'Nation to Nation'? Indigenous people and the Trudeau government

Canadian governments of all stripes have failed in their relationship with indigenous peoples in this country. Trudeau says nice things and plays dress-up as an Indian while he implements the same inadequate strategy as Harper before him.

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Article 1 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Indigenous peoples have the right to the full enjoyment, as a collective or as individuals, of all human rights and fundamental freedoms as recognized in the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international human rights law.

Some days, I wake up and I put on my T-shirt that says ROGUE across the front in bright NDP-orange letters because I wake up in a society where I am expected to remain quiet, obedient and, most of all, grateful to a colonial government that even in the 21st century paternalistically denies Indigenous Peoples our rights under the premise that they know best. I am expected to be thankful for temporary, piecemeal measures to remedy crimes that the Canadian government has, and continues to, commit against my people. I am expected to wait patiently for meaningful legislative changes that will end the colonial occupancy of our Indigenous legal, economic and social systems.  This society expects me to happily accept the mere pennies that they invest in funding our social services. Welcome to our dystopian present.

http://aptnnews.ca/2017/01/27/opinion-indigenous-peoples-in-canada-exist...

Indigenous water solutions: 2 steps forward, 1 step back

Cleaning up drinking water in Indigenous communities appears to be a case of two steps forward, one step back, according to new government numbers.

There are 71 long-term drinking water advisories — in existence for a year or more — in First Nations communities across Canada.

Since November 2015, 18 such warnings have been lifted, allowing the communities to drink their tap water.

But 12 advisories have been added, according to figures provided by the Department of Indigenous and Northern Affairs. 

It's an example of the complex, tough task facing the Trudeau government, which has pledged to have all long-term drinking water advisories lifted within five years.

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Federal bureaucracy

Many First Nations communities complain that it takes too long — from five to 10 years — to solve drinking water problems. They blame a cumbersome federal bureaucracy.

Bennett admits that one of her tasks is to simplify the process.

As the opposition critic, she heard from many communities that thought they were about to get a new water treatment system, only to find out the government had decided to order another feasibility study, delaying everything.

Evidence of good faith lacking in Trudeau’s Indigenous agenda

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The much-referenced nation-to-nation relationship has also failed to materialize. Trudeau’s government instead focuses all their discussions with three national Aboriginal organizations and not First Nations — the actual rights holders. We no longer hear discussion about Aboriginal, treaty and title rights except in court. Trudeau rejected the AFN’s call to have constitutional talks to better define First Nation rights and the nation-to-nation relationship — calling such discussions “squabbles.”

While Trudeau did ensure that work on the national inquiry began early on in his term, the actual creation of the inquiry was delayed, Indigenous peoples were excluded from drafting the terms of reference or choosing the commissioners. While a big flashy announcement was made in the fall of 2016 to start the inquiry, it still hasn’t started and likley won’t until spring 2017. With a limited two year mandate, the loss of six months could significantly impact the effectiveness of such an important inquiry.

We gave Trudeau’s government more than a year to put some good faith on the table. Instead, we see a lot of talk but very little substantive action on the matters that matter most to us. If our right to free, informed and prior consent before development on our lands is not respected, that is the equivalent of breaching our Aboriginal, treaty and title rights. If he can ignore multiple court orders to stop discriminating against our children in care, how does that make him any different from Harper?

The New Threat Threshold

It was early November 2016 when Russell Diabo received a phone call from an APTN reporter, who told him that his was the only name that hadn’t been redacted from a recently released RCMP intelligence document. The document, outlining Project SITKA – a police operation tracking Indigenous activists “who pose a threat to the maintenance of peace and order” – was acquired through an Access to Information request filed by Carleton University researcher Jeffrey Monaghan. It revealed that the police were following 89 activists who met “the criteria for criminality associated to public order events.”

Project SITKA tracks activists organizing around natural resource development (fighting oil pipelines and shale gas expansion), anti-capitalism (G20 and Occupy activists), the missing and murdered Indigenous women inquiry, Idle No More, and land claims. The report concludes that the protesters “pose a criminal threat to Aboriginal public order events,” though it concedes that “there is no known evidence that these individuals pose a direct threat to critical infrastructure.” This proof of surveillance sent a chill through the activist community....

Sen. Murray Sinclair blasts Globe and Mail for propagating ‘racist fallacy’

Senator Murray Sinclair blasted a major newspaper in Canada over an editorial he said propagated “the racist fallacy” that Canada was a “thinly populated” territory before European contact.

Sinclair, the former chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, posted a scathing critique of the The Globe and Mail editorial published online Monday. The editorial was written in response to a speech delivered by Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould during a trip to South Africa. Wilson-Raybould said South Africa’s struggle with apartheid offered reconciliation lessons for Canada where Indigenous peoples have lived through over “150 years of colonialism.”

The editorial argued South Africa’s experience with apartheid and reconciliation offered few lessons for Canada because of its different history and dynamics.

“(Wilson-Raybould’s) contention in her speech that the post-apartheid era in South Africa offers ‘many important insights’ and ‘parallels’ for Canada should be approached with caution,” said the editorial. “It’s difficult to assess the population of what is now Canada when Europeans first arrived in the 15th century. But most of the Indigenous population were hunters and gatherers, so most of the land was quite thinly populated. The Europeans came to trade and gradually began to settle and colonize as farmers and later, manufacturers—and eventually became the majority. In contrast, black South Africans were the majority when Europeans arrived in their country, and are still the majority by far. This is a critical difference.”

Sinclair, in a Facebook post published Tuesday, called the unsigned The Globe and Mail opinion piece, which generally represents the position of the newspaper, a “colonizer’s editorial.” Sinclair took particular aim at the editorial’s claim that Canada was a thinly populated territory before contact.

“That argument of low numbers is essential to maintain the mythological doctrines of ‘terra nullius’ and ‘discovery.’ There are several expert reports which say that the population of the Americas was higher than the population of Europe at the time of contact, and there are experts who assert, with considerable evidence, that Columbus and his conquistadors (conquerors) were responsible for the genocide of more than 20 million Indigenous people within a very short period of time. Some estimate that number as high as 90 million,” wrote Sinclair. “There is no doubt that such a genocide did happen, and there can be no doubt that it was done solely for the purpose of wiping out the larger numbers of Indigenous people (thinning the population) in order to sustain the fallacy of terra nullius.”

Sinclair also criticized the thrust of the editorial’s argument the majority black population in South Africa versus the minority Indigenous population in Canada made it difficult to transpose the experiences of both countries.

“Excuse me, but apartheid is exactly what happened here. Canada’s apartheid era didn’t start until Confederation, when the population of Indigenous people outside of the original confederating colonies far outnumbered Europeans. Through chicanery, lies, and duplicity (i.e. the Treaties) the government lulled the Indigenous leaders in the West into a false sense of security, and after asserting the extension of Canada’s legal jurisdiction, enacted apartheid laws over them,” wrote Sinclair. “Only after such laws were enacted was Canada able to increase the population of Europeans in the West in order to overcome the much higher Indigenous population. That apartheid system still exists, and it is what we, who are working for reconciliation, are all working to dismantle.”....

Archeologists confirm Heiltsuk village site three times older than Great Pyramids

Researchers with the Hakai Institute are backing up Heiltsuk oral history with western science during a relatively new archeological dig on the remote Triquet Island on B.C.'s Central Coast.

“Heiltsuk oral history talks of a strip of land in that area where the excavation took place. It was a place that never froze during the ice age and it was a place where our ancestors flocked to for survival,” said William Housty, a member of Heiltsuk Nation.

Archeologists working on site have dated it to at least 14,000 years ago, when much of the continent was covered by glacial ice save a relatively small strip of coastland.

“This find is very important because it reaffirms a lot of the history that our people have been talking about for thousands of years,” Housty said.

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The findings also have significant implications for First Nations when it comes to negotiating land claims and rights and title.

Housty, who sits on the board of directors for the Heiltsuk Resource Management Department, says the scientific validation will help in future negotiations.

“When we do go into negotiations, our oral history is what we go to the table with,” Housty said. “So now we don't just have oral history, we have this archeological information. It's not just arbitrary thing that anyone's making up ... We have a history supported from Western science and archaeology.”

Indigenous law banishes a giant B.C. mine

The moment you step onto Stk’emlúpsemc te Secwépemc land in southern British Columbia, according to Chief Ron Ignace, you are a beggar.

As an outsider, you have no rights and you've strayed away from your home and family. You are considered a poor person, he tells National Observer, and you are beholden to the First Nations on whose territory you stand.

His message takes aim at anyone who wants to do business or travel on his nation's land, be they tourists, government, companies, fishers, or boaters.

“The days of colonial authoritarianism are over,” he says. “It’s time for Canada to recognize that we are nations, as nations we have rights to our land, and if we are approached honourably, we can sit down and come to a fair and just conclusion.”

It’s precisely what his community has done, he explains, with KGHM Ajax Mining Inc.’s proposal to build a gaping open pit gold and copper mine on their territory, near a sacred cultural site called Pípsell....

I guess the federal Liberals will soon learn the tricks that their Ontario and BC counterparts all seem to know. In BC we call it the triple delete.  Imagine an e-mail trail that shows the government has no intention of using UNDRIP as a guideline even let alone a statement of actual rights.

Two months after Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett declared to the world that Canada was fully embracing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the most senior official in her department told underlings the international document would not be guiding planned consultations with First Nations, Inuit and Metis, according to an internal email.

Indigenous Affairs deputy minister Helene Laurendeau told her senior adviser that the government “may not consult specifically on UNDRIP” during consultations with Indigenous groups and the provinces, according to the email obtained through the Access to Information Act by NDP MP Romeo Saganash’s office.

Saganash said the email reveals the Liberal government is playing a double game with UNDRIP, saying one thing publicly, but planning something differently internally. He said it shows the Liberals have no plans to implement UNDRIP.

http://aptnnews.ca/2017/05/11/email-reveals-trudeau-liberals-playing-dou...

10 Tragedies That Destroyed The Canadian Inuit Way Of Life

Life for the Inuit, the natives of Canada’s Arctic, has never been easy. They have built up their lives in a frozen part of the world where permafrost keeps most life from growing from under the earth.

Things didn’t get any better when they made contact with the outside world. From the moment they first met the Europeans, the Inuit have gone through tragedy after tragedy. They have been taken from their homes. Their culture has been crushed, and countless lives have been ruined—all in ways that still affect them today....

..follow up

Beatrice Hunter released from jail, allowed to protest outside Muskrat Falls gate

After 10 days of incarceration in a men's prison, Muskrat Falls protester Beatrice Hunter has been released from custody.

Hunter appeared before the Supreme Court in Happy Valley-Goose Bay Friday where a judge agreed to modify the conditions of her undertaking — a promise given in court — allowing the Inuk woman to come within a kilometre of the Muskrat Falls site.

Hunter, 48, was jailed last week after refusing to promise to stay a kilometre away from the Labrador construction site, violating an undertaking she signed last fall.

Friends and family of Hunter's cheered both inside and outside the courtroom Friday, as they waited for her release.

"It [shows] how fearless we are, how resilient we are and that there's nothing we can't do," Hunter told CBC News upon release.

"I obviously don't want to go back to jail, but at least I can protest with my people."....

UNsettling Canada 150

In honour of Art Manuel and the integrity with which he always began with the land and honoured the grassroots people, the #Unsettling150 crew are proud to launch this video filled with Art's words, read by his daughter Kanahus Manuel, to launch the final lead-up to the national day of action, education, and reflection. Respect to Michael Toledano for his work on this video

Transfer payments impose permanent austerity on Indigenous communities

In January 2017, two young girls took their lives in a suicide pact at Wapekeka First Nation. Desperate for mental health workers, the First Nation — a fly-in community 600 kilometers north of Thunder Bay — requested $376,706 in emergency funding from Health Canada. According to Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler, they were told it was an “awkward time” to be considered for funding approval.

Financial restraints on Indigenous economies

In the aftermath of loss, community spokesperson Joshua Frogg laid bare Ottawa’s fiscal power over their children: “It was awkward to break ground in permafrost so that we can bury these children. It was awkward for our youth to cry at the funeral.”

A few years earlier, the federal government chose a curious time to send the Canada Revenue Agency and Aboriginal Affairs into Elsipogtog to collect overdue bills. They came knocking at the height of the community’s anti-fracking protest against SWN Resources that shut down highways in New Brunswick — years after the debt was incurred.

“They are really pulling the financial strings hard,” stated band councilor Scott Sanipass to APTN News. Aboriginal Affairs threatened to hold back tuition payments and almost a million dollars owed to the band, in addition to 15 per cent of the band’s annual funding until the amount was paid back in full.

What ties these cases together, and so many others like them, is a document that all First Nation bands and organizations must negotiate with the federal government to release core funding.....

The Truth About Treaties

When Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence declared that she would begin a hunger strike in early December of 2012, one of the largest Indigenous-led social movements was already roaring across the country. At the heart of Idle No More was a call for an honest treaty relationship. The Harper government had advanced a series of legislative measures amending the Indian Act, Fisheries Act, Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, Navigable Waters Protection Act, and seven other laws directly affecting First Nations, all without consultation. These measures would dramatically erode treaty rights by paving the way for industrial development on Indigenous lands.

Idle No More galvanized mass demonstrations of Indigenous people, which included a variety of protest actions throughout Canada, the U.S., and beyond. Describing the movement as “bacteria,” the RCMP monitored 941 events associated with Idle No More – rallies and infrastructure blockades – between December 2012 and May 2013. In addition to the demonstrations descending on Parliament Hill, Spence went on a six-week hunger strike on nearby Victoria Island while demanding a nation-to-nation meeting with the Crown to discuss the treaty relationship.

Spence’s demands directly challenged the existing asymmetrical relationship based on settler domination and control over Indigenous peoples, lands, and resources. In response, government officials sought to delegitimize Chief Spence and Idle No More. Aboriginal and Northern Development Canada (AANDC, now called Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada [INAC]) leaked an audit report, in a move that was widely viewed as a smear tactic to discredit Spence in the lead-up to the anticipated meeting, organized for January 11. The government also referred to oppositional chiefs as “dissident chiefs” – “those chiefs that reject the AFN [Assembly of First Nations] direction and favour the use of more aggressive, possibly more radical, means of motivating the Canadian government.”

How do we know? Internal government files I obtained through the Access to Information Act (ATIA) reveal how the Canadian leadership and bureaucracy interpret Idle No More, and treaty obligations more broadly....

Trudeau is putting the ‘con’ in reconciliation

Extinguishment disguised as decolonization - Opinion by Russ Diabo

At the centre of these is a recent Liberal government memorandum with the Assembly of First Nations which has received little attention. Far from supporting an ambitious reconciliation agenda based on Indigenous peoples’ inherent rights, the agreement could in fact accelerate far-reaching threats. It needs to be understood and resisted....

Defenders of the Land & Idle No More Networks

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE INDIGENOUS REPRESENTATIVES HEAD TO UN COMMITTEE IN GENEVA

(AUGUST 11, 2017)

 After working to unsettle Canada at home, Indigenous Nations are in Geneva, Switzerland to provide information to the Expert members of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) on the racism experienced on a daily basis by Indigenous Peoples. The representatives from various Indigenous Nations, the Defenders of the Land and Idle No More and their European allies are in Geneva, for the CERD meetings on August 14 and 15th, 2017 when CERD will review Canada. The international delegation is part of several months of activities to protest Canadian colonialism that have been built around Canada “celebrating”  150 years of colonization of Indigenous territories. Arthur Manuel, an Indigenous leader who passed away in January 2017 had called on Indigenous Nations and Peoples to use Canada’s  150th anniversary to tell Canadians and the world that the time had come to decolonize Canada.

Indigenous Nations have been on our Great Turtle Island (North America) for thousands of years, yet Canada assumes that they own the Indigenous lands and resources. In its report to CERD and the recently released 10 principles Canada keeps relying on the colonial doctrines of discovery, claiming that they obtained underlying title to the land at the declaration of British Crown sovereignty. The Peace and Friendship Treaties nor any other document ever give any title to the British Crown is a core message  being delivered by the delegations and that all Indigenous Nations across Canada maintain their inherent land rights and underlying title to the land.

Russell Diabo, a representative of Defenders of the Land and an organizer of the summer’s  #Unsettle150 activities, is among those who will be appearing before CERD in Geneva. “Canada has signed all of the important international decolonizing treaties,”  says Diabo, “but  it has held on to its colonial relations with Indigenous Peoples within Canada....

..read cindy blackstock's tweets

Cindy Blackstock‏Verified account @cblackst  Aug 15

More

UN #CERD notes concluding observations - will be released in about 2 weeks. Thank you all for tuning into the live Tweets! Canada done!

Outbreak of deformed salmon in BC Fish Farms

David Suzuki's grandson Tamo Campos has helped shed light on the Indigenous led fight against Pipelines, Dams, Mines, and Fish Farms.

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Disturbing New Footage Shows Diseased, Deformed Salmon in B.C. Fish Farms

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‘It’s a Mess Every Way You Look at It’

“When I say there is disease in these farmed salmon, this is not a guess,” Morton said. “Over 80 per cent of farmed salmon are infected with piscine reovirus.”

Morton is currently fighting the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Dominique Leblanc in court to prevent more Atlantic salmon infected with the virus from being placed in B.C. waters.

Morton said the fish pens are a highly concentrated source of waste and disease that threaten other species.

“From a biological point of view this footage gives you an idea of the scale of the pathogens coming out of these farms and we know that a single particle in this ocean can travel 10 kilometres in a short amount of time.”

It’s been a tough week for wild salmon.

While major salmon fisheries in the Fraser and Skeena rivers are closed due to low returns, a new study released this week revealed the federal government has failed to monitor the majority of struggling stocks on B.C.’s north and central coast.

Meantime, fishermen are being called on to catch as many of the escaped Atlantic farmed salmon as possible.

Morton expressed concern that fishermen will be mixed up with struggling Fraser sockeye salmon that may be caught as bycatch.

“It’s a mess every way you look at it.”

At the very least, take iodine with anything caught in the Pacific. The spill from Fukushima is probably much worse than the Japanese government wishes to admit. Add to this the abovementioned poisoning and one might wonder whether one should eat anything caught in the Pacific at all.

lagatta4 wrote:

Bravo to First Nations fighting them.

..yes many bravo. 

..update

After a net failure led to the escape of thousands of Atlantic salmon at a fish farm on the Pacific coast, members of local First Nations have started an occupation demanding the operations be shut down. Filmmaker Lindsey Mae Willie reports on their reasons for taking action.

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First Nations leaders rally in support of B.C. salmon farm occupation

Dozens of Indigenous leaders and protestors rallied outside the Vancouver Convention Centre today urging the province to dismantle salmon farms along the B.C. coast.

The calls came as environmentalists and members of the Musgamagw Dzawada'enuxw and the Kwikwasutinuxw Haxwamis First Nations occupy two Marine Harvest Canada salmon farms in their territorial waters off the north end of Vancouver Island.

They say the salmon farms pose a threat to wild fish populations.

Chief Willie Moon was among the many leaders who spoke at the rally. He says frustrations have mounted as repeated calls directed at the provincial and federal governments to revoke fish farm licensing in traditional Musgamagw Dzawada'enuxw territory have gone unheard.

"We've demonstrated peacefully for over 30 years, and we're occupying now," he said. "It's unlimited as to what we will do to get those fish farms out of our territory."

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Documents addressed to province

The World Salmon Alliance has issued a document signed by Indigenous leaders from more than half of B.C.'s First Nations, calling on the provincial government to dismantle open-pen fish farming in favour of land-based, closed containment farms.

The document also calls on the government to embrace recommendations made in the Cohen Commission, which was mandated to look into the state of salmon stocks in B.C.'s Fraser River.

"The vast majority of First Nations in British Columbia are absolutely opposed to open pen fish farms," said Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs vice-president Bob Chamberlin.

Chamberlin says he will present the document to premier John Horgan at the B.C. Cabinet and First Nations Leaders' Gathering, a two-day summit being held in Vancouver.

"What you're witnessing with the occupation with the fish farms is what happens when the previous governments have turned a deaf ear, when they relied upon consultation and accommodation that never met the needs of our people," said Chamberlin.

Canada’s Impossible Acknowledgment

Every morning, at the start of the school day in Toronto, my children hear the following inelegant little paragraph read aloud, just before the singing of “O Canada”:

I would like to acknowledge that this school is situated upon traditional territories. The territories include the Wendat, Anishinabek Nation, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nations, and the Métis Nation. The treaty that was signed for this particular parcel of land is collectively referred to as the Toronto Purchase and applies to lands east of Brown’s Line to Woodbine Avenue and north towards Newmarket. I also recognize the enduring presence of Aboriginal peoples on this land.

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In the autumn after the principal started reading the acknowledgments at my children’s school, leaders of the Inuit, the Nunatsiavut, and the NunatuKavut near Muskrat Falls, in Labrador, went on hunger strikes to protest the construction of a hydroelectric dam on their traditional territories. The rising mercury levels in the water because of the dam meant that the food supply of the territory, and the cultural practices that relied on fish and seal, would be disrupted.

To me, Muskrat Falls re-created the whole of the Canadian colonial project, with all of its evils, in miniature. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission report of 2015 described Canadian colonization as a conquest with two major thrusts: the starvation of indigenous groups, and the attempt to erase indigenous languages and religious practices. In Muskrat Falls, it was happening all over again—disrupting food and culture. And after Trudeau, with his cool Haida tattoo, had been elected. After the Truth and Reconciliation report had been released. After a former regional chief for the Assembly of First Nations had been named Justice Minister. The hypocrisy of the country can be so startling exactly because we repeat our good intentions so insistently. We say, over and over, that we want desperately to atone for a crime while we’re still in the middle of committing it.

In Canada, hypocrisy is a uniquely potent force. Saying sorry and not meaning it is what we are best at. The great mid-century novelist Margaret Laurence once wrote, “In some families, ‘please’ is described as the magic word. In our house, however, it was ‘sorry.’ ” No one will ever have trouble convincing English Canadians that they need to improve their manners. Speech is easy. Speech is free, unlike, say, paying for the education of First Nation schoolchildren, who still receive thirty per cent less funding than children in non-indigenous Canada.

Pam Palmater: The National Inquiry into MMIWG and where it went wrong

She has become a familiar face, often called on to comment on Indigenous issues and with that notoriety also comes criticism but Pam Palmater has become accustomed to it. She’s been speaking out for Indigenous rights since she was in grade school and has no plans to stop.

Palmater joins host Dennis Ward on the season premiere of Face to Face to discuss a range of issues including the MMIWG National Inquiry, the 10th anniversary of UNDRIP, promises made by the Trudeau government and more.

..good to see your again swallow!

The history of constitutional talks and federal policy tells us that even when Canada talks about eliminating the Indian Act, Indigenous rights are at risk.

In 1980, I was at the Skyline Hotel in Ottawa (now the Delta) and witnessed Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau come to a National Indian Brotherhood meeting of Chiefs. He asked the Chiefs to “treat Canada better than Canada has treated you,” as he revealed his intention to patriate Canada’s constitution from Britain — a bombshell that raised the question of whether Aboriginal and treaty rights would be part of the document.

From that salvo of Trudeau Senior to the initiatives of current prime minister Justin Trudeau, there has been an unyielding policy war of attrition toward Indigenous people (First Nations, Inuit and Métis). The current Liberal government might be raising the notion of getting rid of the Indian Act and restoring a nation-to-nation relationship, but history tells us the real objective is to hollow out and ultimately nullify any rights that Indigenous peoples have to meaningful self-determination.

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The current Trudeau government

Since the federal election of 2015, the Trudeau government has embarked on a top-down, nontransparent approach to federal Indigenous policy. There are reportedly 40 to 50 “exploratory tables” with Indigenous groups. We don’t know the topics or with whom the federal government is holding discussions, but these discussions are supposed to feed into an equally opaque Working Group of Ministers on the Review of Laws and Policies Related to Indigenous Peoples.

The discussion results are to be presented to a “bilateral mechanism” — federal cabinet committees based on political agreements with three national Indigenous organizations representing the Inuit, Métis and the Assembly of First Nations, a Chiefs’ organization. This stealth approach to change policy and law bypasses the legitimate rights holders: the Indigenous peoples. They are the ones who have a right to self-determination, not the national Indigenous leadership groups.

Meanwhile, the federal Minister of Justice, Jody Wilson-Raybould, has issued 10 principles respecting the government’s relationship with Indigenous peoples to guide her federal policy and law review. But the 10 principles, and Canada’s Indigenous policy writ large, continue to be based on the Constitution Act, 1867. The Constitution enshrined the division of powers between the federal and provincial governments, leaving no room for recognition of equal Indigenous jurisdiction and power. The Crown’s assertion of sovereignty is at its core based on the “doctrine of discovery” — essentially, that the lands were vacant when Europeans arrived in the Americas and were there for the taking.

Talks and negotiations based on these principles run counter to the right of Indigenous peoples to free, prior and informed consent over matters concerning their lands and resources, as outlined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).