 What's happening with human rights around the world on Think Tech Live, broadcasting from our downtown studio in Honolulu, Hawaii, Moana, New York. I'm your host, Joshua Cooper, and the title of today's episode is the Cycle Team Nation Aboriginal Land Title, Canada's Supreme Court Landmark Decision. It's an honor to have two amazing individuals with me, Chief and Cultural Ambassador, sharing their perspectives on the importance of the current 21st session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Chief Francis, can you share with me a little bit about your ancestral homelands and unique culture and cosmology of the amazing Cycle Team Nation? Thank you. We have a very vast land base. We have a few big lakes, river system. We've got about a million salmon that come back every year. We've got pretty well all the animals. We've got pretty cold winters. We had hot summers. We've pretty well got everything that we need to live our cultural lifestyle, traditional lifestyle, so we're pretty fortunate. Thank you so much, Payah. What was it like growing up in the nation and how have you been able to make sure that the cultural values are able to continue and even I would say be in abundance in your lifetime and the amazing work that you do? Yeah, I feel like it's something that I don't realize that we take it for advantage of until we travel a lot more for me growing up. It was every summer being able to catch hundreds of sockeye salmon a day going out and harvesting deer, moose, elk. And it was such an abundance of food and being able to go and harvest the berries, going out to harvest the medicines, going out to explore the land and it provides very easily to sustain us as a people. And it's not until I'm 24 now, and it's not until I started coming out into so-called civilization into the cities and grocery stores and coming to places like New York and going to Geneva and seeing like a lot of the skid rows and how less fortunate a lot of people are compared to us as indigenous people. There's a lot of our own people who are less fortunate but who are stuck on what we call the Black Road and that's a deal with like getting caught up in drugs and alcohol. But for the people that live traditionally out on the land, there are still communities in our nation that go without electricity, they go without running water and that's everyday life for them. It's not something that they're worried about. We can drink straight out of our rivers, out of the lakes and the creeks and we don't have to be worried about it being repainted or having any type of chemicals in them. It's all natural. So it's very, very hard warming to know where I come from, to know that's the territory, the South Cotein territory that we come from. So it makes me value that so much more being able to look back on it and to say that I'm South Cotein and that's basically my interpretation of what it is, what title is, what title means to me and it's just everyday indigenous South Cotein life and that's how it is. Very refreshing and that's also the way I felt growing up in Hawaii is, you know, you have the ocean, you have the Mauna and you had everything you needed in between, and you don't know because the world defines itself just through consumerism and capitalism. But then you realize you actually have all that you needed is provided from nature in many ways. Chief, could you maybe share with us a bit about the history of the South Cotein and how you've been able to uphold your traditional values and even survive through colonization but more importantly be able to provide the path forward for all worlds as we look at more of one of self determination and sustainable development. Our history is like quite a few other nations, I guess, pretty genocide happened to us. We're not really supposed to be here. We're supposed to have been wiped out by now. We were pretty vast, maybe I'm not too sure exactly but probably in the thousands at one time and the government introduced smallpox intentionally into our nation a few times and yeah, it was reduced down to about a couple of hundred people and so that's they were after the land and all the resource I guess we had some gold and all those type of things timber and whatnot and yeah, so our people got together, some of our war leaders and whatnot and they declared war on the government of the time and they killed quite a few of the people that were there, the non-natives and called it the Chilokotin War and they tricked their leaders into coming in for peace talks and then they hung them. They hung six of our leaders and that's what they did and we're kind of rebounding. We're getting serious about our regain in our land and 2014 there was a Supreme Court case started out in BC Supreme Court and then it ended up in Ottawa Supreme Court and after a hundred and some odd years they finally said yeah, you do have title, recognized title, title and rights but we've always had that, we still do today to all of our territory as most nations across this country, they all have title also but we had a bunch of elders that testified just in most of them in our language and they had to have interpreters and all that and so that's what happened. Pretty big area, about 20% of our territory I guess is now recognized title by the governments and industry and everybody else and we're trying to regain all of our territory and get our full jurisdiction back which is important for us and that's the only way we're going to be able to survive as indigenous Chilokotin, that's where all our power and who we are as a people that we don't have to land and our way of life and it won't work so that land is the biggest part of it so that's very important for us and everybody else that's indigenous. That's an amazing historical perspective to put it into that realm of really especially in the age of COVID too that there was intentional infliction of disease to try to wipe out your people that your people are still here and then more importantly sharing even the importance of the legal case brought forward in 2014 and then describing some of those important elements of that case, but it all comes back to land and if indigenous peoples have their lands, then they almost have everything that they need to survive but also even thrive. Payall, could you describe a little bit of where your land is in Canada because many people have trouble with geography and don't know enough about Canada. Can you maybe describe your homeland and share some of them abundance that you're able to enjoy every day and then we'll get also into why that case in 2014 meant so much to you as well. Yeah, we're located in western Canada in so called British Columbia, Central British Columbia on what's called Chilcotin Plateau and that's about six, seven hours north of Vancouver BC, a drive from Vancouver. And it's in between Williams Lake BC, everything from Williams Lake BC towards Anaheim Lake and Bella Cula British Columbia is what we call our Chilcotin territory. And there's a wide, wide variety of ecosystems in the territory, which ranges from desert Sahara like environments. And then we can go all the way to almost tropical heading kind of southwest of the territory down towards our border with the Hamalco Nation. That goes along the Cascade Mountains that go down British Columbia. And we've got our glacier fed lakes, we've actually got one of the highest elevated lakes in western Canada. And it's known as a Chilcot Lake, we call it Taitkhon B in our language. And it's a lake that's roughly about 90 to 100 kilometers long, and probably about two or three kilometers wide. And that entire lake is another world in itself. It sustains not only us as a people with fresh water, but it creates a habitat for one of the largest wild sockeye salmon in the world. And that's one of our main food sources is the Chilcotin people. And we usually expect it to provide at least a million wild sockeye salmon to swim up the Fraser, then into the Chilcotin River, then to the Chilcot Lake. And on a good year, usually every four years, it's a four year cycle where we expect upwards of four to five million wild sockeye salmon to swim up and spawn. And so that's how we're known as the river people. It translates to the word sockeye translates into the river people. And that's all in part of what it means and how important it is, how the, what the title case meant to me. Back in 2014, I was, I believe I was probably, I was about 15, 14 years old. And when I was there, as a youth, at first they were only sending some elders and the leaders and I lobbied and and put in my proposals with all the communities saying, Hey, I think the youth should be there as well. So I wrote up my proposal and I sent them to all the communities and sent it to the nation. And said I got my drum I'm ready to go to sing some songs and to, to support as a youth and so that we can show that us as youth also have a voice to be heard on Chilcotin and rights. And that's our right as youth to be there and to show that and to be there and offer that strength, whether it's through song or whether it's through prayer. And so with, with that it's, it's like Chief Francis was saying it's really about the land. It's, it's all interconnected. The land provides for us. We are caretakers of the land. We. It's not that we have to prove to the government that we have title. As it's not that we don't have title. It's just us giving the opportunity to whether it's the federal or the provincial government to, to have that opportunity to recognize what title is and what those rights are and that that the title is there. And that we just have to try our best as an indigenous peoples to show them what, what title is, and so that they can recognize that in their courts and in their law systems. And so that they can teach that to, to the youth of the province and, and to the children in the school system so that, and also to, to nations worldwide to know that it's possible that it's something that we can have so it's something that I'll remember for for the rest of my life and something that I've witnessed with my own eyes that see the the dozen or so Supreme Court judges all they had no choice to, to, to, to recognize that we had title title land and rights to to the to the it's roughly 1900 square kilometers. And so that's where the title lands is around the northern part of Chilco Lake, and it encompasses the one of our six communities in the South Dakota nation known as honey within the Maya Valley. And it also kind of follows the river that comes from the north side of the lake and it goes up roughly 30 kilometers or so 20 kilometers or so I could be wrong on that part but that part I'm not too familiar with because I recognize our entire areas as title and then it's something that I look forward to working with the leaders and the provincial government and the federal government to, to have the rest of it and that's, that's just the start of it and then. So, yeah, it's very, very important for me to, to continue that work to continue the, the prayers and the songs as that's what keeps us going as indigenous people continuing to be who we are as indigenous people and to carry that spirit, the strength that our ancestors fought for those, those, those warriors that got hung their spirits are here with us today doing the work and they're, they're behind us, guiding us in our every step to to do this could work so yeah. And that was the sense of the nation when the spring course case was decided because it was so historic to guarantee title and really revolutionized jurisprudence in Canada but maybe also rippling around the world as well. Chief, could you share that moment. Yeah, that was the. That was a historic, historic day and historic time. We had a lot of a lot of interveners that intervene from across the great across Canada. You know, so that was quite something and I think that's what kind of threw off the judges and all the lawyers that were there they, I don't think they knew what hit them and you know it was a pretty powerful, pretty powerful day. From there we celebrate it and I think great across BC and Canada and basically when we got over here to the United Nations form in New York and also we're into Geneva. So we, we were celebrating but letting people know what, what that was all about and basically given ever all the other nations hope worldwide that they all have title also, and for them not to give up. That's what it's all about and the governments and industry have to realize that you know that they can't continue to deny the nations of this world that they have Aboriginal title and rights but more, more important, the human rights. And that's what that's all about. You know, so it's really important. Thank you. That's a great point. Thank you so much. What's it like to be here at the UN permanent forum this week you're at the 21st session. What were some of the highlights and what points did you raise this week. Chief if you want to go first and then move to pay up. One of the things that we were managed to get on the floor again at the UN form indigenous, indigenous form there, but we, we still have minors that are we're dealing with in our territory and they still haven't quite gotten a picture that we have title and we have full jurisdiction of our, of our territory and but yeah, we want to let them know industry and governments know that they can continue you know without consent. You know, right now we were holding the minors off and that's we have we got consent and you know, they need our consent to if they're if there's any can be any movement at all. But right now there's a decision that no mining whatsoever to that's that's why we do have a million fish that come back every year if there's they're trying to get up into that area so right now we're saying no our food is more important than clean water is more important than any amount of gold or our money. That's that's what we're all about and we're six communities and we all we're all all the people in our care in our nation that's what they want. It's the food over anything else in our traditional way of life and you know so that very important case and we're going to push until we get 100% title back and basically our leaders from long long ago they they had a you know we can't give up until until that is done we have an honor and a duty to uphold you know because of that and if we have to go all that do that again if we have to declare war or you know if we have to whatever whatever it takes will we're we're going to get her done for the ones all our sales caught in that are here now and the ones that are not here yet you know that's what it's all about and that's definitely why it's important for you to be here for the main agenda item. The theme of indigenous peoples business autonomy and the human rights principle of due diligence including free prior informed consent. So it's definitely great that your voice is added and pale I think this afternoon. In the middle of the events you were at a circle can you share us a little bit about the the drumming circle and what you were doing there and why that was important as well as being inside the room and any other highlights of your time here so far at the 21st session of the permit form. Yeah that was was definitely a highlight in for this week it was it's quite the opportunity to to sit around that that grandfather drum with with fellow singers coming from from all over all over Turtle Island North America and it was another thing I'll really I'll really be excited to to share with with my relatives back home is that we got to sit around that drum and and we had no idea who who who was who where they came from so we sit down and we sing these songs and and we all know the songs we know the words whether it's a Lakota Sue prayer song or if it's a Plains Cree round dance song who was another round dance song that comes from the Algonquin territory and we were singing them together like as as if we've been singing for years together and it was it was very very a spirit lifting and it was a really positive moment to to be able to sing those songs and to to vibrate the buildings around on the streets of New York City and when when we prepare and when we we left British Columbia the territory it's it's like we're okay we're getting ready for business we're going to go sit in a forum we're going to go sit in a big meeting room and there's not going to be much room for for culture for language or for songs and it's it's really like a relief to to express ourselves the way that we that we always have and that's through through song and dance and through sharing that heartbeat with the grandfather drum and that some that I feel us as indigenous are are really well known for as not being a being shy from portraying ourselves like vibrantly as as indigenous people were were not scared to show off our colors were not scared to to whoop and holler around and that's that's something I'm very proud of and so I'll be proud to say that I've sang with new relatives new brothers that have made and it's always something now no matter where we travel whether it's New York whether it's in Geneva Switzerland or even if it's just Vancouver BC everywhere we go it's like they know that word side coating and they know they it's like they know that side coatings are in town so they know something's going down and they know that there's going to be some singing somewhere they know there's going to be some drumming or you know that there's some serious business going down whether it's meeting with some minors mining companies or more relatives and nations across the country so I look forward to to finish an off the week meeting with more relatives and to creating those connections that we get to make in the United Nations it's it's like even just us as side coating when we walk into the permanent forum we feel like we're magnets to two other indigenous groups that they they they know what side coating they they know the work that we've done they know the work that we can do and so it's just like pre-European contact when nations went to visit each other they traded with materials side coating were very well known for having traded with obsidian and the glass stones and it's still like that today without the physical objects were trading that knowledge like we go to Alpioria and we mean with our Maori fauna we traded knowledge as for example maybe side coating lacked a little bit of strength in the economic development side of things and the Maori are doing very well in their tourism part and their economic development but they lacked a little bit on their title and their rights and they're working with their laws and things like that and so we helped them and we showed them how we could do their work in the title case and so it's just like that how we used to trade back before contact but we're integrating that into today's modern day and we're able to trade words we're able to trade songs we're able to trade knowledge and we're able to trade that language and to be able to do that so yeah very exciting things going on and my dad, chief Francis and to experience that and to say that it's a multi-generational experience as a family I've got my daughter here and my wife and we're here we get to experience that and we get to share that experience together and we get to bring that home to our community and to know it's absolutely beautiful it's great to see the whole ohana there and what you're sharing really about the Supreme Court decision we know that led probably to the adoption of the UN DRIP legislation in BC in Canada and we also know that you actually not only participated in Ottawa but also saying a closing song I know we only have a couple of minutes but would you like to share that song with the audience if that's possible and then we'll close out but I really want to thank both of you for joining your amazing contribution here at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues I was actually the first person in Canadian history to sing on the floor of the House of Commons while I was in session so it was the only time I've ever heard it quiet in the House of Commons where the parties weren't bickering and arguing with each other they had to stand up and say hello to each other it's a great honor song that was being sung so I could sing that song it's our song that talks about our warriors and it's more like an honor song Mahalo if you could that's great and I know we'll have to cut away afterwards but Mahalo and thank you so much both for appearing today Mahalo thank you so much for being part of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and we know Indigenous Peoples of the World appreciate your perspective around the planet Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com Mahalo