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Transcript

My English name is Simon Smith Junior. My W̱ILṈEW̱ name is KwaliKen and I’m from Tsartlip.

What do you think to hunt and fish as formerly meant to our ancestors?

They were thinking about them at the time, but they were also thinking about the generations to come. They wanted their hunting to be carried on as the way it is, as formerly, but it changes as the years go on. We adapted our hunting practices along with what the non-First Nations brought, but we still believe in practicing our hunting rights and fishing rights.

What do you think to hunt and fish as formerly meant to our ancestors?

Fishing as formerly, for us, was easy for our ancestors at the time. Again, they were thinking about their future generation. So it’s like hunting. We started to adapt to all the things that, the nets that the non-First Nations people brought here, we started to use those.

Do you think that the Douglas Treaty should have jurisdictional authorities?

Before the Douglas treatment, we have our inherent rights, what the creator gave to us, everything that we’re supposed to look after in the land and the water. When the Douglas Treaty came and our ancestors were sitting there talking with Douglas and everything in the Douglas Treaty backs up, is all for us to take care of so that we never lose again as the years go by. So all these interruptions by these different levels of government, you could say there’s some people say there’s two. There’s not two. There’s up to about 12 different levels of government that we have to talk to. We are a rich people, we are really rich with everything that we can take off the land and water but it’s starting to disappear. We don’t really start saying anything now, we’re going to become a poorer people.

Who do you expect to be the communal/collective voice in representing your inherent Douglas Treaty Rights?

It’s an individual right, the Douglas Treaty. I can talk about my own Douglas Treaty rights, but I can’t talk about somebody else’s. I can’t talk about another family but if somebody asks me about my right to the Douglas Treaty, I can talk about my right.

If all four of what they call now bands, get together and stand together for the Douglas Treaty, not make decisions on, but make sure it’s protected because the government body can’t make a decision on the Douglas Treaty because like I said earlier, it’s an individual treaty, Douglas Treaty right. I came in the council 13 years ago now. When I first came in, I was told by some elders, he told me, when it comes to the Douglas Treaty, you do not talk about our treaty with outside governance, except if you’re gonna talk about your rights, you can talk about your rights but you can’t talk about everybody else’s.