Blackfoot Paper Part 7

["Craven, Jim" <jcraven@xxxxxxxxx>]

Canada's Reputation as a Human Rights Vanguard

"In international circles, Canada is regarded as a world leader in the
promotion of human rights.  Canadian leaders and ambassadors have
consistently pressed for protection of high standards on the human rights
issues of marginalized and vulnerable populations."

Notwithstanding Canada's reputation in the international human rights
community as a leader in protecting human rights, its reputation for
protecting the human rights of First Nations within its borders leaves much
to be desired.  For instance, in its 1999 review of Canada's compliance
with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the United
Nations Human Rights Committee "repeatedly criticized Canada on its handling
of First Peoples' issues."  The mechanisms needed to respond to and correct
these criticisms are nonexistent in Canada, however.  Considering the
support given First Nations in the United Nations, it would behoove the
Canadian government to consider these issues more seriously. 
Furthermore, if the Canadian government follows its current path by
disregarding the Blackfoots' decision to assert their sovereign rights, the
reputation of Canada in the international human rights community will be
threatened further.  If a human rights vanguard is viewed by other nations
as slipping from its commitment to human rights principles, those other
nations may follow suit.  "Some nations even take refuge in Canada's
shortcomings, saying the continued poor treatment of First Peoples across
Canada invalidates Canadian moral authority to speak about human rights
abuses internationally."  If Canada loses its persuasive supremacy
internationally, it is alarming to consider what abuses other, less humane
nations will consider within the bounds of morals and the law.  If Canada
truly has an interest in the promotion of human rights on an international
scale, it would do well to promote human rights in its own territory.


On the national front, Canada would benefit from recognizing the Blackfoot
Nation's declaration of independence.  The stability stemming from resolving
such a claim would make it clear to other First Nations living within
Canada's borders, although they are Nations without the same claims to
sovereignty as the Blackfoot, that Canada is committed to recognizing their
grievances in a meaningful way.  Different peoples employ different methods
for resolving various political, social and legal claims.  The fact that the
Blackfoot Nation has declared its independence should not concern Canada
with respect to other First Nations following the lead.  The Blackfoot have
specific claims that other Aboriginal peoples would find irrelevant or
inappropriate to their needs.  Therefore, recognition of Blackfoot
sovereignty would not threaten to introduce a "slippery slope" to Canada's
Aboriginal affairs, because if other First Nations had desired to follow the
same path, they would be expected to have done so already.  Recognition of
Blackfoot sovereignty would only strengthen Canada's relations with other
First Nations and restore Canada's reputation in the international human
rights community as an advocate of human rights.

        IV.  Conclusion
The Blackfoot Nation has declared its independence from Canada because the
Blackfoot people possess a fundamental right, recognized at international
law, to self-determination.  The Supreme Court of Canada has recognized that
this right includes a right of unilateral secession from a colonizing power.
It has been impossible for the Blackfoot Nation to exercise any meaningful
form of internal self-determination because their lands have been illegally
appropriated and occupied by the Canadian government, and Canadian law has
been imposed on them without their consent. The illegal occupation of
Blackfoot lands results from the invalid Treaty 7, entered into between Her
Majesty the Queen by Her commissioners and the Blackfoot and other Nations
in 1877.  The treaty commissioners employed duplicitous tactics to coerce
the First Nations' leaders to agree to the terms of a written document they
did not fully appreciate.  Their lack of complete understanding of these
terms resulted from inaccurate interpretations, promises that were never
intended to be fulfilled, and fundamental differences in the
conceptualization of land use and ownership, and the purpose of a treaty.


In signing Treaty 7, there is no evidence to support a contention that the
Blackfoot and other First Nations' leaders ever consented to surrender their
lands or submit to colonial rule.  Nevertheless, the Indian Act has been
imposed on these peoples, and operates to strip the Blackfoot of any
meaningful control over their lands, their governance and their daily lives.
They have the right to control these aspects of their existence, and Canada
has an obligation, under international and domestic law and the most basic
principles constituting moral integrity, to recognize this right by
accepting the Proclamation Restoring the Independence of the Sovereign
Nation State of Blackfoot.


PAGE 46



.  Blackfoot Nation, Declaration of Independence (November 29, 1999) (on
file with Blackfoot Nation).
.  R.S.C., ch. I-5, ss.1-122 (1985) (Can.).
.  C. Roderick Wilson, The Plains - A Regional Overview, in Native Peoples:
The Canadian Experience 353, 355 (R. Bruce Morrison & C. Roderick Wilson,
eds., 1986); see also Olive Patricia Dickason, Canada's First Nations: A
History of Founding Peoples From Earliest Times 44-45, 194-95 (1992).
.  Hugh A. Dempsey, The Blackfoot Indians, in Native Peoples: The Canadian
Experience 404, 427 (R. Bruce Morrison & C. Roderick Wilson, eds., 1986).
.  Dempsey, supra note 4, at 404.
.  Dickason, supra note 3, at 297.
.  Dempsey, supra note 4, at 430.
.  A.D. Fisher, Great Plains Ethnography, in Native Peoples: The Canadian
Experience 358, 359 (R. Bruce Morrison & C. Roderick Wilson, eds., 1986).
.  Although Europeans and other western peoples may regard this system of
documentation as a manifestation of unreliable hearsay, when considered
within the larger context of Aboriginal cultures, this characterization
misinterprets the essence of its use.  Because oral documentation is
communicated to other individuals from the same cultural tradition, the
speaker and the listener will understand what is being communicated from the
same point of reference.  Additionally, the spoken word is as powerful and
meaningful to the listener as it is to the speaker.  

James Axtell, After Columbus: Essays in the Ethnohistory of Colonial North
America 92-93 (1988).
.  Delgamuukw v. British Columbia, [1997] 3 S.C.R. 1010, 1075-76.
.  Shin Imai, Aboriginal Law Handbook 13 (2d ed., 1999), quoting R v.
Sparrow, [1990] 3 C.N.L.R. 160 (S.C.C.) at P81.
.  Walter Hildebrandt et al., Treaty 7 Elders and Tribal Council, The True
Spirit and Original Intent of Treaty 7 195 (1996). 
.  Id. at viii.
.  Id. at 4.

.  Id. at viii.
.  Id.
.  Id. at 230.  
.  Id. at 9. 
.  Id. at 240.  
.  Id. at 240-41.
.  Id. at 240.
.  Id. at 9. 
.  Id. at 10. 
.  Id. at 25, 75.
.  Id. at 25. 
.  Id. at 210.
.  Id. at 210.
.  Id. at 25, 304. 
.  Dickason, supra note 3, at 282.
.  Hildebrandt, supra note 12, at 211.
.  Id. at 211-212.
.  Id. at 25.  
.  Id. at 15.  
.  Id. at 20-23. 
.  Id. at 230-31.
.  Id. at 20-22.
.  Id. at 22.
.  Id. at 58.

.  Id. at 124; see also Dickason, supra note 3, at 194.
.  Hildebrandt, supra note 12, at 24.  
.  Id. at 124-25.
.  Id. at 143.
.  Id. at 143.
.  Id. at 124.
.  RCAP at vol. 1, s. 2(1).
.  Hildebrandt, supra note 12, at 200.
.  Id. at 195.
.  Id. at 108.
.  Id. at 67, 111.
.  Id. at 111.
.  Id. at 197.
.  Id. at 197.
. Id. at 23 (emphasis added).  Blackfoot elders describe the process with
the phrase, "Anahka aipoihka iipitsinnim aniistoohpi," which roughly
translates to "The person speaking has choked considerably that which is
spoken."  Id. at 23.
.  R.S.C., ch. I-5, ss.1-122 (1985) (Can.).
.  Hildebrandt, supra note 12, at 218.
.  Id. at 219. 
.  Id. at 144.
.  "Two feet were given up - one for ploughing and two for post holes."
Additional accounts of the negotiations support the assertion that the
government officials agreed to this detail.   Id. at 143-45. 
.  Id. at 69.

.  Ralph W. Johnson, Fragile Gains: Two Centuries of Canadian and United
States Policy Toward Indians, 66 Wash. L. Rev. 643, 649 (1991).
. Hildebrandt, supra note 12, at 134-35.
.  Id. at 136.
.  Id. at 137.
.  Dickason, supra note 3, at 282.
. Hildebrandt, supra note 12, at 73.
.  Id. at 198.
.  Id. at 112.  
.  Id. at 113.  
.  Id. at 120.
.  Id. at 198.
.  Id. at 120.
.  Id. at 120.
.  Id. at 27. 
.  In one instance, Commissioner Laird said "that the Blackfoot should pay
the government for driving out the whiskey traders rather than that the
police should pay for timber they had used."  Id. at 244.
.  Id. at 242.
.  Id. at 13. 
.  Id. at 247-48.
.  Id. at 250-51.
.  Id. at 253-54, 287.
.  Id. at 120.  
.  Id. at 253.  

.  Id. at 142.  
.  Letter from Prime Minister John A. MacDonald to Edgar Dewdney, 18
September 1883, in Edgar Dewdney Papers 481, microfilmed on Glenbow Group,
Section III, part 4: Correspondence (John A. MacDonald) (Microfilm M-2815,
Ottawa) (second alteration in original).
.  Hildebrandt, supra note 12, at 199.  
.  Id. at 206, citing Sakej Youngblood-Henderson, Land in British Legal
Thought, unpublished manuscript prepared for the Royal Commission on
Aboriginal Affairs at 203 (1994).
.  Johnson, supra note 60, at 670-71 (citing R. v. Simon, [1985] 2 S.C.R.
387, 402).
.  Johnson, supra note 60, at 670.
.  Id. at 649.
.  Shin Imai, Aboriginal Law Handbook 13 (2d ed., 1999), quoting R v.
Sparrow, [1990] 3 C.N.L.R. 160 (S.C.C.) at P81.
.  See, e.g., R.S.C., ch. I-5, ss. 18(1), 74, 79, 81- 83, 88, 90(2)  (1985)
(Can.).
.  Imai, supra note 89, at 166.
.  R.S.C. ch I-5 (1985).
.  Id. s. 74.
.  Telephone interview with Sikapii-Whitehorse, member of the Sovereign
Nation of Blackfoot (April 3, 2000).
.  Telephone interview with Sikapii-Whitehorse (April 3, 2000).
.  Telephone interview with Sikapii-Whitehorse (February 1, 2000).
.  Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, People to People, Nation to
Nation x-xi (1996), quoted in Imai, supra note 89, at 28.
. Johnson, supra note 60, at 669.
.  Diane F. Orentlicher, Separatism and the Democratic Entitlement, 92 Am.
Soc'y Int'l L. Proc. 131, 132 (1998), quoting John Stuart Mill,
Considerations on Representative Government (1861), quoted in
Utilitarianism, on Liberty, Considerations on Representative Government 392
(1993) (emphasis added).

.  Richard H. Bartlett, The Indian Act of Canada 13 (1980).
.  Id. at 14.
.  The Convention on the Rights and Duties of States adopted by the Seventh
International Conference of American States, Dec. 26, 1933, 165 L.N.T.S. 19.
.  Id. at art. 1.
.  [1998] 2 S.C.R. 217, 161 D.L.R. (4th) 385.
.  161 D.L.R. at 433-34.
.  Id.
.  Id. at 434 (citations omitted).
.  Id.
.  Id. at 434-35 (citations omitted).
.  U.N. Charter art. 1, para 2, art. 55.
.  993 U.N.T.S. 171 (1966), art. 1, para (1), (3).
.  993 U.N.T.S. 3 (1966), art. 1, para (1), (3).
.  161 D.L.R. at 435.
.  Id., quoting 993 U.N.T.S. 171, art. 1, 993 U.N.T.S. 3, art. 1.
.  G.A. Res. 2625 (XXV), U.N. GAOR, 25th Sess., Supp. No. 28, at121, U.N.
Doc. A/8028 (24 October 1970).
.  161 D.L.R. at 436, quoting U.N. General Assembly's Declaration on the
Occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the United Nations, G.A. Res. 50/6,
9 November 1995, art. 1 (emphasis added).
.  161 D.L.R. at 436. 
.  Telephone interview with Sikapii-Whitehorse, member of the Sovereign
Nation of Blackfoot (February 1, 2000).
.  161 D.L.R. at 436.
.  Id. at 437.

.  Dickason, supra note 3, at 124.
.  Imai, supra note 89, at 65.
.  161 D.L.R. at 437-38.
.  Id. at 437-38, 440-441.  
.  Id. at 441.
.  Id. at 441-42..
.  Id. at 438-39.
.  Id. at 439.
.  Id. at 440, citing A. Cassese, Self-determination of peoples: A legal
reappraisal (1995), at pp. 171-72.
.  161 D.L.R. at 440 (emphasis added).
.  Id. at 442.
.  993 U.N.T.S. 3 (1966).
.  993 U.N.T.S. 171 (1966).
.  G.A. Res. 1803 (XVII), 17 U.N. GAOR Supp. No. 17 at 15, U.N. Doc. A/5217
(1962).
.  U.N. GAOR, 3rd Sess., Pt. I, Resolutions, at 71, U.N. Doc. A/810 (1948).
.  Dempsey, supra note 4, at 432.
.  Telephone interview with Sikapii-Whitehorse, member of the Sovereign
Nation of Blackfoot (February 1, 2000).
.  993 U.N.T.S. 3 (1966).
.  Id. art. 6(2).
.  Id. art. 11(1).
.  993 U.N.T.S. 171 (1966).
.  Telephone interview with Sikapii-Whitehorse, member of the Sovereign
Nation of Blackfoot (April 3, 2000).

.  Id. 
.  993 U.N.T.S. 171 (1966).
.  993 U.N.T.S. 3 (1966).
.  Imai, supra note 89, at 71-72.
.  Id. at 74.
.  G.A. Res. 1803 (XVII), 17 U.N. GAOR Supp. No. 17 at 15, U.N. Doc. A/5217
(1962).
.  Id., ¶ 1.
.  Id., ¶ 7.
.  Imai, supra note 89, at 65.
.  Ann Pohl, Citizens for Public Justice, Building International Awareness
on Aboriginal Issues 7 (March 2000)
<http://www.cpj.ca/native/00/strategy.html>.
. Id. at 7.
. Id. at 17.
.  The following account portends an unsettling future:

The 1998 APEC meeting provides an example.  Prime Minister Jean Chrétien
spoke at a public social event about international human rights concerns
vis-à-vis Malaysia, which at that time included child labour exploitation
and the violations of rights of opposition politicians.  Reporter John
Stackhouse captured Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad shrugging off
this criticism with the following remarks: "'I'm concerned with human rights
world-wide, including Canada . . . I'm concerned with the red Indians, I
don't see them at APEC.'"

Id. at 7, citing The Globe and Mail, November 16, 1998.