Amshen Joan Phillip, former Penticton Indian Band lands manager and B.C. MLA, dies at 74
Amshen Joan Phillip, Vancouver-Strathcona MLA and former lands manager for the Penticton Indian Band, died Aug. 28 at age 74.
Photo: BC NDP Government Caucus.
Amshen Joan Phillip, the Vancouver-Strathcona MLA who worked as lands manager for the Penticton Indian Band before entering provincial politics, died Aug. 28 at the age of 74.
Phillip’s family announced her death in a statement posted by the B.C. NDP caucus, saying she died peacefully surrounded by her husband, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, her children, grandchildren and other family members. The family asked for privacy and requested donations to the B.C. Cancer Society in lieu of flowers.
Phillip was serving as parliamentary secretary for community development and non-profits at the time of her death, a position she had held since November 2024.
Before her election to the legislature, Phillip worked as a youth counsellor at Britannia Secondary School and as education and program director at the Aboriginal Friendship Centre. She later served as lands manager for the Penticton Indian Band, a role also documented in the Band’s annual reporting.
Her husband, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, is the longtime president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs. He previously served 14 years as chief of the Penticton Indian Band and 10 years as a councillor.
Phillip entered provincial politics in 2023, winning the Vancouver-Mount Pleasant byelection with 5,459 votes, or 67.79 per cent of valid votes. She was sworn in that July, with the First Nations Leadership Council identifying her as the second First Nations woman to be sworn in as an MLA in British Columbia.
Following changes to provincial electoral boundaries, Phillip ran in Vancouver-Strathcona in the 2024 provincial election. She won the riding with 13,673 votes, or 68.17 per cent of valid ballots cast.
Phillip served on the legislature’s Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth during the 2025 session. When committee memberships were reconstituted in February 2026, she was appointed to the Select Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs.
Her official caucus biography described her as an Indigenous leader whose work focused on social justice, human rights and environmental issues.
Phillip’s death creates a vacancy in Vancouver-Strathcona. Under B.C.’s Constitution Act, once the Speaker receives formal notice of a vacancy caused by the death of an MLA, a warrant is issued to the chief electoral officer. A writ for a byelection must then be issued within six months of the chief electoral officer receiving that warrant.
No Vancouver-Strathcona byelection date had been announced by Elections BC as of Sept. 7. Phillip’s constituency office remains open to assist residents with casework and access to government services.
A B.C. Supreme Court judgment involving Canadians who studied medicine abroad was posted last week as the province continues to require international medical graduates in its Kootenay Boundary family medicine residency stream to complete two years of service within Interior Health.