Sechelt joins the B.C. Treaty Commission

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Legal action mounted by the Sechelt Indian Band against the provincial and federal government has been postponed in light of the band's recent acceptance under the B.C. Treaty Commission to have its land claims heard.

In a meeting Aug. 9, Sechelt Chief Garry Feschuk said the band had withdrawn a writ of summons, filed against both levels of government in June, after agreeing to negotiate its claims under the provincial treaty commission.

"We said before we weren't going to file (if we could find) the fastest way to get to the negotiation table," Feschuk said.

This is a turn-about from the Sechelts previous rejection of the treaty process, which the band claimed would slow down land claim negotiations.

Under the conditions of the writ, the band was seeking title to its traditional territory as defined under its land claims document as well as title to the resources "thereon and therein." The band's claim covers an area 4,900 square miles on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia.

Sechelt was also seeking the creation of a neutral party trust fund into which all rents, royalties and profits currently reaped by the provincial and federal governments off land under the unresolved land claim would go until a settlement is reached.

The writ is still before the lawyers, Feschuk said, adding the band will not initiate legal action unless the treaty negotiation process is stalled.

Chief commissioner with the Treaty Commission, Chuck Connaghan, said the threat of the legal suit had nothing to do with the band's acceptance into the provincially-orchestrated negotiation process.

Sechelt band council will meet with representatives of the federal and provincial governments Aug. 15 to set a time frame for when treaty negotiations with the band will officially open.

Reacting with some caution to the government process, Feschuk called the meeting "an historic day" for the band. The Sechelts say they have been promised negotiations on their land claim for the past four years but have been delayed, caught

up in the wheels of bureaucracy.

Earlier this month, Connaghan confirmed the band has been accepted into stage one of a six-stage treaty negotiation process. The mid-August meeting will represent stage two.

To move to the third stage, the band must prove its readiness to the commission to negotiate its claims, he said. The government body must also conduct a full study of the area under claim and have profiled the non-Natives in the area whose land or business might be affected.

The commission is overseeing more than 40 Native land claims in the province since December 1993. None of the bands have moved beyond the second stage of negotiations as of yet.