Ethics and the

    Columbia River Treaty

    Righting Historic Wrongs

1. -
   

     Jay Johnson

Jay Johnson is the Chief Negotiator and Senior Policy Advisor to the Chiefs’ Executive Council of the  Okanagan Nation Alliance (ONA), a southern interior Indigenous Nation in BC operating on 69,000km2 of territory that includes the Okanagan, Similkameen valleys, the (Arrow Lakes Area in the) West Kootenays and in northern Washington State under ONA’s relatives the Colville Confederated Tribes.

Jay has worked to represent and advance indigenous governance, title and rights interests for over fifteen years. On behalf of the Okanagan Nation he has led a variety of natural resource and energy sector negotiations and governance files, including the Columbia River Treaty negotiations and a ground-breaking indigenous relationship agreement with BC Hydro.

Jay is the BC First Nations Leadership Council`s provincial coordinator of the BC First Nations Gaming Committee, has been a special advisor to three BC cabinet ministers and has worked on international development projects in Jordan, Egypt, Mexico and the Caribbean.

Jay holds an MA in International Political Economy from Dalhousie and is a PhD Candidate at the University of Alberta. He continues to advise the Okanagan Nation Chiefs on a host of matters and has taught political science and indigenous governance at the University of Alberta, Athabasca University and the University of Victoria where he, his wife and two sons currently live.

email:  johnson-jay@shaw.ca