Welcome to Drum Beats, the must listen to podcast for investors interested in indigenous investment in Canada.
Born from the Canadian Indigenous Investment Summit, the show focuses on the intersection of Indigenous economic strategies and investment opportunities.
I'm Mark Mignac and my co-host Robert Brant and I are joined today by Eva Clayton, the President of the Niska Nation.
They have a very special place in the history of the Indigenous Peoples in Canada.
They are the first nation to negotiate a modern-day treaty with Canada and the province of British Columbia.
They have also been very active in developing and monetizing the resources.
Join us as we explore how these critical conversations are reshaping economic development across Canada.
Well, good morning and welcome Eva. What a pleasure to have you here in London.
Thank you. It's pleased to be here. Wow, never been to London before.
It's really the first time and you came because of the mining conference resourcing tomorrow.
Yes, it was exciting. I just didn't get a chance to see London.
You'll definitely have to come back to our Indigenous Investment Summit in April next year.
Yes, for sure.
I understand yesterday you were at Guild Hall. That's where the event you were at yesterday, which is part of the oldest part of London,
because even the Romans were there in front of Guild Hall underneath.
There's an old Roman amphitheater. So that has been the center of London for thousands of years.
That's what Bob was telling us last night, but it was raining cats and dogs last night, so we didn't get a chance to look around until the end of the evening.
Well, we put on English weather for you.
I see that.
And you're initially from BC, so it's not too far.
Eva, the Nisga Nation, you're the president recently re-elected for a third term.
Can you tell us a little bit about Nisga Nation?
Sure. The Nisga Nation is the first modern-day treaty, 2000.
After many years of negotiating, our leadership has since gone past on.
But in 2000, we left the Indian Act, so we thought.
But we delved into Nisga government.
Coming from a bank council structure, what a challenge.
And it still is a challenge today, but we are overcoming it.
We have a lawmaking authority, meaning that we can make legislation on Nisga lands.
But whatever is in place for Canada and BC, who are treaty partners, their laws, like the criminal code of Canada still applies.
We don't have that.
We have the authority to make laws on Nisga land.
And we can introduce at some point in time the policing for our people on Nisga lands.
But for the Nisga Nation, we have maybe 9,000 Nisga citizens registered.
And we are made up of four communities, four village government.
They are known as Kankolas under the Indian Act, Lackal's Act,
formerly known under the Indian Act as Greenville, and get oneself formerly known as Kenyan City under the Indian Act.
And New I.N.s, as the larger of the four communities.
Then we're made up of three urban locals who are established under the Societies Act of BC.
But they participate in the treaty in the government so that we continue to take care of our Nisga citizens in the urban areas.
So there's three established urban centers for Nisga.
That's Vancouver, being the bigger metropolis.
Then Prince Ruford, for Edward, and Tess.
The Nisga people have been at the forefront of a lot of indigenous initiatives in Canada over the years.
In British Columbia, most of the province is unceded territory.
And the Canadian Supreme Court recognized back in 1973 a famous Canadian case initiated by the Nisga in 1973, the Calder case.
Yes, Dr. Frank Calder.
For years, our people, in 1910 they created the Nisga Land Committee.
In 1910.
Long before that.
But for my memory, in 1910, what we called the Nisga Land Committee.
And they took things to a level nobody even thought of, you know.
When the head吾aries come into our lands, the queen sending her missionaries.
Or you can't tell us what to do on our land.
These are some of our chiefs talking.
And you can't tell us what land we own.
We own this land.
We've been here since time before memory.
And from then it really took off and carried on by our leaders over the decade.
And to the point where we are now today, we have Nisga statesmen.
That we really need to look at creating that story for our nation.
And I think that will be a story indeed for our students.
I continue to push that within our education.
That we have to have our history told.
The Nisga Nation has been silent for too long.
One of the chief councillors this past term made a statement that was so profound in my mind.
You know, why is the Nisga so secretive?
The world doesn't even know too much about our Nisga Nation today.
As we exist under the modern day treaty process.
We're the very first modern day treaty in 2000.
And we have the treaty partners, Kan Dan BC, that we work together with.
And we are still finding challenges along the way.
Because for Kan Dan BC nobody told him how to treat modern day treaties.
And modern day treaty groups, why are we still answering today?
To become grandfather in Ottawa, BC.
But we are working towards a true self-government.
We want to be sustainable financially.
And this is why the Nisga government has been very forward thinking.
We have been busy in what we want to do for our nation.
Last night at the resourcing conference, resourcing tomorrow, I believe it was.
Mining and money.
The Nisga Nation received an award for innovative forward thinking.
The ESG initiative of the year in the industry. Congratulations.
Because that's a global conference everybody's hearing.
The destination took that. Fantastic.
We're very happy with that.
The work that we're doing is paying off.
And I was explaining to Rob last night during dinner that the Nisga Nation has been faced with rebuilding our economy.
We stood by the wayside.
When I think it was in the 70s, from what I remember when I was growing up,
and into the 80s and somewhat into the 90s, we were standing by the wayside.
We were observers as they raped and pillaged our lands.
And now today you see the big change around where its end-its-ness people now are being consulted.
And we're no longer being left by the wayside because we want to be able to manage prosperity, not poverty.
And we have been forward thinking.
We had two projects, the LNG and the pipeline.
We just purchased the pipeline.
That's the Rupert? Yeah, PRGT.
Yeah.
Prince Rupert gas transmission.
Yes.
Pipeline for our audience.
Rupert gas transmission.
And the route and all of the work that we've done with our projects, these two projects that we continue to do with Nations royalty,
we're very inclusive of the indigenous groups that can be along the pipeline.
We've been doing a lot of consultations with the indigenous groups because we want to garner their support as opposed to dealing with it after.
We want to look at giving them what the house that I put it, I said to Rob last night, piece of the pie if you want.
If there's a piece of the pipeline going through lands of other indigenous groups, they can perhaps look at becoming owners of that person.
Yeah.
Very forward thinking and progressive.
Yes, we're working in that way.
And at the same time, we know we have to get that power.
We have to power up the facility, the floating facility and pipeline.
So we're also doing work with.
Sorry, just the floating facility.
Could you talk a bit more about that?
Yeah, okay.
We call it Xerosimxalangee.
That's an ISCA word.
What does that mean?
It means coming from the Nash River.
Xerosimxalangee.
The, don't quote me on the actual meaning of it.
I'm sure one of our viewers will write in it.
Correct.
The Nisga Nation follows the interview.
Yes.
So we're looking at, we know that there's going to be energy needed to power up the LNG facility.
It's going to be a floating facility in Will Millet North, I think of King Colas, King
Goss.
Work has been undergoing a lot.
I think we're in the environmental stages, moving towards the final environmental stages
of that project.
And then we have the pipeline.
So because Nisga Nation is involved with all of these projects, and we want to be a part
of the solution to the global climate concerns, Nisga Nation is a founding member of the First
Nations Climate Initiative in BC.
We do a lot of work out of Tetral, Karthi and Vancouver.
We work alongside Alex Kribowski and David Nicolayson.
And they're doing a lot of work with the COO.
The COO Power Initiative?
Yeah, the Power Initiative.
And we recognize that there needs to be, and the province recognizes that we need to have
that kind of energy to power up the projects.
Clean energy.
Yes, the clean energy.
And the Nation became involved with the First Nations Climate Initiative so that we can
be having a say in policy development when it comes to clean energy.
And we are looking at that.
The Nation also wants to look at helping with getting the countries out of the fossil fuels
that is.
Yes.
And either you talked about challenges and resiliency.
Would you tell us a little bit about your own personal background, where you grew up,
how you grew up, and how that maybe shaped you to become the leader you are today?
Okay, for sure.
I attribute all my teachings to how I grew up.
Went to Indian Day School.
Then I was, my father passed away at a very young age.
I was about five or six, and I was sent to residential school.
After residential school, I went to the boarding home program, what they call the Indian boarding
home program.
And so three categories of school I participated in under the Indian Act.
And what a talent it must have been for my mom.
She had six of us, and she was a single mother at a very young age already.
So I became the, she had to go after three jobs to look after us.
She was taking over school in grade eight.
And when she was about in her later part of the 40s, early 50s, she went back to school.
And she worked for the federal government.
I get a lot of initiative from my mother.
Her strength is incredible.
Is she still alive today?
No, she passed on.
Oh, maybe two, three years ago.
She never backed down.
We just don't back down when you're looking at challenges.
So when she put us into major, we are all educated.
There are six children, we're all educated.
We all graduated.
And they don't think my oldest brother is an electrician.
Then I went into BCIT, BCBS, and BCBS no longer exists.
It was the British Columbia Bacchuson School.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
That's what was known then.
So I went there, I did my education.
And who knew that all of this was, it was going to be my destiny.
Because after I did all this, I moved back home because, first of all, I got the experience.
I worked with United Native Nations.
I worked for the BC Forum.
These groups no longer exist now, but they were in the forefront of getting recognition
for Indigenous people back then in all areas.
So I went back to work with the Nisqanasan, and I worked with the Nisqatarba Council,
who was the very first secretary, paid secretary because the Nisqanasan was pursuing the land
question, the Nisqalan question on Nisqa public funds.
And it wasn't until the early 80s that Canada introduced that loan.
We could take out loans through our land question.
Yeah, for Indigenous people.
Then they gave you the funding to be able to solve the problem that action was created
by them and the monarchy.
So they recognized that loan payment was reimbursed to the Nisqatars.
They were paying it all.
And so somewhere along the line, they recognized that.
You know, we had Nisqatars people paying for problems that were often caused by them.
So it was reinstated, reimbursed the funding and went back to the people.
Sounds like a difficult upbringing or challenging one to lose your father at that age to have
your mother having to work.
Three jobs and be sent to school, but it has made you, shaped you and you've taken those
lessons.
I was sent to Rob last night.
I was at Rob five, I think, when I went to residential school.
My mother's brother was three.
I come from a family of residential school survivors.
And with the residential schools, you then lived away from home?
Yes.
Which, I mean, three and five.
I mean, just traumatic.
And here you are today, though.
The president.
Sweet guy.
Of your nation, reelected again.
Yes.
This sounds like Margaret Thatcher going on and on and on.
Right?
For me, you should say that I have friend and Prince George chief, Harley Change.
He always calls me the Iron Lady.
Oh, there we go.
We have the Iron Lady.
Fantastic.
And you were at anyone at the mining conference last night.
Makes sense.
The Iron Lady got the award for refugee.
Yes, it was really incredible meeting all these people.
It was a big gathering, very senior mining leaders at the conference and at the dinner
last night to see your award.
Yes.
Dean of Reinhart from Australia, there, Robert Friedland there and spoke with the most senior
leaders in mining and people was there representing Nisga Nation and winning industry-wide awards.
So congratulations again.
Thank you.
The conversation is on the map in the city of London and from last night with the global
mining community.
So you've achieved one of your objectives.
You were mentioned earlier in the conversation.
Somebody said, nobody knows about the Nisga Nation.
And now look at what you're achieving.
And we hope you understand you'll be with us in next year, 2025 for the Canadian Indigenous
Investment Summit and continue this raising awareness of the Nisga Nation.
The First Nations to sign a modern treaty in Canada.
I was just mentioning to the team this morning that we're looking forward to coming back
and that was the one of the Canadian Investment Conference here.
The Summit Humans.
And then I said to the guys, I said, we're going to have to look at other opportunities
we may want to pursue while we're in London.
Absolutely.
We're international partners.
That's the whole purpose of the conference.
And so, yeah, we look forward to that and love to have you participate in that.
Do you want to talk a little bit about the initiative that you won the award for?
Yes, the Nations Royalty, the Nisga Nation that after it was presented by Frank Joustra.
Frank Joustra approached the Nisga Nation with the idea of the Nations Royalty Indigenous
owned.
And for those who don't know, Frank Joustra is probably well known in the city of London,
but a Canadian billionaire investor and behind a lot of resource companies over the years.
And he has partnered with Nisga Nation in this new company called Nations Royalty.
Yes.
It's going to be the largest Indigenous owned public company.
It's listed.
And right now, Nations Royalty is doing a lot of the work to market, sell and brand Nations
Royalty to meet with Indigenous peoples.
Not just in Canada, but globally.
We're looking at it.
And we have been looking at going outside.
We had Cody just go to, I think it was Japan.
So we're going to be going all over the place to market that.
And Nisga Nation's own 77% of the equity, the common shares of Nations Royalty?
Yes.
Thank you.
We do have 77% ownership of the inequities.
We're going to be talking to Cody Penner of Nations Royalty in an upcoming episode.
I think that'll be our first conversation in 2025.
That's right.
That's great.
Thank you for your time today.
I mean, it is absolutely wonderful to have you here in the city of London.
And as Rob and I are both Canadians as well, it's very special to have the President of
Nisga Nation, which is the first modern treaty Canada here, and helping hopefully put the
Nisga Nation on the map and top of mind for more and more people around the world.
So that is really something.
And clearly your leadership has helped your people get to where they are today.
And you're standing on the shoulders of obviously great men and women who brought you here today,
not just from your family, but the leaders from the council.
When you think of 1910, they started this issue over 110 years.
If only they could see today what their early initiatives have started.
That's inspiring for all Canadians and I think all Indigenous peoples around the world.
So congratulations.
Thank you.
And I want to say Nyaowen Goa, thank you very much for taking the time out of a busy schedule
and a visit to London to drop by our offices here in London and talk to us a little bit
about things that are going on in Nisga Nation.
Congratulations again on the award.
Thank you.
And safe travels back to Canada.
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
We wish you, of course, and your family a very Merry Christmas.
Oh yes, for sure, Merry Christmas.
That's all for today.
A big thank you to Eva Clayton for sharing her insights.
If you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to subscribe and leave a review on our YouTube
channel at Drum Beats Podcast.
You can also follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and more platforms listed in the description.
Mark your calendars for the 2025 summit, which will take place on the 10th of April next
year.
Thanks for listening to Drum Beats.
Until next time, I'm Mark McNaka.