Chief Crystal Smith — 2025 Testimonial Dinner Award Honouree

“Government relationships are a work in progress that we all have to undertake and grow together to ensure that we’re on the right path to self–determination. It’s not an overnight process. But the commitment has to remain that we want better opportunities for our future generations.” 

Shortly after Chief Crystal Smith was elected to lead Haisla First Nation in 2017, she requested to meet with some MLAs in Victoria, B.C., an encounter that left her stunned and more determined than ever to help her people.  

Having been a Haisla Nation councillor for four years, working alongside Chief Ellis Ross on a variety of legal agreements with resource development companies to ensure her community received tangible benefits and opportunities in exchange for projects on their lands, she “didn’t come in green,” as she puts it.  

“I knew where each file was. I knew people that we spoke with. I knew how to utilize the resources that we had just from listening and watching the previous leadership conduct their business.” 

But the reception she experienced was dismissive and rude. Across the table from her, MLAs were “talking very condescendingly, very argumentatively. Our political lobbyist at the time said that he had never in his life seen MLAs act in that manner,” Chief Smith explains. They were talking about environmental impacts of proposed developments and social aspects, “telling me what our people needed to do.”  

Her response was immediate and pointed. She had spent her whole life on Haisla reserve in Kitimaat Village on the Douglas Channel on the north coast of British Columbia. Amidst a stunning environment of steep mountains and a deep, misty fiord, the landscape of her youth was dotted with Rio Tinto’s aluminum smelter, West Fraser’s pulp and paper mill and Methanex’s methanol facility, all of which had located on Haisla territory “without any type of consent,” she points out. The Haisla First Nation wasn’t even allowed to have legal representation during those negotiations.  

“I see you have a plan for a lot of environmental components,” she told the MLAs in the Victoria meeting. “However, what is your solution for people in my community committing suicide? What is your solution for opportunities for career advancements for my people?” Those questions provoked a heated conversation, she recalls, “because they didn’t have any solutions.”   

Now, less than 10 years later, Cedar LNG — the world’s first liquified natural gas facility majority-owned by an Indigenous nation (in partnership with Calgary’s Pembina Pipeline Corporation) — is under development, and Chief Smith is managing prosperity rather than despair.   

Anticipated to be in service in late 2028, the US$4-billion export terminal — and largest majority-owned Indigenous infrastructure project in Canada — brings innovative engineering with its floating design and will be one of the lowest-emitting LNG facilities in the world. A key decision was to use renewable electricity from BC Hydro and leverage existing LNG infrastructure, including the Coastal GasLink pipeline that will deliver 400 million cubic feet per day of Canadian natural gas. The year-round ice-free port on Douglas Channel offers the shortest shipping route to key Asian markets, where Canadian gas could replace coal and be part of the solution to transitioning to greener energy.  

“Government relationships are a work in progress that we all have to undertake and grow together along with the province, and also the federal government, to ensure that we’re on the right path to self-determination. It’s not an overnight process. Their government is always changing. Our governments are always changing. But the commitment has to remain that we want better opportunities for our future generations.”  

But the road to success was long and had many ups and downs, including pushback from environmentalists and criticism from other Indigenous nations.  

“When it first started happening, it was definitely hard to see other Indigenous, especially Indigenous women, criticize me. It didn’t so much bother me when Indigenous men were saying their opinion, although it was a very immature approach. But it really took a toll when I would receive messages through different platforms on social media, expressing their utter disgust with me. People said we were sell-outs; that we had signed over our lands for money.”  

LNG projects had been under discussion for the Kitimaat area since the 1980s without coming to fruition for a variety of global economic reasons. In 2014, Doug Arnell, a 30-year veteran of energy development on the Haisla negotiating team and now CEO of Cedar LNG, raised the idea of equity partnerships and majority ownership.  

“He came up with a brilliant, crazy idea of negotiating capacity off the Coastal Gas Link pipeline and for us to own a facility. I remember sitting in a room in Calgary when Doug brought the thought to Chief Ellis Ross, Taylor Cross [a councillor] and myself. To which we said, ‘Sure, but you’re never going to get it.’”   

It took four years until the final investment decision (FID) was made by all parties, during which time the Nation was exploring other opportunities should the funding not come through. “We celebrated with LNG Canada for maybe a day or two, then we got right back to work, forming our first board of directors for Cedar,” Chief Smith explains.  

The Cedar name was chosen for cultural reasons. “Cedar provided strength to our people. We built canoes. We built long houses. We used the bark. We built totem poles. It was a foundation of our lives in our territory.” 

All negotiations were done in the spirit of Nuuyum, the laws and traditions of the Haisla Nation. “It’s about everything,” Chief Smith says. “I don’t even know how to put it in words. They’re what you’re taught from the time that you’re brought into this world: from the way you treat other people, how you conduct yourself, how you give back, how you take care of your surroundings, how you take care of your land.” 

In the end, the criticism coming from other Indigenous communities “brought our people together,” Chief Smith says. “Our people saw that they had career opportunities. Our people saw that they had contract opportunities, entrepreneurial opportunities. They voiced that, and it was amazing to see our people come together over a negative aspect and have each other’s backs through this process. It provided strength to me and showed me that what I was working towards meant so much more. And now they can message me on Facebook. They can message me on Instagram. They can message me on TikTok. And I’ll remain true to what this industry has done for our people now that Impact Benefit Agreements with LNG and Coastal Gas Link have kicked in.”  

Chief Smith’s resilience, strength and determination are rooted in hardship. Tears come easily when she speaks of her accomplishments. “I grew up at a time when it wasn’t popular to be Indigenous, in a time when there weren’t many opportunities.”  

She was raised in a loving home by her grandparents, her mother and two uncles who did everything possible to ensure that she and her twin sister had the best life they could provide, encouraging them to pursue higher education. “But that still, unfortunately, didn’t protect me from the experiences of sexual abuse. And I’ve experienced alcohol addictions [among family members]. I’ve also, unfortunately, experienced suicide. I lost my common-law partner in 2013 to suicide,” the same year she was elected a Haisla councillor. Her grandmother, with whom she was very close, died when she was 15, and her mother five years later. “I’ve experienced a lot of loss,” the mother of two girls says plainly.  

Openly talking about what it was like to grow up on a reserve became a strength rather than something to hide, a tactic she learned under the tutelage of Ellis Ross, who has been an MLA in B.C. since 2017. He often publicly described “what it was like to be Indigenous and how he felt about the strong, brave leadership that fought for our rights along the way and how their fight needed to be utilized to strengthen our communities,” she says.  

“Government relationships are a work in progress that we all have to undertake and grow together along with the province, and also the federal government, to ensure that we’re on the right path to self-determination. It’s not an overnight process. Their government is always changing. Our governments are always changing. But the commitment has to remain that we want better opportunities for our future generations.”  

Chief Smith’s term ends in early June. She is eligible to run again. “I’m about 90 percent sure I will,” she offers. “I’ve been asked in the past to run for the Conservatives and to run provincially as well. However, my question always is, ‘In what position do I have the most influence?’ And I feel that I’m in the place that I need to be. I’m very, very loyal to my people. I can’t see myself enduring some of this political stuff for anybody other than my community.”