LandKeepers News Archive
Liberals get in a great rush with ‘seismic’ aboriginal law
March 06 2009 | News Articles | Vancouver Sun
Liberals get in a great rush with ‘seismic’ aboriginal law
Vaughn Palmer
Vancouver Sun
The B.C. Liberals are pressing forward with “unprecedented” legislation granting blanket recognition to aboriginal title as well as a native right to share in the management and revenues of provincial land and resources.
“The time is now,” Minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation Mike de Jong told native leaders meeting here under the auspices of the First Nations Summit on Thursday.
“I am for this. Premier [Gordon] Campbell is for this. The government is for a law of recognition that will form the basis for a legally entrenched new relationship between us as governments.”
When reporters pressed for details, de Jong had to say that the proposed legislation has yet to be produced, even in draft form. “Not at the moment.”
Nevertheless the government is ready to proceed to the drafting stage once aboriginal leaders greenlight the principles outlined in a brief (five pages, plus a map) discussion paper that emerged from three months of confidential talks between provincial and native negotiators.
“I remain hopeful that we could have legislation ready before the house rises,” de Jong said, meaning late March or early April. Tabled, debated and passed? “That would be the intent,” he said.
Late Thursday afternoon the summit did endorse the statement of principles, so we’ll see if the Liberals can keep to their timetable. But it sounds like a rush job to me, given the scope of what is being contemplated in the proposed recognition act.
Some of the Liberals have tried to play it down as mainly symbolic. They say it would do no more than incorporate into provincial law what has already been entrenched in the Canadian Constitution and recognized repeatedly by the courts, namely aboriginal rights and title.
But de Jong didn’t take that view in his remarks to the summit. “This is not a one-off. This not symbolism,” he declared. “This is unprecedented. The whole country is watching . . . . If we do this together, it will represent change on a seismic scale.”
Judging from the few details he discussed, I would agree. For instance, one of the main purposes is to remove the requirement that natives have to, in effect, prove their existence in order to claim land, resources and rights within their traditional territory.
“You shouldn’t be required to prove that,” the minister told the natives. “You shouldn’t be required stand in a court and call evidence of the rich history of your culture and your centuries of presence in this part of the world as a prerequisite to dealing with the issues that bring us in to that forum in the first place.”
An important concession. But it’s not clear how it would assist in determining the boundaries of traditional territories, or resolving overlaps. The Liberals have yet to clarify the status of Crown title in this new arrangement, leading to concerns that it would be “trumped” by aboriginal title.
Then there’s the proposal to “reconstitute” the 30 or so indigenous nations that were in existence at the time of the arrival of the Europeans, from the 200 separate first nations (individual bands, mostly) recognized by the federal and provincial governments.
The native leadership itself has pressed for that aspect of the legislation, and de Jong admits it might well simplify things at the negotiating table. But some native leaders are asking if that would not just add another layer of bureaucracy, never mind that some bands don’t want to be “reconstituted” into a larger indigenous nation.
The legislation is supposed to “embed” the other principles of the “new relationship,” which was negotiated with first nations leaders before the 2005 election and announced afterward. Those include “shared decision-making” on Crown land and resources, as well as a native right to share in the revenues from the development of those lands and resources. Again, it’s not clear how that would proceed in practice, though the Liberals have been experimenting with those principles on an ad hoc basis.
But the big difference is that they are now proposing to incorporate those principles in one of the most ambitious and overarching laws ever enacted by the provincial legislature. For the recognition act would be crafted to override every other provincial law dealing with land and resources.
“Our laws are out of date,” de Jong said. “This can change that in dramatic fashion — which in my view is far better than taking the statutes off the shelf, one by one, and trying to amend them separately, which will take forever.”
I get the rationale. But there’s a big gap between a process that would take “forever” (or many years, at least) and one that would be expedited in the few weeks left before the house is dissolved for May’s election.
By all means, the Liberals should produce draft legislation before gong to the polls. Much better than what they did in 2005, when they tried to keep the new relationship secret until after the votes were counted.
But table the bill for discussion. And let the party that wins the election submit the thing to public hearings before subjecting the entire body of provincial laws to unprecedented, seismic change.
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