Federal government apologizes to Williams Lake First Nation for 'historic injustice'

Canada formally apologized Sunday for the "unlawful and wrongful actions" that forced members of the Williams Lake First Nation off of a significant site on their territory more than 150 years ago.

Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations Gary Anandasangaree travelled to B.C.'s Cariboo region to deliver the apology in person on behalf of the federal government and was joined by WLFN Chief Willie Sellars.

“The Williams Lake First Nation has worked hard to have this terrible wrong corrected. Our ancestors were driven from a village site our people have used for millennia," Sellars said in a statement.

Last year, after a multi-decade court battle, Canada agreed to a $135 million settlement to resolve a site-specific land claim as compensation for the colonial government having driven members of the nation from the village in 1861.

Anandasangare described the profound and lasting harms of the illegal displacement and dispossession of members of the Williams Lake First Nation before issuing the apology.

"This includes damaging their sacred connection to their homelands that had always sustained them, damaging their culture, desecration of grave sites, damaging their histories, traditions and identity inextricably connected to the Village Lands, and damaging their ability to continue to live sustainably relying on the Village Lands," he said.

"The Government of Canada accepts responsibility for this historic injustice to the WLFN and expresses its deep regret and sincere apology to WLFN for the harm suffered by being unlawfully and wrongly dispossessed and separated from WLFN Village Lands," he continued.

Sellars described the apology and the settlement as the culmination of the work of leaders across generations and described it as a "milestone in the path to reconciliation."

In addition to the financial settlement, the terms allow the WLFN to expand its reserve by as many as 1,400 acres.