Indigenous land claims in British Columbia

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I just received a copy of a long scholarly paper defending Canadian Indian
rights. I put it up on the web so people can read it:
http://www.marxmail.org/bc_indigenous.htm

Here are the opening paragraphs:

DECONSTRUCTING THE BRITISH COLUMBIA TREATY PROCESS

Taiaiake Alfred
University of Victoria
August 2000

The emergent consensus of indigenous people involved with the British
Columbia Treaty Commission (BCTC) is that the current process has failed.
The shared rational and emotional foundation of this consensus is a
realization that the Treaty Commission process is at its core morally
bankrupt and driven by the twin objectives of placating natural resource
industry lobbies and the coercive imposition of the federal and provincial
governments' shared assimilationist agenda. It is a coherent and general
conclusion among indigenous people that the failed attempt to negotiate a
structural recognition of their constitutional rights to land and
self-government within the BCTC is proof that the federal and provincial
governments have neither the determination or sincere desire to resolve the
fundamental sources of racial and political conflict that exist in British
Columbia.

This is a severe and regrettable concluding statement on a process that
began with so much hope for the peaceful reconciliation of the existence of
indigenous peoples and contemporary Canadian society on the land we share.
Yet the sombre death knell of peaceful cooperation and political
reconciliation is abundantly clear to those who pay attention to news
headlines, read opinions expressed in the indigenous media, listen to input
from consultations at the community level, and take part in informal
discussions in homes. One disappointed community negotiator from the
northwest region who has been involved in the BCTC since the start of the
process recently admitted that she and her colleagues had decided that it
was time to quit the negotiating table and to, 'get back to asserting their
rights on the ground'. The sentiment she expressed is common among those
presently working in the process:

"I don't care anymore. It's all a farce anyway. We'd rather spend more time
with the community and in the bush anyway; it's where we should have stayed
in the first place."

The point of clarity for indigenous community representatives is that the
BCTC process is structurally and politically incapacitated; it has not been
able to provide a resolution to the tense physical confrontations over
jurisdiction, costly and drawn-out legal battles over the meaning and scope
of Aboriginal title, and socially disruptive political conflicts over the
nature of indigenous rights that forced the federal and provincial
governments to establish the process in 1991. As a potential bridging
institution between indigenous people and Canadians, and as a forum for
reconciling the continuing existence of indigenous nations and the Canadian
state on a shared territory, the unfortunate conclusion in most peoples'
minds is that the process is effectively dead.

The cause of death is clear: the federal and provincial governments' lack
of integrity has killed the process ? this fact has been demonstrated on a
macro level in terms of reactionary policy responses to recent court
decisions enhancing the recognition of indigenous rights in law, and on a
micro level in the day-to-day and personal conduct of most federal and
provincial representatives (whose duplicity, stupidity and arrogance are
staple subjects of frustration for indigenous negotiators). As a result of
this the process continues to function as a formality, but it has been
gutted of any real meaning. In fact, it is quite apparent that most
communities remain in the process only because of the personal stake
negotiators have in continuing to meet with their federal and provincial
counterparts ? the process has spawned an amply staffed bureaucratic
complex of its own centered in Vancouver, and has well-funded nodes located
at band council offices in participating communities. The other monetary
factor acting as an incentive to prop up the process is an explicit threat
made by the federal government to call in loans that were extended to band
councils to fund the establishment of 'treaty negotiation offices' should
they quit the process.

In spite of all this, the BCTC process remains, as a matter of federal and
provincial government policy, the sole avenue for indigenous communities to
engage the federal and provincial governments in formal political
discussions on land title and governance issues. Thus, blatant compulsion
rather than any sense of hope, trust or good faith explains the indigenous
peoples' continued presence in the negotiations, and is in fact the only
reason the BCTC process remains a feature of the political landscape today.
But the simmering discontent that prompted the establishment of the process
in the first place also remains on the political landscape, and has again
become a prominent feature as the BCTC process has lost all credibility.
After such profound failure, in the absence of meaningful avenues of
reconciliation, facing conflict and confrontation, the crucial question for
people concerned with peace and justice is: What do we do now?


Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/