Indigenous leader faces sex assault charges
Longtime First Nations chief faces four counts from alleged 1974 incidents
A top B.C. Indigenous leader, Edward John, has been charged with sexual assaults alleged to have happened more than 40 years ago in Prince George.
John, 70, a hereditary chief of the Tl’azt’en Nation and a former B.C. minister for children and families, faces four counts of having sexual intercourse with a woman without her consent, according to the B.C. Prosecution Service.
Lawyer Michael Klein has been appointed as a special prosecutor in the case.
Prosecution spokesman Dan McLaughlin said he would not comment on the woman’s age or identity, and said no further details would be released.
The incidents are alleged to have occurred between March 1 and Sept. 15, 1974.
McLaughlin said the reason the charge is “sexual intercourse with a female person without her consent” is because they are using Criminal Code provisions from 1974 when the term sexual assault was not used.
John is to appear in provincial court in Prince George on Dec. 10.
John could not be reached for comment. His wife Wendy GrantJohn declined to comment, saying she was in Ottawa and wasn’t aware of what was going on.
Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs said he was still processing the news Thursday.
“Needless to say, it’s shocking. Without question these are very serious allegations with enormous ramifications,” he said, adding that he wasn’t prepared to comment further.
John has served in many provincial, federal and international leadership roles and has a long history of Indigenous activism.
He was a member of Ujjal Dosanjh’s cabinet from 2000 to 2001 in the children’s ministry, and ran unsuccessfully for the B.C. NDP in 2001.
In 2015, then-premier Christy Clark appointed John as special adviser on Indigenous children in care, and after extensive consultations he submitted a report a year later containing 85 recommendations to overhaul B.C.’s Indigenous child-welfare system.
The recommendations were aimed at improving outcomes for Indigenous children and youth by changing the focus from intervention and separation to strengthening families.
John served 11 terms, ending in June, as an elected leader on the First Nations Summit political executive.
The First Nations Summit said in a statement Thursday that John’s contract as an adviser to the body has been immediately suspended “pending the outcome of this legal matter.”
John is also former member of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and was involved in the development of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples adopted by the UN in 2007.