Latest news with #Nlaka'pamuxNation
Globe and Mail
07-07-2025
- Business
- Globe and Mail
quA-ymn Solar Facility Achieves Commercial Operations Date
CALGARY, Alberta, July 07, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- shQUAQUash Energy Limited Partnership, an entity created by the member communities of the Nlaka'pamux Nation Tribal Council (NNTC), and BluEarth Renewables (BluEarth) announced today that the quA-ymn Solar Project is now fully operational. The project achieved its commercial operations date (COD) on June 19, on schedule and within budget. 'The quA-ymn Solar Project is beneficial to the Nlaka'pamux in myriad ways and confirms that the disciplined and principled approach of the NNTC best protects and advances Nlaka'pamux title and rights,' said Chief Matt Pasco, Chair and Title Protector, Nlaka'pamux Nation Tribal Council. 'Utility projects such as quA-ymn provide predictable funds over a long time period which allows Nlaka'pamux to develop long-term plans.' NNTC began development work on this project in 2011, and a partnership was formed with BluEarth in 2019. The project is located on 24 hectares (60 acres) of reclaimed land 50 km southwest of Kamloops, B.C. within the District of Logan Lake. quA-ymn Solar Facility is the province's first major commercial solar facility and largest solar installation to-date. A total of 39,000 solar panels will produce enough energy to power more than 2,400 homes annually for up to 40 years. Additionally, the facility will provide employment and other economic benefits for the region. 'We are proud to have been invited to partner with shQUAQUash Energy and of what we have accomplished together with this facility,' said Grant Arnold, President & CEO, BluEarth Renewables. 'We worked closely with the Nation through every stage of development, sharing the risks and cost of our joint venture, and now we are partnered to provide ongoing, long-term economic benefits to the region.' The development of this project was financed by the Canada Infrastructure Bank. About BluEarth Renewables BluEarth Renewables brings together extraordinary people with the power to change the future™ by delivering renewable energy to the power grid every day. We are a leading independent power producer that acquires, develops, builds, owns and operates wind, hydro, solar and storage facilities across North America. Our portfolio includes over 780 MW AC (gross) in operation, under construction, or with a power purchase agreement and over 7 GW of high-quality development projects that are actively being advanced. In addition, we provide third-party operating support for over 300 MW of wind and solar across North America. About NNTC The Nlaka'pamux Nation Tribal Council is a governing body of the Nlaka'pamux Nation. Established in the early 1980s, NNTC exists to protect and advance the title and rights of the Nlaka'pamux Nation. NNTC is guided by the wisdom of ancestors and elders, by the Nlaka'pamux Resolution on Natural Resources and by the fundamental law: Take care of the land and the land will take care of you. The communal nature of title and rights informs the work of the NNTC and involves land and natural resources, jurisdiction, economic independence, cultural resources, and health and well-being. The principled and disciplined approach of the NNTC has remained consistent for over 40 years.
CBC
30-06-2025
- Politics
- CBC
'Indigenous Survivors Day': a day of reflection before Canada Day
Social Sharing Today, the city of Thunder Bay is proclaiming June 30th as "Indigenous Survivors Day" and hosting community events. Sixties Scoop survivor Troy Abromaitis said he created Indigenous Survivors Day to honour children who were taken from their families and lands. He said Thunder Bay is the first city to make it a full-day event, and hopes other communities will follow. Abromaitis said Canada Day represents celebrating a country that, for many Indigenous peoples, facilitated loss and separation from their families. "By placing Indigenous Survivors Day on June 30th, we invite Canadians to reflect before they celebrate Canada Day and to remember the children who are taken and why this matters," said Abromaitis, who is a member of the Nlaka'pamux Nation from Lytton First Nation in British Columbia. Thunder Bay is a city with painful truths to confront, he said. Choosing to lead the way in recognizing Indigenous Survivors Day is a sign of courage and growth, said Abromaitis. Other places have followed, including the provinces of British Columbia, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, and municipalities including Victoria, Edmonton, Ottawa and Niagara Falls. "They give me hope that one day this will be a national day and a national movement," he said. While the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on September 30 honours the victims and survivors of residential schools, Abromaitis said there was a need to recognize survivors of other campaigns that separated Indigenous children from their families. Indigenous Survivors Day is meant to fill that gap, he said. "This is not just about history. It's about healing what is still happening with regards to Sixties Scoop survivors, Millennium Scoop survivors, birth alerts and the over representation of children in the child welfare system who carry invisible pain," said Abromaitis. 10 years after apology, '60s Scoop survivors call for more support 11 days ago Duration 2:01 Ten years ago, Manitoba's premier issued an apology to the survivors of the Sixties Scoop. On Wednesday, survivors, advocates and community members gathered at St. John's Park in Winnipeg to heal, and call attention to injustices they say are continuing. The Sixties Scoop refers to the period between the 1950s and early 1990s during which thousands of Indigenous children in Canada were apprehended by child welfare agencies and placed with non-Indigenous foster or adoptive parents. Many children were subject to physical, emotional or sexual abuse while most lost connection to their cultures and languages. The systematic removal of First Nations children from their families from 1991 on is referred to as the Millennium Scoop. The practice resulted in more Indigenous children ending up in foster care than were sent to residential schools at their peak. The practice of birth alerts – where child welfare organizations notify hospitals when they believe a pregnant patient may be 'high risk' – led to newborns being taken from their parents for days, months or even years. The province ordered an end to birth alerts in 2022 after finding it disproportionately affected Indigenous and racialized families. Indigenous children made up 53.8 per cent of all children in foster care across the country, according to Statistics Canada data from the 2021 census. Thunder Bay Indigenous Survivors Day open to all David Wilkinson-Simard, a traditional knowledge keeper and member of the City of Thunder Bay's Indigenous Advisory Council, will be leading a sacred fire and closing reflections at a community gathering at Hillcrest Park. "This is a very new event, you know, even to Native people. And we're understanding where our place is too," he said. Wilkinson-Simard said the organizers have put out calls to drum groups and hand drummers to come celebrate. They plan to share traditional music and the stories behind some ceremonies at the gathering. Wilkinson-Simard, who is also a survivor of the Sixties Scoop, said Indigenous Survivors Day is a time to share stories about the ongoing challenges Indigenous people have gone through and to celebrate their survival. "It's an opportunity to help Canadians to understand why a lot of the things are the way they are and how First Nations are pulling themselves out of all of this," said Wilkinson-Simard. While events like the Sixties Scoop and residential schools are often thought of as long-passed historical events, he said they are ongoing issues because the impacts are still felt by survivors and subsequent intergenerational trauma. The event is open to all. Wilkinson-Simard said non-Indigenous participants are encouraged to attend. "I think that's very important that as a non-Indigenous person you take the opportunity and you also take the risk of going into and learning about something that might be uncomfortable for you at first. It also is an opportunity for you to understand the challenges that many First Nations have overcome and how you can champion them," he said.
CTV News
25-06-2025
- General
- CTV News
B.C.'s Lytton First Nation still rebuilding in more ways than one, four years after wildfire
New houses being built to replace the ones destroyed by the 2021 wildfire are seen at the Lytton First Nation, in Lytton, B.C., on June 25, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck For many members of the Indigenous community that was displaced after a wildfire tore through Lytton in the summer of 2021, the process of rebuilding and returning home is one with a difficult, dual nature. Alongside the B.C. village itself, multiple Lytton First Nation reserve lands – there are over 50 in the area – were ravaged by flames. The fire incinerated the ancestral land, uprooting the community and displacing hundreds of residents. Troy MacBeth Abromaitis, a member of the Nlaka'pamux Nation and Lytton First Nation who has been leading the rebuild process, says the fire was a double-blow for many of the residents. A large portion are all too familiar with the feeling of being torn from their home and their loved ones. Abromaitis says a substantial number of members from the Indigenous communities in and around that area would have been victims of either the residential school system or the '60s Scoop, a colonial practice that took place between the late 1950s and the early 1980s that saw swathes of Indigenous children removed from their families and placed into non-Indigenous homes or institutions. As a victim of the '60s Scoop himself, Abromaitis has been spearheading the reconnection process on all fronts in recent years. This June 30 not only marks four years since the devastating fire swept through the community, but also this year's iteration of Indigenous Survivor's Day, a day established by Abromaitis in 2023 to honour and uphold the survivors and call for better support. He began advocating for the day in 2023 to honour and support the Indigenous survivors after realizing, a few years into his own reconnection journey, that there was little help for those who needed it. By 2024, various municipalities across B.C. began to observe the date, now also known as National Blanket Ceremony Day, and it has since been taken up by provinces across the country. The work to establish Indigenous Survivor's Day coincided with the rebuild of the scorched reserve lands, with Abromaitis throwing himself into fundraising mode in the months after the blaze, raising the money needed to support the community with food and shelter. The Lytton First Nation has since teamed up with a modular housing supplier to provide temporary solutions to bring the displaced families home, with 39 homes, a community centre and a band office built thus far. Abromaitis, who only reconnected with his own First Nations roots six years ago when he was aged 35, 30 years after his separation, says he hopes to lean on his own experience to help the community reintegrate. Abromaitis says he finds it difficult to put into words how important it was to him that he was able to feel 'welcome, and part of the community,' when he returned, and he hopes to show the residents returning in the wake of the fire similar levels of warmth and support. 'I think that experience has given me the ability to better relate to the members of the community who are displaced. I know how to be extra sensitive, extra cautious and extra loving,' he says. The community is making progress and is about '75 per cent of the way' towards reaching what it had been prior to the blaze, says Abromaitis. The reserve land rebuild project is progressing quicker than that of the village itself, which in comparison is around '30 to 40 per cent' through its recovery phase, he adds. 'It took many helping hands to bring the community back to where it is right now,' says Abromaitis. 'I'm grateful to be one of those helping hands, to have moved the rebuild and recovery forward to where it is now. It helped bring me closer to community, and to my family.'
