Vancouver-Strathcona MLA Joan Phillip dies at 74

PENTICTON — Vancouver-Strathcona New Democrat MLA Joan Phillip passed away Friday afternoon at 74 after a lengthy illness.The Union of BC Indian Chiefs, which her husband Grand Chief Stewart Phillip has led for more than a quarter-century, said she died peacefully, surrounded by “the love of her life,” their children, grandchildren and family.“Joan was a fearless warrior and inspirational leader, and we will miss her dearly,” the union said. The family asked for privacy and, in lieu of flowers, donations to the BC Cancer Society.An exact cause of death was not given. On Thursday the union said she was in hospital fighting a kidney infection and septic shock. Health problems first became public in December 2025. Premier David Eby told reporters on April 23 she was “very ill” and asked British Columbians to pray for her. She had voted from a hospital bed the day before that announcement..“British Columbia lost a powerful and respected leader when Joan Amshen Phillip died earlier today,” Eby wrote Friday. “Our caucus and staff are grieving alongside her family and so many others who knew and loved her.”In a follow-up post he called her “an epic fighter who dedicated her life to making the world a better and fairer place.”.Phillip was the sitting MLA for Vancouver-Strathcona and parliamentary secretary for community development and non-profits, a post she received on November 18, 2024. She first won the predecessor riding of Vancouver-Mount Pleasant in a June 24, 2023 byelection after Melanie Mark resigned, taking just under 68% of the vote. After the 2024 redistribution renamed and redrew the seat, she held Vancouver-Strathcona in the general election with just over 68% against Conservative Scott Muller.The vacancy will force a byelection in one of the New Democrats’ safest Vancouver seats. It is the second empty desk in the 93-seat legislature this month, after Abbotsford-Mission MLA Reann Gasper resigned so Conservative Leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay could seek a seat.Findlay issued her own statement Friday evening..“While we stood on different sides of the political aisle, I always respected Joan’s fierce dedication to her community, her lifelong advocacy, and her unwavering leadership on Indigenous issues,” she wrote. “She served the people of Vancouver with determination and conviction.”.Born Joan Carter in North Vancouver on June 12, 1952, Phillip was the granddaughter of Tsleil-Waututh actor and chief Dan George and the daughter of elder Robert “Bob” George. She was a twin. Among her siblings was the late Stó:lō writer Lee Maracle, whose 1975 memoir Bobbi Lee: Indian Rebel carried a photograph of Joan that Stewart Phillip later said stopped him mid-page.She grew up between North Vancouver and Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and was in the streets by 16. Glen Coulthard later listed Joan Carter among the core members of Vancouver’s Native Alliance for Red Power, the late-1960s direct-action circle that borrowed its program from the Black Panthers and, in the years that followed, sent delegates into other Third World struggles. In 1975 she led an 18-person Native Peoples Friendship Delegation to the People’s Republic of China. She later spoke for her band during the Oka Crisis, travelled to Chiapas after the Zapatista uprising, and helped organize a 1990 rail blockade in solidarity with Kanehsatà:ke.The same woman spent two decades as lands manager for the Penticton Indian Band, sat on band council, worked as a youth counsellor at Britannia Secondary School and as education and program director at the Aboriginal Friendship Centre in Vancouver. She ran twice federally for the NDP in Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, finishing third to Conservative Dan Albas in 2019 and second in 2021..She and Stewart Phillip had been married nearly 40 years. Official biographies listed five surviving children, 15 grandchildren and one great-grandchild. In 2018 her stepson Kenny Phillip died of a carfentanil overdose the day after his 42nd birthday, leaving six children.Inside the legislature her shortest and most consequential fight came this spring. With the New Democrats holding a one-seat majority, Eby floated a confidence vote to suspend parts of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act. Stewart Phillip told reporters his wife was “heartsick” over the plan and that the premier had sidelined his own caucus. Eby later credited her as one of the reasons the government stood down.Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council president Judith Sayers, who had known her for about 40 years, said that willingness to break with her own caucus showed her principles. “Her impact was nationwide,” Sayers told CBC. “She always pursued the best possible solutions for First Nations and Indigenous people in this country.”Attorney General Niki Sharma wrote that she would “forever cherish every moment I shared with you” and that Phillip had taught her “so much about life, history and what’s right.”The legislature is scheduled to return October 5. No date has been set for the Vancouver-Strathcona byelection.

Vancouver-Strathcona MLA Joan Phillip dies at 74

Related Stories

Bruce Banman walks out on Findlay, calls her 'unelectable'

WATCH: ‘My husband is also Indian, but he follows the rules’

Findlay calls leaked Penticton caucus tape a smear, not a crime

MLA Brennan Day calls it a day on the BC Conservative caucus