Board Member
Christine Scotnicki is a lawyer working for the Gitksan Watershed Authorities and Skeena Fisheries Commission.
She grew up in Edmonton and obtained her BA from the University of Alberta in 1983. She has practiced law in the interests of Indigenous peoples since attending the University of Victoria law school and being called to the bar in 1989. She resides in Victoria, B.C. After several years working with a downtown Vancouver firm providing general legal services primarily to Bands, Tribal Councils, and several national Aboriginal organizations, Christine began working with the then Gitksan & Wet’suwet’en Tribal Council in early 1991.
She became in-house counsel with the Gitxsan Chiefs in November, 1994 and was involved with negotiations at the provincial and federal level as the Chiefs implemented several governance initiatives, notably for community-based self-government, health services, and child welfare. She advised the Chiefs in treaty negotiations in the post-Delgamuukw era.
From 1994 until 1997, Christine practiced law part-time while partnering with two other women to establish a neighbourhood garden centre on Vancouver’s east side. Nearly 20 years (and several changes of ownership) later, Figaro’s Garden continues to serve the Commercial Drive neighbourhood.
Christine has worked for the Gitksan Watershed Authorities and Skeena Fisheries Commission since late 2003. GWA is the Gitxsan fisheries program and SFC acts on behalf of its member Nations the Gitxsan, Gitanyow, Wet’suwet’en, Lake Babine, and Tsimshian First Nations for fisheries and other natural resource issues along the Skeena River. With increasing development pressures on the territories of the SFC First Nations, her work has increasingly involved issues at the intersection of Aboriginal and environmental law.
On board since: October 2012
Boards:
- West Coast Environmental Law Research Foundation