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Indigenous Lands And Innovation · Cariboo Signals

0:00
Casey: Hey there, good to be here. Today on the show we've got the Carney meeting in Ottawa, where chiefs and premiers sat down for the first dedicated First Nations gathering since 2005, and the Eagle mine in the Yukon, where a sale can't close without the Nation's agreement. Plus Williams Lake First Nation's new agreement with Thompson Rivers University. And the Deep Dive asks who should decide who belongs under a First Nation's government. Stick around.
0:39
Casey: Welcome to Cariboo Signals, an AI-generated review of the latest tech news and ideas that impact our rural communities. I'm Casey. It's Thursday, October 29th, 2026. Today's theme is Indigenous Lands & Innovation. Reaching you from the heart of the Cariboo, the homeland of the Secwépemc, Tŝilhqot'in, and Dakelh nations.
0:59
Riley: And I'm Riley. Today we look at who decides who belongs under a First Nation's government, and what that question means for the people who share the same land.
1:09
Riley: Out at Horsefly Lake this morning, it's partly cloudy and around minus 2. Today's high is 3 and the low is minus 3, with slight snow and a 53 per cent chance of about a millimetre. Across the Cariboo, 100 Mile House is around minus 6 with partly cloudy skies, Williams Lake is around minus 5 and foggy, Quesnel is around minus 3 and mainly clear, and Tatla Lake is around minus 4 under overcast. Heads up if you're heading into Williams Lake this morning.
1:39
Casey: Into the news, then.
1:41
Riley: Most of today's news is about who holds the decisions, in Ottawa, across B.C., and up in the Yukon, with plenty of it landing close to home.
1:50
Casey: Artist Tiffany Jorgensen has finished her section of the Cariboo Reflections mural, on the Cariboo Regional District wall at 108 Third Avenue North in Williams Lake. Her panel faces the dining room of a care home, and the residents helped pick the scenes: horses, wildflowers, mountains, ranching, logging and gold panning. Jorgensen painted her section in the warm orange of evening. One resident gave her the side eye and the thumbs up all the time, she said. Sarah Sigurdson of Cariboo Art Beat consulted the residents before the work started.
2:22
Riley: Williams Lake First Nation and Thompson Rivers University signed Yerí7 me7 sucwentwécw-kt on Tuesday, October 20th. The agreement sets out how the two will work together on academic programs, research and shared decisions, with the goal of expanding opportunities for T'exelcemc students. It acknowledges the Nation's inherent rights, jurisdiction and cultural authority within its traditional territory. Chief Willie Sellars said partnerships like this lift up Indigenous and non-Indigenous people across the region.
2:56
Casey: Shared decisions is the phrase I'd want to read the clauses on.
3:01
Casey: The First Nations Leadership Council said in a statement on Sunday that it's ready to work with the incoming B.C. Conservative government. It also warned that repealing the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act could turn the province into a battleground over Indigenous rights. Grand Chief Stewart Phillip called the NDP defeat hugely disappointing, and framed the choice as Battleground B.C. or reconciliation through the road map of the Declaration Act. Regional Chief Terry Teegee asked premier-designate Lorne Doerkson to reject anti-Indigenous hate and discrimination.
3:35
Riley: Canada is appealing two Federal Court decisions from December 2025, both written by Justice Paul Favel. Those rulings found that Canada owes fiduciary duties, a common law duty of care, and Charter rights on drinking water and housing on reserve. Chiefs from Shamattawa, St. Theresa Point and Sandy Lake are back in court this week to defend them. Chief Jordna Hill put it bluntly: Canada ships bottled water to reserves for federal employees, while people under long-term advisories have to use the tap.
4:09
Casey: First Nations leaders and some premiers met Prime Minister Mark Carney in Ottawa on Monday, October 26th. It was the first dedicated First Nations and first ministers gathering since 2005. Leaders want an ongoing role in resource-development decisions as governments move to speed up major-project approvals. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Quebec Premier Paul St-Pierre Plamondon did not attend. Each AFN region had three minutes for opening remarks, and chiefs watching from an observation room were asked to surrender their phones.
4:40
Riley: The First Nation of Na-Cho Nyäk Dun says its citizens will decide how to move forward on the Eagle mine in the Yukon. Any potential buyer has to reach an agreement with the Nation before a sale can proceed. That's the same question the leaders raised in Ottawa, the right to a lasting say over resource decisions, now playing out on a specific piece of land.
5:03
Casey: Alberta voters rejected starting the legal process for a binding separation referendum in the October 19th vote. About 75 per cent chose to remain in Canada. Only two ridings cleared majority support for moving toward a vote, Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre and Central Peace-Notley. Elections Alberta expects to release official results today. Separately, the province is still appealing a ruling that quashed a citizen-led separation petition. Siksika Nation Chief Samuel Crowfoot is among the chiefs urging the government to drop that appeal.
5:36
Riley: The Tyee has laid out the choices for B.C. premier-designate Lorne Doerkson's first big appointment, the Indigenous Relations Minister. Its reporting says the pick could signal opposition to the Declaration Act, a moderate critic's approach, or a champion for a respectful new legal framework. No minister has been named yet, so the piece is about the options.
6:00
Casey: Waorani leader Nemonte Nenquimo, named by Time among the world's 100 most influential people, argues that living in harmony with the land gives Indigenous groups insight the consumerist West lacks. Her grandfather described the global money system as a boa constrictor: it attracts people, and it bewitches them. She says, "It's a fact, I've lived it."
6:21
Riley: Legal scholar Martha Minow gave MIT's Compton Lecture last Thursday and said it is not a good time for democracy or constitutionalism. She pointed to disregard of legal rulings, the stifling of free speech, and the vilification of others. She also argued that AI could be used to help reinforce traditional governance, as well as undermine it.
6:43
Casey: Canada's first youth-led federal climate trial opened October 26th in Vancouver. Fifteen plaintiffs argue that the Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act and the 2030 plan don't cut emissions enough to protect their health and safety. Federal lawyers say Canada cannot guarantee a safe climate on its own, and they dispute a constitutional duty to do so. Closing arguments are set for February 2027, with a decision expected later that year.
7:11
Riley: The World Meteorological Organization says carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide all reached record atmospheric levels in 2025. Carbon dioxide averaged 426.8 parts per million, which is 153 per cent of pre-industrial levels. The bulletin measures gases already in the air, not emissions released during the year. About half of annual carbon dioxide emissions stay up there, and the warming those gases cause will run for decades or centuries.
7:42
Casey: On the Carney and Ford package for Ontario's steel and auto industries, which we covered on Friday, one new detail: it includes a working group that will engage First Nations on economic development and conservation, and look at possible Indigenous protected areas. The group has no terms yet.
7:59
Riley: The Green Field Factory in Rangpur, Bangladesh, designed by Nakshabid Architects, has won the RIBA International Prize 2026. The rug factory is designed for 5,000 employees, and it offers an alternative model for factory design, one that challenges conditions long scrutinized internationally. It also creates new opportunities for women workers.
8:23
Casey: Anthropic's S-1 filing, submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, says its data centres are becoming more reliant on natural gas, which is primarily methane. The company says that leaves its buildout exposed to rising fuel costs and supply chain limits. The filing describes competition for power as intense.
8:42
Riley: We write this show with Anthropic's Claude, for what that's worth.
8:47
Riley: The Darwin Board is an ESP32 project that treats a simple RC circuit as an evolving genome. Each of 2,040 possible configurations is a candidate, so the filter can adapt as the signal it's meant to block changes.
9:01
Casey: So the resistor finally gets a family tree.
9:05
Casey: David Eby resigned after his snap election call backfired, and Lorne Doerkson takes over what the Vancouver Sun describes as a new supermajority government. Doerkson also took the Cariboo-Chilcotin seat. He's the man who now decides whether the Declaration Act stays, and who speaks for the province on Indigenous relations. The warnings from First Nations leaders and the Tyee's minister question both land on his desk.
9:31
Riley: Today's spotlight is the Cariboo Chilcotin Aboriginal Training Employment Centre, known as CCATEC. It runs workforce development and employment training for First Nations across the Cariboo Chilcotin region, connecting Indigenous job seekers with training tied to the jobs the labour market is actually hiring for. Their website is ccatec dot com, and it's the place to start if you're looking at training or work.
9:56
Casey: Training that starts from real local jobs is the part that usually gets dropped, so I'm glad it's in the description.
10:03
Riley: On to the main discussion.
10:06
Riley: Ottawa says its review of the Indian Act may stop short of abolition. So when the rules get rewritten, who should decide who belongs under a First Nation's government? The Nation's own citizens, the federal government, or the non-Indigenous neighbours who share the same land?
10:22
Casey: Start with what the Act touches. It governs legal status, reserve lands and aspects of community governance. Any change reaches who counts as a member, so this isn't a side question.
10:33
Riley: Right. And Carney has been blunter in print than Ottawa usually is. He told the Globe and Mail the Act is racist and anachronistic, and that he's open to repealing or reforming it.
10:44
Casey: On the CBC record, he said reform or possible replacement, with no predetermined outcome. Those are different words from repeal. A headline can hear repeal in them. The text doesn't say it.
10:55
Riley: The Chiefs of Ontario read the meeting as a commitment to work toward repealing the Act, and that reading is bigger than his wording. Still, a named joint process with a possible replacement on the table is the first real opening since 1969.
11:11
Casey: 1969 is my reason for not relaxing. Jean Chrétien, as Indian Affairs minister, put the White Paper forward to dismantle the Act. Ottawa withdrew it in 1971 after First Nations opposition. Abolition was on the table once, and it came off because the Nations pushed. A promise of an open process isn't a record of one.
11:30
Riley: The White Paper shows the Nations can stop a bad design. This time they're in the room from day one, and Carney says the process has to be co-developed.
11:39
Casey: Co-developed is a word in a statement. Who owns the replacement design? Ottawa says it will work with provinces and territories too, so they'll be at the design table as well. Nobody has said who holds the pen at the end.
11:52
Riley: Right now Ottawa holds it. The whole point of co-development is to move it.
11:56
Casey: Ottawa has held this one since 1876.
11:59
Riley: Capacity is the argument that gets Nations out of the paternalism box. Chief Nelson Nepinak of Skownan First Nation told the meeting First Nations should go into self-government. He pointed to highly educated young people and staff already doing the work Indigenous Services Canada does. That claim can be checked against program delivery and payroll.
12:22
Casey: Sure. But capacity answers who could run the office. It doesn't answer who should decide who belongs, and the second one is where people get hurt.
12:30
Riley: Membership already runs through federal law. Capacity is what changes that. A Nation that can run its own registry has less reason to ask Ottawa for permission.
12:40
Casey: And the citizens inside the Nation have to write those rules, not just the chiefs. Leadership speaks for the Nation. It doesn't speak for every member. Nations can't just swap a federal clerk for a council resolution and call it self-government.
12:54
Riley: Agreed, and that's the strongest argument against a federal drafting pen. It still doesn't say who holds authority while the rewrite is underway.
13:03
Casey: No, it doesn't.
13:04
Riley: Janice Makokis, a lawyer and Idle No More organizer, raised a different problem. She warned that language about modernization and economic partnership could shift power away from First Nations while opening their territories to development. I take that objection most seriously, because it says the reform itself could be what moves authority.
13:26
Casey: Modernization sounds like a grant program. It can also mean the Act gets replaced by a framework where resource decisions run through someone else's approval queue.
13:36
Riley: Then the answer is a written rights base in the replacement, not a slogan about partnership. Put the rights in the text before the process starts.
13:45
Casey: Put them in, then check whether the approval clauses honour them. Text is the easy part.
13:50
Riley: The format is its own governance problem. Nearly 200 leaders, the prime minister and premiers in one room, with three minutes each for opening remarks. Kyra Wilson of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs said three minutes is not nearly enough. The lead-up to that meeting aired here earlier; what's new is what happened inside the room.
14:11
Casey: And chiefs in the observation room were told to surrender their phones. That's a strange rule for a meeting about self-government. It decides who controls the record of the meeting.
14:22
Riley: Saskatchewan chiefs still got land rights, First Nations policing and amendments to the Indian status legislation on the official record. Sheila North of Bunibonibee Cree Nation said the chiefs she'd spoken with thought it inappropriate for Manitoba's premier to call for abolition, given the province's history of broken promises. Derek Nepinak of Minegoziibe Anishinabe called it healthy for Canada to discuss abolition, even if the conversation is polarizing. Three positions, all on the record.
14:53
Casey: Three positions, three minutes each. The decision is what Bill C-39 would move, and the Chiefs of Ontario and others have rejected it. They say it was written without First Nations at the table.
15:05
Riley: The government says C-39 makes infrastructure reviews faster and more predictable while keeping environmental standards and Indigenous rights. Leaders say it cuts against the Crown's duty to consult and the UN Declaration Act. The test is how the bill runs on a contested project.
15:23
Casey: Fast-tracking approvals on contested land is a pattern. Every time someone promises predictability, the people with the weakest position in the room pay for it. Predictable for whom?
15:33
Riley: For a Nation that wants a fixed timeline. For a proponent that gets a no in a month instead of after three years of limbo. Nobody wins from a process that can't say when it's finished.
15:44
Casey: Somebody sets the timeline, and it's usually the side that already has the money and the lawyers.
15:50
Riley: Which is why the Declaration Act matters here. The First Nations Leadership Council says it's ready to work with the incoming B.C. Conservative government, and it has called on legislators to uphold Indigenous title and rights. If the province repeals the Declaration Act, B.C. gets the same fight Ottawa is having, on a shorter timeline.
16:11
Casey: Stewart Phillip framed the choice as battleground or reconciliation. A province that rewrites its framework every election is one where belonging gets argued again every election.
16:22
Riley: Then the principle has to sit in statute, not in a minister's preference. A Declaration Act that binds the next government is the strongest version of that.
16:32
Casey: On paper. Whether it survives is up to the new government, and nobody in our sources knows yet what it will do.
16:39
Riley: Governance claims mean little until someone can measure the land they cover. The Tsleil-Waututh Nation's analysis found 93 per cent of lands in the Burrard Inlet catchment affected by cumulative impacts from colonial development. The Nation says its people have no meaningful ability to exercise many rights, including harvesting culturally important foods or safely using the inlet. The Nation built the model, and it uses it in its own environmental decisions.
17:07
Casey: It's a rights-impact figure built from layers stacked on each other: contamination, historical fishing practices, shoreline alteration. Each layer gets a weight, and the 93 per cent depends on those weights. That doesn't make it wrong. It means the weights have to be tested.
17:23
Riley: A 2025 peer-reviewed study models the cumulative ecological and human impacts of colonization on the səl̓ilwət ecosystem, using a transdisciplinary approach. The Nation has also worked with Arcadis for more than fifteen years on its action plan. That's a long record, not a single map.
17:43
Casey: A long record of a Nation doing the work. That's the best case I've heard for Nation-led data. But does the map change who decides on development along Burrard Inlet? A map proves loss. It doesn't bind anyone with authority to act on it.
17:56
Riley: It binds the Nation's own decisions. It also gives every approval a baseline to be measured against. An environmental assessment that ignores the 93 per cent has a visible hole.
18:08
Casey: Visible to whom? The proponent has to read it, and the regulator has to weigh it. Evidence about past decisions is an input to authority. It isn't the authority.
18:17
Riley: Then the authority should follow the evidence. Data sovereignty means the model belongs to the people it describes, and that changes what counts as credible in an approval.
18:28
Casey: It changes what counts as credible in a room where everyone already agrees. I'd like to see it change the room where people disagree.
18:36
Riley: Take the Eagle mine. The First Nation of Na-Cho Nyäk Dun in the Yukon says its citizens will decide how to move forward. Any potential buyer has to reach an agreement with the Nation before a sale can proceed. That's the authority question, written into a sale contract.
18:53
Casey: The story gives a principle. We don't know whether citizens hold a binding vote, how it's counted, or what a buyer has to agree to. "Up to citizens" is a claim to test, not a settled outcome.
19:03
Riley: The sale can't close without the Nation's agreement. That's a hard condition, and it's the lasting say the leaders asked for in Ottawa, applied to one piece of land.
19:13
Casey: A condition in a contract is leverage. Leverage becomes authority when the Nation can walk away from the terms without the deal collapsing on its own members.
19:22
Riley: Leverage is most of the game in a mine sale. A Nation that can say no at the signing table is in a stronger position than one that can only protest after the fact.
19:33
Casey: That's your strongest case. Bring it closer to home.
19:36
Riley: Williams Lake First Nation and Thompson Rivers University signed Yerí7 me7 sucwentwécw-kt on Tuesday, October 20th. It sets out how the two will work together on academic programs, research and shared decisions. It acknowledges the Nation's inherent rights, jurisdiction and cultural authority within its traditional territory. The university isn't a Nation, but it's a neighbouring institution writing that authority into its own decisions. Chief Willie Sellars called it building relationships with institutions operating within T'exelcemc territory.
20:11
Casey: Good on paper. Acknowledging jurisdiction counts only if the decision clauses give the Nation the last word on shared items. Until someone reads those clauses, it's a promise with a signature on it.
20:22
Riley: Then make it testable. Read the decision section, then watch what happens the first time the Nation says no to a shared plan.
20:30
Casey: Most agreements don't get tested until somebody says no.
20:34
Riley: For students, the test is simpler. Who sets the academic program? If the Nation can change a course or a research priority, the jurisdiction clause is working. If the university sets it and the Nation gets consulted afterward, it isn't.
20:47
Casey: Consulted afterward is the fine print every agreement hides in. Ask the students which one they're living under.
20:54
Riley: That's the neighbour question in miniature. On membership, I'd give the neighbour no deciding role. They can bring money, staff and data, and they can be heard. Partners inside a Nation's decisions are not deciders.
21:07
Casey: On membership, I agree, and I'd keep the neighbour out of that seat entirely. Land is the harder call. An advisory seat sounds fine until the money and the lawyers sit on the other side of the table. I want the Nation's final word written down before any neighbour asks for a seat.
21:23
Riley: Then the clause says who has the final word, in writing, and the advisory seat builds the record. A seat in the room beats a letter sent from outside it.
21:32
Casey: A seat without a veto is a seat for watching. I'm not sure that's partnership.
21:37
Riley: It's a starting point. I'd rather argue about a written clause than a handshake. A clause can be amended. A handshake can't be checked.
21:46
Casey: A written clause can be ignored too. The difference is who can go to court when it is.
21:51
Riley: Then the Nation needs standing to enforce its own clause. Whether a neighbour gets a seat matters less than whether the Nation can enforce what it signs.
21:59
Casey: That I'll sign onto. Standing is the question I'd put to every agreement in the region, not just the university's.
22:06
Riley: So the open question is this: when a Nation's citizens hold the final say on membership and land, should a non-Indigenous neighbour get an advisory seat, a written veto, or no formal role, and who writes that clause? If you've got a view, or a sale contract or shared-decision agreement that answers who holds the last word, send it to feedback at cariboo signals dot c-a. Mind the fog into Williams Lake.
22:31
Casey: We're agreed on standing and still apart on the seat, and I'd like to see how it works in a real clause before I move. Have a good Thursday.
22:39
Casey: We haven't talked directly with anyone from First Nations communications teams for this one, which is a gap we want to close, so if that's you, reach out, we'd genuinely like to hear from you.