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I thought this was relevant to this list, so i forward it, in the hopes that it
is of some interest or use to you.
The position of the Canadian Reform Alliance Party regarding the rights
of the First Nations peoples in Canada is based on ignorance of the historical
and legal background of the relationship between the newly-arrived Europeans and
the natives who came many thousands of years earlier. The Alliance ideology
regards natives as conquered people, hence simply "citizens of Canada", who
should be treated in the same way one would treat citizens who came from
England, France, Mexico or Zambia - "All citizens should be treated equally -
none should have more, less, or different rights than any other." What they
fail, or simply refuse to see or accept, is that with the exeption of the
Beothuk tribe in Newfoundland, the original inhabitants of the land we call
Canada were never "conquered", although they and their culture were agressively
attacked in many ways, from the very first year of European immigration.
Instead, they negotiated treaties - on the basis of nations of equal standing:
they never surrendered their nationhood, even though it is still unclear as to
exactly what constituted or constitutes a native nation. These treaties were
validated and agreed to by individual provinces and the country of Canada as a
whole, in the BNA act which created our country - so whatever people on the
extreme "right" may think, native people in effect have dual citizenship: they
are NOT simply Canadians the same way some who immigrated from Scotland last
year, but also members of nations who made binding treaties with England or with
Canada directly - hence their rights are different from those of non-native citizens.
In most of those treaties, natives retained access to the resources
found on crown lands and in the ocean - in fact, the original designation of
Crown land in some provinces (such as Nova Scotia) was "Crown Protected" lands -
the resources of these lands were protected by the Crown, for the use and
economic benefit of both native and non-native peoples. In recent decades,
natives were systematically denied access to the resources they had always had
full rights to, so that now they find themselves in a difficult position of
having to compete for these rights with others (independant inshore fishermen on
one hand, and huge timber, mining and petrocarbon companies on the other hand)
who have also been given these resources, in a world where there is no excess: all
resources that exist, have been spoken for by somone, and "new" entrants in any
particular situation, must nessessarily displace others, in order to maintain at
least a semblance of "sustainability". The result is conflict - legal conflict
because nobody knows how to apply centuries-old treaties in a very different
context from the one in which they were negotiated, and civil & social conflicts
with those who are currently relying on these resources for their livlihood, and
who see the long-displaced natives as interlopers, hence a threat. It will take
decades to sort things out, but since this is Canada, i have confidence that it
will most likely be done in a lawful, reasonably fair manner - unless of course
the Alliance or some similar party comes to power, in which case things could
get quite confused and ugly.
On the matter of why so many people voted for the Alliance, i don't
think more than a very small percentage of them did so in support of their
positions and policies towards natives - indeed, i would be surprised if more
than 20 or 30% of Alliance voters even considered this when marking their x on
the ballot. People in the west tend to vote for a "conservative" party, and for
a party which represents the interests of Western Canada. Many die-hard gun
owners ignored most other issues and just voted for the party most openly
"pro-fire arms", and a huge number of people undoubtedly voted Alliance in
protest against the high-handed, non-progressive, and generally inept policies,
decisions and governing style of the extremely "entrenched" Liberal government -
i'm quite certain many of these votes were cast mainly to send a message to the
existing government, and were not in any way a vote FOR the hard-right policies
and principle of the Alliance party. So, people who support native rights
should not be too appalled by the shockingly large percentage they recieved in
the most recent election.
Sincerely yours,
Ross Mayhew.
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