Chris Sankey says he is running to be the next North Coast-Haida Gwaii MLA for his children and their children for the next seven generations.
A former Lax Kw’alaams band councillor and founder of a consulting firm that aligns Indigenous leaders with industry, Sankey is the local BC Conservative candidate for the Oct. 19 election.
“Our people shouldn’t be choosing between turning their lights on and a loaf of bread,” he said Saturday, just before the official start of the 28-day campaign.
“It’s about time the people of North Coast-Haida Gwaii were bringing their voice to Victoria.”
Sankey is Tsimshian, one of a family of nine from Lax Kw’alaams. He holds the ancestral names W’Tsin, “a person who enters quietly,” and Wudiumas, “sunrise to sunset.”
Sankey served six and a half years on Lax Kw’alaams council before returning to the private sector.
His consulting firm, Blackfish Enterprises, brings Indigenous leaders together with industry, whether fishing, forestry, oil and gas, or public infrastructure. He also served on the negotiating team for Pacific Northwest LNG, a $36-billion liquefied natural gas project approved by the federal government but cancelled for economic reasons.
“At the end of the day, I don’t speak for communities,” Sankey said, adding that his role is to make sure industry comes to the table with welcome arms.
“I provide strategic advice and negotiate impact-benefit agreements, if they’re needed,” he said.
Sankey is running in a riding that has elected a BC NDP candidate in every election but one since 1991. His party, the BC Conservatives, last governed the province in 1928.
But this year the BC Conservatives and BC NDP are nearly tied in the polls, and Sankey is not a paper candidate.
He visited Haida Gwaii this summer to meet with elected leaders from Old Massett to Skidegate and Port Clements, and he plans to hold public forums in early October.
Sankey said the leading concerns he has heard on Haida Gwaii are emergency-room closures at the Northern Haida Gwaii Hospital, the opioid crisis, affordable housing, and lack of local work for youth.
On the ER closures, Sankey said if elected he would rebalance the pay for local and fly-in agency nurses so that nurses who live and work on Haida Gwaii are better rewarded.
While agency nurses can make twice the wages and pick when and where they work, he said local nurses get less pay and more responsibility, including administration as well as patient care.
“Our nurses are burning out and that’s not good for the patients,” he said.
If elected, the BC Conservatives would repeal B.C.’s safer-supply policy, which allows doctors and nurse practitioners to prescribe regulated versions of some opioids to drug users.
Sankey said drugs from the safer-supply program are making their way to the black market, putting youth at risk.
“That is wrong, and I’m a recovering drug addict,” he said. “I know what it does. It destroys your relationships. It destroys your wellbeing.”
As MLA, Sankey said a top priority would be to get a detox centre built in North-Coast Haida Gwaii. The nearest one is in Prince George.
Asked about his own struggle with addiction, Sankey said it was also a struggle to overcome intergenerational trauma.
“All my family went to residential school and even day school, and that stuff trickles down,” he said. “I want to spread the message to those that are struggling that you’re not alone.”
On housing, Sankey said the BC Conservatives would cut permitting times and continue a build-out of affordable housing — something he credits Christy Clark’s BC Liberal government for starting.
On the local economy, Sankey he knows the Haida Nation wants to get more value from forestry, including tree-planting and more remediation work.
As MLA, he said he would help develop forestry and other industries by encouraging more coordinated efforts between Haida Gwaii and the mainland.
“I’ve always imagined the Tsimshian, the Haida, the Heiltsuk, Nuxalk and the municipalities coming under one flag to work together,” he said.
Sankey said he and BC Conservative Party leader John Rustad are in full support of Haida title.
In May, the BC Conservatives voted against the B.C. bill recognizing Haida title, but Sankey said that was only because it was too unclear about what it means for privately owned, fee-simple lands.
“Should we win government, my job is to get that across the finish line as long as we define what fee-simple jurisdiction means,” he said.
“It gives them an economic opportunity, where it creates certainty for the Haida people and non-Haida people living on the island. And it’s about time.”