The BC First Nations Treaty Commission has just released a report highly critical of the Government of Canada and BC for the slow rate of progress of treaty negotiations.  In particular it finds that the mandates of the government negotiators are far too limited to make agreements possible.  Take this to mean that government offers are far too small to get agreement from First Nations.  The result is that only three treaty agreements have been reached in BC:  Nisga’a, Tsawwassen, and Maalnuth.

 It is worth reminding readers why treaties are needed in BC.  Under British law since 1763 (law which Canada inherited in 1867), for all land occupied by First Nations, the Federal Government must first acquire the title to it before the land can be taken over and settled.  This is because under common law original occupation and use of land constitutes ownership and thus title.  The title belongs to the First Nations unless it is lawfully acquired.  The means of acquiring the land from First Nations as set out in law is a treaty, through which rights to land are sorted out and re-defined by agreement of the parties.  This was done everywhere in southern Canada except BC, where until 1993 the government foolishly refused to abide by the law.  The result is that virtually all of the land and resources in BC are being managed and exploited illegally, with potential dire consequences for the provincial economy.  The Supreme Court has been patient with the federal and provincial governments, giving them time to reach agreements that will bring the holding of land in BC into conformity with the law.  However, this uncertainty is a great source of disquiet to long term external capital that might invest here, since capital fears more than anything else uncertainty about ownership.

In 1993, the BC and federal governments and a large proportion of BC First Nations committed to negotiating treaties to address the problem.  However progress has been difficult.  The real problem is that First Nations largely believe that they are not being offered enough to reach agreement on the sharing of the title to their land and resources.  The exceptions have been the three that have settled, where various techniques were used to get past the rigid mandates of the governments that limit what can be offered in negotiations.  In the face of this problem, the BC government tried to by-pass the need to settle treaties with its proposed Reconciliation Act, which would have temporarily bought off First Nation objections to developments on their lands with money and other benefits.  This failed for reasons that will be explored another time. 

Without settlements, the provincial economy is in trouble.  The patience of First Nations, and they have been very patient, is running out. The Federal and BC governments really have no choice but to accept the findings of the BC Treaty Commission.  They must substantially increase the amount of land and resources, including fisheries, which the First Nations will retain after the treaties are settled.  And they must increase the amount of money to be paid in compensation for leaving things for so long.  Like it or not, the cost of past intransigence has become very high.  Nothing else will bring settlements. 

The time for further delay is long passed.  The lawyers and academic experts who defended the governments for so long, and politicians and civil servants who are ignorant of the obligations of governments, cannot change the reality.  The cost to the province of continuing unlawfully to exploit land and resources is mounting and will soon become prohibitive.  It is time to get on with negotiations.  That means that the governments must work with much more generous mandates.  More money, more land and more resources.  There is no other choice.

A blog in the pages of the respectable London (UK) Telegraph contains a wild and hateful outburst by Rachel Marsden late of sexual harassment  charges and Canadian conservative politics.  Vancouverites will remember her as a nut case whose currency was outrageous lies and destructive hate.  One of her most infamous acts was to take down an SFU swim coach by claiming he ogled her underwater in the pool.  After going through a living hell, he was later re-instated when many of her claims were exposed as questionable.  Marsden was later given a conditional discharge in 2004 with one year’s probation for criminally harassing a Vancouver radio host following their breakup. She displayed no shame at being discovered to be a predator obviously suffering  from a severe psychological problem.  She later went on to make various nutty and outrageous claims and charges on Fox TV and other conservative outlets, none to the credit of serious conservative views.

The nature of her Telegraph outburst can best be understood simply by reading some of it which I quote verbatim in the following.  Remember these are her words not mine.

“Who is fighting to ensure that the immigrants of European descent are
adequately represented at next year’s Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic
Games?  Canada, was pretty third-worldish until the English, French, and various other Europeans arrived and started planning and building infrastructure and government, and
teaching the natives discipline, order, and capitalism. Canada or the USA without European immigrants would look somewhat like Africa.

It’s no coincidence that the best countries in the world are either
European or founded by Europeans. Everywhere they go, European
immigrants make things better – until they’re asked to leave, at which
point everything usually descends back into chaos. Not that they ever
get any thanks for it.

So how are the Vancouver 2010 Olympics paying tribute to these
increasingly marginalized European immigrants and their defining
contributions to Canada? By ignoring them completely, it seems.

The logo for the Games is some sort of native Indian stone carving
resembling a bloke with massive oedema of the legs. While the natives
were carving away at such lovely things, the Europeans were busy
building an entire world around them, but that’s conveniently
overlooked. The mascots for the games are various hybrids of legendary
native indian animals that could only ever exist only after a good
toke-up of Canadian weed: a half-whale half-bear hybrid (Miga), a
whale-thunderbird-bear hybrid (Sumi), and a sasquatch (Quatchi).

A feature on the 2010 Games website allows you to take a quiz to find
out which mascot you are. I can tell you, without even taking the quiz,
that even as a Canadian I would be exactly none of them because I’m not
some sort of native Indian hallucination with a Japanese name who
resembles an Asian cartoon character.  I’m descended from the people who built my country, but they’ve been forgotten.”

So there you have it.  The discriminated majority are being cut out of the Olympic games.  Not that one can tell that by looking at the people running them, the companies profiting from them, the athletes participating in them, and the jobs being created by them. In fact in one obvious case that a First Nation should have been benefiting, the 2010 Committee snubbed them while ripping off their design and reputation.

The Cowichan sweater is known throughout the world as a premium and unique West Coast First Nation  product, and would be expected to be a central part of the Canadian Olympic wear.  But when the Cowichan Tribes bid for the job, they were refused.  Instead, the Olympics  chose an expensive knockoff. The Bay is selling the expensive copy which the Cowichan Tribe could have supplied for $350, compared with $215 for the Cowichan original.  Imagine the outrage if a BC tribe made and sold knock-offs of the iconic Hudson Bay blanket or Prada jewelry.

Nor does Marsden mention that all of those First Nations symbols and icons have been appropriated by the Olympics to use in a brilliant marketing campaign through the generosity and cooperation of First Nations  and at no cost to the Olympic Committee.  No, you have to have the special insight bred by hatred and intolerance to miss these important facts that turn the racist argument on its head.  Rachel Marsden is back, bringing us the same regard for fact and truth that she so stunningly displayed in her past forays into the public arena.  One does wonder why conservative papers and broadcasters so discredit serious conservative views and analysis by publishing this sort of thing.