Ambiguous language and short-sightedness are perhaps to blame for the legal mire the federal government found itself in following its closure of the Coqualeetza tuberculosis hospital. Documents from the 1920s state that Indian Affairs purchased the property from the United Church, and adjacent parcels of land from local farmers, for the education of Indigenous people. After the site was abandoned, it seemed to the Stó:lō people that making use of the buildings for their education should continue.

Future Prime Minister Jean Chrétien was at this time the Minister for Indian Affairs.* Communications between the band and the department became increasingly tense, as the Pierre Trudeau government did not appear to be making the issue a high priority. The buildings otherwise were mostly sitting empty; the Armed Forces had leased a portion of the property, while the City of Chilliwack and the Post Office were eyeing the remaining land with great interest.

The Stó:lō continued their education centre activities following the 1976 occupation of the site, which had been something of a national embarrassment for the federal government. The tribe took to a policy of non-payment for the use of the buildings and doubled-down on the assertion of legal right with the assistance of a Vancouver law firm. Another major factor in this case was the Department of Indian Affairs’ previous funding of the various changes for non-educational purposes on the property over several decades. If the government could not only allow other departments to utilize the land but pay to accommodate their stay, why then should the Stó:lō people, who have been promised the benefit of its educational use, be charged rent? As attitudes towards First Nations people in Canada evolved, from this stalemate eventually the situation worked out in their favour. When Prime Minister Chrétien’s government closed CFB Chilliwack in 1997, talks finally resumed and the Stó:lō Nation filed a formal land claim. In 2008, the rights for the use of the property were divided among all 21 bands of the Stó:lō.

 

*Another connection with the Prime Minister’s office apparently occurred in 1956, when Paul Martin Sr. (father of future PM Paul Martin) laid a new cornerstone of the Coqualeetza building while Minister of National Health and Welfare.