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Hello sust-mar's,
There needs to be a wide-ranging discussion within the
environmental community in the Maritimes, on the obvious
changes in land use which are on the horizon, regarding
aboriginals and the environment. I decided quite a long
time ago to read and try and understand the Report of the
Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, as part
preparation for this discussion. I think the Report lays out
the directions that aboriginal peoples are orienting to.
Basically, the Royal Commission is saying that the
thousand or so aboriginal communities will be regrouped
into 60 to 80 historically-based nations. An aboriginal
person will then hold two citizenships. Land claims
need to be put in such a context. The Report also says
that "almost half the aboriginal identity population" is
now living in urban areas. There are many basic assumptions
in the Royal Commission Report, which cannot be taken for
granted, but need a critical examination by those who care
about the well-being of the Earth and social justice in Canada.
On February 1st, there was a radio phone in on CBC's
Radio Noon, on the topic "What is the best way to settle
aboriginal land claims?"
I had decided to try and intervene when I heard of this
program, as part of my interest in fostering a deeper, more
biocentric public discussion on these important issues.
There were two aboriginal commentators in the studio, as
well as the non aboriginal host of the program. One of the
commentators was a male land claims lawyer and the other was
female and head of the aboriginal studies program at Saint
Thomas University in New Brunswick. I was the third or
fourth caller. Below are the notes of my actual intervention.
I would have liked to have spoken longer. The studio
aboriginal commentators reacted positively to what I said.
David Orton
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Hello. I do not believe that "the courts" define aboriginal
title. I believe that to solve the overall question presented
for the phone-in, we need to discuss and resolve some
fundamental assumptions.
The _Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples_
defines "Aboriginal title" as follows:
The origin of the law of Aboriginal title lies in
institutions that give recognition to the near-universal
principle that land belongs to those who have used it
from time immemorial. - Vol. 2, Restructuring The
Relationship, Part 2, p. 689 (footnote)
1) I believe that no one can "own" the Earth, whether
individually or collectively. Ownership is a social fiction.
That is, it derives from human society enforcing a control
over other creatures and the earth itself. Humans make use
of or impact the earth either respectfully (bearing in mind
the interests of all other creatures), or destructively.
2) Sovereign native societies exercised control over the
country now called Canada and they were dispossessed. Each
aboriginal society had a Creation story (myth) which
basically said that the specific aboriginal nation had been
entrusted with looking after the plants, animals, rocks,
waters, etc. in a particular area. The sacred duty was to
preserve this for the unborn. This was not "ownership"
either collectively or individually. It becomes ownership
today because the "claims" become transposed into a
European-derived (mainly British but also French) legal
system. This legal system is essentially a social fiction.
"Ownership" then, is not in keeping with traditional
aboriginal teachings.
3) The basis for the treaties is itself fraudulent. The
treaties were to gain access or relieve Indians of the lands
they occupied. Why should we perpetuate the myth of the
"sacred" treaties between sovereign peoples? Natives were
originally sovereign but their sovereignty was compromised
or taken by the British. For example, Dan Paul, author of _We
Were Not The Savage_, speaks of the Treaty of 1752 as a
humiliating document.
What the aboriginal social base is, that is important.
Aboriginal people are usually given as 2.5% of the overall
Canadian population. (_Royal Commission Report_, Vol. 2,
part Two, p.449) The term "First Nations" excludes Metis
and Inuit. (See Report, Vol. 2, Part 1, p.107) I have, in
the past, supported this term because it goes against the
fiction of the "two founding nations" in Canada but it is an
exclusionary term. Olive Dickason (herself a Metis historian),
estimates in her book Canada's _First Nations_, that Metis
make up 16% of the Canadian population. In general I find the
language is loaded.
Aboriginals tap into and exploit a psychosis of collective
guilt. Some have profited more from the dispossession, yet
today all must pay. The ecology has fundamentally changed
for the worse today. We cannot go back to the treaties of
several hundred years ago.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
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Green Web Home Page
http://fox.nstn.ca/~greenweb/gw-hp.htm
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