Canadian Indigenous Groups Seek Deals With China Despite Security Fears

Canada’s indigenous communities are seeking deals with China that could give Beijing access to the country’s natural resources, despite warnings from Canadian security services over doing business with Xi Jinping’s government.

This week the Canada China Business Council indigenous trade mission is in Beijing to discuss potential energy and other business deals in a trip that could put Canada’s national “reconciliation” with its First Nation communities at odds with its national security priorities.

Karen Ogen, the trade mission’s co-chair and chief executive of the First Nations Liquefied Natural Gas Alliance, said her goal on the trip, which starts on Wednesday, was to sell LNG for the benefit of the Wet’suwet’en communities in Canada’s western province of British Columbia.

“We’ve been oppressed and repressed by our own government,” she said. “I know the history with China is not good but we have an understanding of what we need and what they need.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came to power in 2015 pledging to promote “economic reconciliation” with indigenous, or first nation, communities, which for decades saw their ancestral lands and resources exploited by European settlers and their culture belittled and attacked.

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China has spotted an opportunity in the sometimes fraught relations between Canada’s national and provincial governments and indigenous groups.

In 2021, shortly after Canada imposed sanctions on Beijing over the treatment of its Uyghur population, Chinese officials began to object to the “systemic violations of Indigenous people’s rights by the US, Canada and Australia” at the UN’s Human Rights Council.

“The PRC tries to undermine trust between Indigenous communities and Canada’s government by advancing a narrative that the PRC understands and empathises with the struggles of Indigenous communities stemming from colonialism and racism,” said a spokesperson for Canada’s security intelligence service.

A 2023 CSIS report accused China’s government of employing “grey zone, deceptive and clandestine means” to influence Canadian policymaking, including Indigenous communities.

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But Matt Vickers, from Sechelt Nations land in Canada’s western province of British Columbia, who first visited China in the 1990s and is part of the CCBC delegation heading to Beijing this week, rejected the concerns of the security services.

“China now understands that for any major project to receive approval in Canada, you need First Nation consent, and not only consent but the First Nations require a majority equity play in those projects,” he said.

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