around five payment interests that are contributed by the Nisga'a nation, and they right away now, so the controlling shareholder, and the broader strategy is to bring other indigenous groups into the company as well by exchanging qualifying mining royalty interests for equity in nation's royalty.

Now, as far as I understand it, and kind of trying to translate this whole thing to practical terms, the idea that got this thing started in the first place was to pull a collection of individually held indigenous mining payments and royalties into one vehicle, specifically a publicly traded vehicle, which obviously gives the contributing nations liquidity as well as diversification, while it also gives the public access to assets that they normally couldn't buy on the open market.

They've got multiple assets, which, of course, we'll touch upon or we'll ask some more in-depth questions about later on.