III

WORKING TO AVOID JUSTICE

Again, what does all of this mean in practical terms? When you learn that almost half of First Nations children live in poverty, that the federal government spends less on the education of each First Nations child than provincial governments spend on each non–First Nations child, you are not only learning of a reason to be ashamed. You are also learning that the Canadian government – the power of each of us as citizens – has been and still is breaking the law. Breaking it by misusing it – by resorting to avoidance, by pretending to be doing what it isn’t, by legalistic and administrative manipulation, by malingering. These are standard tricks far beneath the dignity of the Crown. For example, the federal government is not fulfilling its education obligations under the Nunavut Treaty. As a result, Ottawa is now defending itself in the courts. Dragging things out, playing the legalistic corners as if they were disreputable lawyers defending dubious figures. Why spend public money in a good cause, to which you previously committed, when you can spend much more public money arguing in order to avoid fulfilling your obligations?

True, there was an attempt in 2014 to pass through Parliament a major First Nations education bill. But its introduction of provincial authority through provincial standards understandably divided the indigenous community. That is the core of the complaint that there was not proper consultation. The seemingly neutral concept of provincial standards actually suggests the elimination of indigenous culture in favour of the old “universal” model. This has already created a terrible problem in the education system of Nunavut, where the Alberta Department of Education has been involved in setting standards that undermine Inuit culture.

And the shuffling off of federal education responsibility to the provinces can be interpreted as an indirect way of undermining Canada’s treaty obligations.

This adds to the sense that our government is still breaking our treaty obligations. If you coolly strip away the endless administrative rhetoric about budgets and governance, the endless studies and the endemic lack of broad policies coming from the Department of Indian Affairs, you begin to realize that we are still caught up in the racist assimilation policies of a century ago.

Let me take a broader example. We all know that the treaties involved a massive loss of land for First Nations. What most of us pretend we don’t know is that this remarkable generosity was tied to permanent obligations taken on by colonial officials, then by the Government of Canada; that is, by the Crown; that is, by you and me. So we got the use of land – and therefore the possibility of creating Canada – in return for a relationship in which we have permanent obligations. We have kept the land. We have repeatedly used ruses to get more of their land. And we have not fulfilled our side of the agreement. We pretend that we do not have partnership obligations. It’s pretty straightforward. We criticize. We insult. We complain. We weasel. Surely, we say, these handouts have gone on long enough. But the most important handout was to us. Bob Rae put it this way at the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Treaty Conference in June 2014: “It’s ridiculous to think people would say: ‘I have all this land, millions and millions and millions of acres of land, I’m giving it to you for a piece of land that is five miles by five miles and a few dollars a year.’ To put it in terms of a real estate transaction, it’s preposterous. It doesn’t make any sense.” So the generosity was from First Nations to newcomers. And we are keeping that handout – the land – offered in good faith by friends and allies.

Many of today’s negotiations or renegotiations involve one First Nation or another attempting to re-establish the treaty terms. Often this involves re-establishing their rights over land they never ceded – usually land in the interior, land in the north. Look at the Nisga’a negotiation. The federal government dragged it out for twenty-five years. And then, when it was finally done, the government of British Columbia tried to reopen the agreement. What had the Nisga’a got through the treaty? A small percentage of the land they had once held. What did our governments want? More. What did the British Columbian government want? Even more. Why? Well, when it comes to Aboriginal land, our governments always want more. Our corporations want more. Effectively, we all want more. This is our system of governance.

Concerned that Chief Spence’s fast might end in death, Bob Rae visited her on Victoria Island, on the Ottawa River, in sight of Parliament.
© Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press.

To be precise, you and I pay government lawyers to fight as hard as they can to get as much Aboriginal land as possible and to give as little as possible in return. They act like rapacious divorce lawyers.

Why? We must ask ourselves why they are doing this for us.

First, our governments seem to be arguing that these negotiations are all about saving the taxpayer money. This is lunacy. You don’t save money by dragging out complex legal negotiations for twenty-five years. Protracted legal battles are the equivalent of throwing taxpayers’ money away. And you force Canadian citizens – Aboriginals – to waste their own money and their lives on unnecessary battles.

Second, our governments more or less argue that a few thousand or a few hundred Aboriginals shouldn’t have control over land that might have great timber or mineral or energy value. They argue as if it were all about the interests of a few thousand Aboriginals versus that of millions of Canadians. As if the Aboriginals were invaders come to steal our land.

The question we should be asking is quite different. If there is value in these territories, don’t you want it controlled by Canadians who feel strongly that this is their land? By people who want to live there and want their children and grandchildren to live there? Surely they are the people most likely to do a good long-term job at managing the land. And why shouldn’t they profit from it? Wouldn’t that be a good thing? Is there any reason why Canadians living in the interior and in the north should profit less than urban Canadians do in the south? And if those Canadians are Aboriginal, is there some reason why they should profit less than non-Aboriginals?

The only other option we have is for the government to hand control of the land to a dozen directors of a corporation sitting in Toronto or New York with no long-term interest. They simply want to extract the minerals or timber, extract the wealth from the land, and move on. That is the business they are in. You don’t hear anyone argue that these tiny groups should make less profit. They are more admired by the market if they make more profit. So why wouldn’t we admire Aboriginals for doing the same? Or, to put it another way, wouldn’t we all benefit if those corporations had to deal every day with indigenous locals who are devoted to that land and have power over it?

Isn’t there a risk, you wonder, of indigenous leaders being corrupted by the big corporations? No doubt. But aren’t we already living with the problem of government officials, politicians, civil servants, political parties and mayors being corrupted by these companies or – to put it in gentler terms – agreeing to act in a compliant manner? They turn a blind eye to pollution risks. They spend years denying health risks. All in the name of development, growth and job creation opportunities.

Look at the history of asbestos. Is this not a story of public corruption? And today our government is selling this known toxic substance out in the world as if it doesn’t know what it knows. Meanwhile the northern two-thirds of Canada is littered with the remains of abandoned mines. Toxic barrels. Tailing ponds. The companies are long gone. Or, if the government inadvertently catches up with them, they declare bankruptcy and take their money elsewhere. Only the taxpayer remains to clean up these sites. So the problem of political, administrative and corporate corruption is well and truly with us already. And the government has an obligation to get on top of it through stricter standards and regulations and the development of a culture of rigorous enforcement.

Frankly, few urban Canadians want to take personal responsibility for these millions of hectares in the interior and in the north. They don’t want to live there. Shouldn’t those of us who live in the cities in the south be grateful that indigenous peoples want to take on that responsibility?

Why do our governments continue to work so hard to prevent this happening, fighting hectare by hectare, dragging their feet? Why don’t they want Aboriginal people to be successful and prosperous? Why are they so determined to maintain a paternalistic relationship?