Clarence Louie

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Clarence Louie, CM, OBC, born in 1959/1960, is a Canadian First Nations leader and businessman. He has served as chief of the Osoyoos Indian Band in British Columbia’s Okanagan for many terms since he was first elected in 1985.

He is credited with helping the Osoyoos Band become economically successful. He received the Order of British Columbia in 2004 and the Order of Canada in 2016.

Louie was born near Oliver and raised on the Osoyoos reserve by his single mother. With high unemployment in the community, many adults worked as temporary laborers on fruit orchards in Washington state, so he learned to be self-sufficient from a young age.

At 19, he left British Columbia to study at First Nations University in Regina, Saskatchewan, and then studied native studies at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta. After earning his degree, he returned to the Okanagan. At 24, he was elected chief of the Osoyoos Indian Band.

The band has about 460 members and controls around 32,000 acres of land. In 1988, Louie started the Osoyoos Indian Band Development Corporation (OIBDC). Through the OIBDC, the band started or bought nine businesses in tourism, construction, and recreation. The band now employs around 700 people, including non-First Nations workers. One notable project is Nk’Mip Cellars, the first aboriginal-owned winery in North America.

Louie has served as the two-term chair of the National Aboriginal Economic Development Board. He advised federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty in 2008 on economic development. In 2003, the U.S. Department of State selected him as one of six Canadian First Nations leaders to review economic development in American Indian communities. He has also been involved in land claim settlements with the province. He was granted the Freedom of the Town of Oliver, British Columbia, on July 21, 2017.