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President & Tribal Chief, Stó:lō Tribal Council
Chair, Emergency Preparedness Secretariat (EPS)
Tribal Chief Tyrone McNeil is Stó:lō and a member of Seabird Island Band. He has extensive experience working to advance First Nations languages and education, collaborating with First Nations across the country, and developing agreements and partnerships with government.
Tribal Chief McNeil is Chair of the Emergency Planning Secretariat, an organization in the Lower Mainland that supports Mainland Coast Salish First Nations with disaster planning, preparedness and response. The EPS is currently working on a Hilekw Sq’eq’o, a Regional Action Plan for the Mainland Coast Salish to achieve resilience by blending Indigenous science and worldview with worldwide best practices. Through this role, Tribal Chief McNeil was instrumental during and after the 2021 Atmospheric River advocating and supporting Mainland Coast Salish First Nations.
Tribal Chief McNeil manages a First Nation construction company that employs up to 70 Indigenous men and women, with expertise in Operational Health and Safety, safety audits, human resources management, operations and budgeting in civil construction and pipeline industries. He also holds numerous leadership positions including:
- President of Stó:lō Tribal Council
- President of First Nation Education Steering Committee
- Assembly of First Nation's Chiefs Committee on Education representative for British Columbia
- Special Advisor to the First Nations Leadership Council on Emergency Management
- Chair of the Tripartite Emergency Management Working Group
- Chair to the Indigenous Advisory and Monitoring Committee (IAMC) to the Canada Energy Regulator
- Chair of Seabird College
- President of the Sqewqel (Seabird) Development Corporation
- Standing Chair of Union of BC Indian Chiefs.
"When we walk into a room, we are bringing our title with us, our rights with us, our thousands and thousands of years of history with us, our culture, our tradition, our spirituality. We bring everything with us all the time, because we can’t let it go, it’s too important, we have too many obligations to our future generations, to put it down at any time." (Tribal Chief McNeil – 8:35).
Visit the Emergency Planning Secretariat website to learn more about the Build Back Better, Together initiative and the work that EPS is doing to advance landscape resiliency and emergency preparedness at the local and regional scales, working with 31 Coast Salish First Nations in British Columbia.