By ROY WOOD

A small piece of the long-standing claim by the Osoyoos Indian Band (OIB) over lands in the heart of the South Okanagan came before Oliver council Monday in the form of a report on the Fortis office and substation in the town.

Council conceded, however, that there is little it can do to satisfy OIB Chief Clarence Louie’s desire to have the Fortis parcel removed from the town and added to the OIB reserve.

The site, at Tucelnuit Drive and Merlot Ave., juts into OIB reserve lands, but it is owned by Fortis.

The town has been delivering services and levying taxes on the parcel since 1990 when it was included in a general expansion of the municipal boundaries in the area.

According to a report to council from chief financial officer Devon Wannop, the OIB also began sending tax notices to Fortis in 1995 as part of the band’s property taxation program “on non-native properties contained within their boundaries.”

The resulting dispute was resolved in 2000 after negotiations among the OIB, Fortis, the province and the town.

The province agreed to pay all school taxes collected on the parcel directly to the band beginning in 2004. The agreement is still in effect and the amount the OIB collected for 2016 was about $37,000, according to Wannop.

His report also informed council that if the town were to decide to change the boundaries to remove the Fortis properties it would cost about $5,000 and require the written consent of 60 per cent of residents.

Councillor Jack Bennest, who originally directed staff to prepare the report, said the reason he brought the matter forward is, “Clarence wants the land back in the reserve.” He added, however, that Louie has not made any formal application to council regarding the land.

Mayor Ron Hovanes pointed out that the Fortis land is a small part of a claim Louie has been making for years that several thousand acres of land in the Oliver/Osoyoos area was essentially stolen from the First Nations who had occupied it for millennia.

In an interview in 2015, Louie told the Penticton Herald that 19th century settlers took the best land for themselves and left the First Nations with the remainder.

“That’s why our reserve zig-zags like this against the rocks, against the mountains. They took all the best bottom lands,” Louie said.

Coming in for particular criticism was 19th century rancher Judge John Haynes: “To non-native people, Haynes might be a hero, but to us he’s a land thief. … He stole 4,000 acres of our most prime acreage, all our bottom land, from the head of Osoyoos Lake north to Oliver.”

On Monday, council agreed to send the Wannop report to Louie along with a note saying the town is not a position to do anything about the Fortis properties at this time.