Stewart Phillip

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip is an Okanagan Aboriginal leader who has served as President of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs since 1998. As Chief of the Penticton Indian Band in British Columbia from 1994 until 2008, as well as Chair of the Okanagan Nation Alliance, he has advocated for Aboriginal rights for the First Nations in that province and particularly in the Okanagan region.
In 2002, Phillip drew media attention when he successfully forced a film project about the Aboriginal legend of the Ogopogo to be renamed Mee-Shee: The Water Giant. He did this by claiming that "It's an international concern among indigenous people about the exploitation of spiritual entities... for commercial purposes."
On November 26, 2014, Phillip told delegates at the B.C. Federation of Labour convention that he would get arrested as a matter of principle to protest Kinder Morgan’s plans to expand the Trans Mountain pipeline. The following day Phillip joined protesters at a Kinder Morgan borehole site on Burnaby Mountain, "We are making a very clear public statement that we do not support the Harper and Clark governments when it comes to resources," he said before his arrest.