Joan Phillip

Joan Phillip was born Joan Carter on 12 June 1952 in North Vancouver, British Columbia, and spent her childhood there and in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Her Indigenous name was Amshen. She was the daughter of Bob George, a Tsleil-Waututh elder who later served as Elder in Residence at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, and the granddaughter of Chief Dan George, the Tsleil-Waututh chief, actor, writer and poet. She was born alongside a twin sister, Joyce, and the author Lee Maracle was also her sister.

She became involved in political activism at the age of 16. As Joan Carter she was a member of the Native Alliance for Red Power (NARP), an Indigenous militant organisation formed in the 1960s, and the scholar Glen Coulthard has described her as one of its core members alongside Ray Bobb, Willie Dunn, David Hanuse and Henry Jack. In 1975 she led the Native Peoples Friendship Delegation, a group of 18 Western Canadian Indigenous representatives, on a visit to the People's Republic of China. She later studied Indigenous peoples' resource management at the University of Saskatchewan and through the National Aboriginal Land Managers Association.

Before entering elected office, Phillip worked for a range of First Nations and community organisations in Vancouver. She was a youth counsellor at the Outreach Alternate School run through Britannia Secondary School, worked at the First United Church's outreach alternative school, served as education and program director at the Vancouver Indian Centre (later the Aboriginal Friendship Centre) and sat on Vancouver's native police liaison committee. She was a member of the Penticton Indian Band, part of the Syilx Nation, where she served as a band councillor and, for 20 years until her retirement in September 2019, as lands manager.

Alongside her husband, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, she was a prominent environmental campaigner. She worked against the Trans Mountain pipeline, the Ajax mine near Kamloops, the Site C dam and the salmon farming industry. In 1990, in solidarity with the Mohawk during the Oka Crisis, the couple organised a rail blockade at Seton Portage and were arrested by the RCMP. The climate group 350 Canada named her one of seven candidates to watch during her federal campaigns.

A supporter of the New Democrats since about 1972, Phillip was acclaimed as the federal NDP candidate in Central Okanagan-Similkameen-Nicola in May 2019 and finished third behind the Conservative incumbent Dan Albas. She ran again in 2021 and moved the party into second place. In 2023, after the resignation of Melanie Mark, she was acclaimed as the BC NDP candidate in Vancouver-Mount Pleasant, stressing her family's long ties to the Downtown Eastside. She won the by-election on 24 June 2023 with about 68 per cent of the vote, becoming the second First Nations woman to sit in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, after Mark. Responding to Mark's description of a toxic culture in the legislature, she joked that she would give rude members "a good whack" with her SIA stick, a stick of Saskatoon berry wood.

She was re-elected in the 2024 general election in Vancouver-Strathcona, a largely unchanged but renamed riding, and on 18 November 2024 was appointed Parliamentary Secretary for Community Development and Non-profits. She supported the government's rental protection fund, safer supply of drugs and easier access to addiction services, and a universal pharmacare programme. In 2026 she opposed the Eby government's plan to suspend parts of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, and Premier David Eby cited her opposition as one of the reasons the plan was paused and then dropped. She endorsed Heather McPherson in the 2026 federal NDP leadership election.

Phillip was married to Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, and her family described him as her partner of 49 years. Stewart Phillip has said he first saw her photograph in Lee Maracle's book Bobbi Lee: Indian Rebel, and the two met as board members of the Vancouver Indian Centre Society. Both had children from earlier relationships. She raised three of her children in the Downtown Eastside, and at her death she had five surviving children, 15 grandchildren and great-grandchildren. In 2018 her stepson, Kenny Phillip, died of a carfentanil overdose, a loss she later cited in calling for safer supply and better support services. She spoke publicly about her own sobriety, saying in 2023 that she had been clean and sober for 34 years. She kept an apartment in the Downtown Eastside and a home in Penticton.

In December 2025 the BC NDP caucus announced that Phillip had been diagnosed with an illness that required treatment and that she was taking leave. In April 2026 Premier David Eby said she was "very ill" and asked people to pray for her. Her family's obituary later said she had been fighting cancer and had taken part in the legislative assembly from her hospital bed during her final year.

Joan Phillip died peacefully on the afternoon of Friday 28 August 2026, at the age of 74, surrounded by her husband, children, grandchildren and family, while Elder Eugene Harry carried out ceremony. The Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs announced her death and asked for donations to cancer charities in place of flowers.

Eby said British Columbia had lost "a powerful and respected leader" and called her "an epic fighter." Federal NDP leader Avi Lewis said she "spent a lifetime at the front of the fight for justice," Green Party leader Elizabeth May called her "a matriarch and a champion," and BC Conservative leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay said she always respected her advocacy on Indigenous issues. The BC Assembly of First Nations described her as a beacon of resistance and hope. Her funeral took place on 2 September 2026 at the Outma Sqilx'w Cultural School in Penticton and was live-streamed.

Phillip is remembered as one of the most prominent Indigenous women in British Columbia politics, a link between the Red Power activism of the late 1960s and the provincial legislature. Judith Sayers, president of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, said her willingness to break with her own caucus over the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act showed her principles and that "her impact was nationwide." Melanie Mark, her predecessor, said she brought the voice of urban Indigenous women into the legislature, including in the fight against the crisis of murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls. Her death left the Vancouver-Strathcona seat vacant, requiring a by-election.