Tribal council shut down after years of turmoil

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The Tsimshian Tribal Council (TTC) has been shut down and the society put into receivership, ending a bitter power struggle between the council and its member bands.

The TTC's doors closed last month after years of dispute and disarray in the Tsimshian Nation came to a head with a recent ruling by the B.C. Supreme Court that gave the bands the power to dissolve the council.

The TTC is now in the hands of a receiver, KPMG, which is winding down the society's affairs.

The council had tried to stop what it described in a press release as "a hostile takeover" by "a group of individuals, without any valid authority," resulting in the RCMP coming in and having to shut down the office this past June.

The "group of individuals" were chosen by the bands to replace board members that had been appointed by the TTC after the bands stopped sending members themselves.

A number of Tsimshian bands had resolved to withdraw from the TTC as early as 2003 and to seek funding, normally reserved for the TTC, to pursue treaty negotiations with the federal and provincial governments on their own.

A June 19, 2003 resolution by the Lax Kw'Alaams band and the Allied Tsimshian Tribes Association (ATTA) directed chief councillor Gary Reece to pursue those directives with the B.C. Treaty Commission that would lead to a "revised negotiation process."

John Rich, an attorney from Ratcliff and Co., which represents Lax Kw'Alaams and the ATTA, explained that the TTC had outlived its usefulness and the bands, for various reasons, have decided to go their own way. But the council, or at least what remained of it, saw it differently.

Led by long-time president Robert Hill, the TTC contended that it alone represents the interests of the Tsimshian Nation, claiming that the band councils were ignoring the hereditary system of governance and, because they are "merely creatures of the Indian Act," they lack any authority to negotiate for the whole of the Tsimshian traditional territories.

The TTC also asserted that almost three-quarters of the Tsimshian people were not consulted by the coalition of bands about the decision to take over TTC duties.

Besides the ATTA, five other Tsimshian bands-Metlakatla, Kitsumkalum, Kitselas, Kitasoo/Xaixais, and Giga'at-have united under the name Tsimshian First Nations and began working with the B.C. Treaty Commission this past spring.

The Kitkatla band has removed itself from the process, but plans to reengage in the future.

The TTC was formed in 1993 as a body authorized by the Tsimshian tribes to begin treaty negotiations but it became stalled at the fourth stage (negotiation of agreement in principle) in 1996 and moved no further.

In recent years, Tsimshian bands have been striking land settlement, and resource and economic accords on their own, in an environment of government-First Nations relationships that B.C. Treaty Chief Commissioner Steven Point says has never been better.