Broken Promises: Indigenous Rights in Canada

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Broken Promises: Indigenous Rights in Canada

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dayna Wilson

Student Number 300113188

POLI 1102 – 050

Introduction to Canadian Government

Douglas College

Dr. Jeanette Ashe

November 18th, 2020

1418 Words

 

The Idle No More movement, created in response to 2011 legislative changes proposed by Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, ushered in a new decade of Indigenous activism. With the Conservatives removing treaty rights and environmental protections under omnibus Bill C-45, Indigenous Canadians across Canada were spurred to action. Idle No More was created under the vision of “peaceful revolution which honours and fulfills Indigenous sovereignty and which protects the land, the water, and the sky.” (Idle No More, n.d.) Fast forward nearly 10 years, and the political landscape of Canada has certainly changed. With a Liberal government in place under Justin Trudeau, and John Horgan’s NDP leading government in British Columbia, many claims of commitments to restore Indigenous sovereignty and protect Indigenous interests have been made. Despite these commitments, both governments have fallen short of adequately addressing the rights of Indigenous Canadians. Said failings can be witnessed in the areas of Indigenous self government, the continued drinking water crisis, and inaction on racist violence facing Indigenous peoples. Mounting protests and broken trust would indicate that Indigenous Canadians feel that any efforts towards reconciliation that are being made are too little, too late, and when considering the evidence, one would be hard pressed to disagree.

When the Horgan-led BC NDP government announced the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in 2019, Indigenous British Columbians reacted with cautious optimism. UNDRIP article 3 states explicitly that “Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determine” (United Nations 2007), a right that should never have been challenged in Canada to begin with. As Gordon Christie examines in his book Canadian Law and Indigenous Self Determination: A Naturalist Analysis, it is unreasonable to hold a society that evolved independently of colonial Canadians to the same social standards (Christie 2019, 5). Indigenous Canadians enjoyed their own self governance and land rights prior to the advent of colonialism, and land treaties were never intended to remove Indigenous rights or governance. In adopting UNDRIP, the BC NDP made a commitment, and parameters for fulfilling that commitment were clearly laid out by Dr. Judith Sayers, a member of the Hupacasath First Nation and one of the Indigenous individuals who worked on drafting UNDRIP: “A plan must be put in place to review all the laws of BC and make them consistent with UNDRIP. This must be done through consultation and cooperation with Indigenous peoples. The BC government cannot act alone and must get the processes right, as this is now a law they must live up to.” (Sayers 2019.)

Since adopting UNDRIP, the BC government boasts that a number of measures have been taken to implement it, including dedicated money to revitalize and preserve Indigenous languages and enhance Indigenous education in schools. Despite these efforts, no attempt has been made to update BC laws to enshrine the rights to “own, use, develop, and control…lands, territories, and resources” (Sayers 2019), as recognized by UNDRIP. In fact, the BC government appears to be treating UNDRIP like an ala carte menu of priorities rather than a comprehensive outlining of changes to be enacted into law and made binding.

This has been no more clearly demonstrated than with the conflict surrounding the Coastal GasLink Pipeline (CGL) being built in Wet’suwet’en First Nation territory. Throughout the conflict, pipeline supporters, including both the Provincial and Federal governments, have claimed that the support of elected band councils has been sufficient for the project to go forward. This approach fails to acknowledge that band councils are a holdover from colonial policy and were established under the widely criticized Indian Act of 1876. The goal of the Indian Act was to assimilate Indigenous Canadians and as such erase their traditional laws and political structure. Historically, political authority over Indigenous communities has been held by hereditary chiefs. These chiefs represent traditional Indigenous customs and laws, the preservation of which are a cornerstone of UNDRIP. In ignoring and countering the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chief protests to the CGL, government is prioritizing an artificial colonial authority over a traditional cultural one and upholding colonial law with violence through RCMP enforcement. This goes against the definition of self-determination, as laid out by UNDRIP, and has been criticized by lawyers and legal scholars across Canada as violating international law. (Jacobs, McAdam, et al. 2020.)

            Another area for concern with regards to violation of international law is the continued drinking water crisis facing Indigenous communities across the country. Though Canada enjoys a position within the top 10 wealthiest countries worldwide in 2019 (Shorrocks, Davies, and Lluberas 2019.), dozens of reserves nationwide lack access to clean drinking water. This is a clear violation of the human right to clean drinking water and sanitation, as laid out by the United Nations in 2010.  When Justin Trudeau initially ran for Prime Minister in 2015, universal access to clean water was a major campaign promise; yet it was 2019 before Trudeau took steps to actually address the issue, investing $1.8 billion with a claim that all drinking water advisories would be lifted by March 2021 (Canada. Budget 2019). As of November 2020, however, 61 long-term drinking water advisories remain in effect in reserves across Canada. (Canada 2020). According to the David Suzuki Foundation, not only is the government not on track to meet the March 2021 goal, but many of the measures that have been implemented to date are stop-gaps that will not solve long-term issues. Considering that Canada has a vast resource of fresh water, it is unthinkable that so many Canadians go without. The fact that the Federal government has recognized and committed resources to this problem, yet still falls far short of addressing it is telling in the prioritization of issues facing Indigenous Canadians.

            One of those biggest and most critical issues is the high level of racist violence experienced by Indigenous peoples, as evident in the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls of Canada: Despite accounting for only 4% of the female population, Indigenous women and girls represented 16% of all female homicides between 1980 and 2012. In December of 2015, The Government of Canada announced the National Inquiry Into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG), seeking to account for and address the disproportionate levels of violence faced by Indigenous women and girls. The goal of the inquiry was to be “an important step towards a nation-to-nation relationship and a renewed sense of trust between the Government of Canada and Indigenous peoples in Canada” (Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada 2016). The final report of the committee assembled for the inquiry, delivered on June 3rd 2019, identified “persistent and deliberate human and Indigenous rights violations and abuses” (National Inquiry Into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls 2019) and outlined a preventative framework for addressing this violence, which it categorized as genocide. In response to the findings and recommendations of the inquiry, the Trudeau government promised to consult with Indigenous community leaders and release a national action plan. In June of 2020, the release of the plan was delayed, ostensibly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As of November 2020, a plan has still not been released. Similarly, while BC Premier John Horgan released a statement of remorse in response to the inquiry findings and claimed that  “[c]ommunity-based engagement to collaborate on taking concrete steps together will soon begin and will continue through the summer and early fall.” Again, no further steps have been taken.

 

Time and again, both the federal and provincial governments have expressed regret over historical treatment of Indigenous Canadians, as well as a claim to wish to improve relations going forward. Yet despite clearly communicated requirements for that goal to be achieved, it remains clear that Indigenous rights are prioritized below the concerns of non-Indigenous Canadians. Government proudly touts monetary commitments to preserving select Indigenous rights, such as those to language and culture. However, whenever Indigenous people and their rights are inconvenient or oppose the interests of federal or provincial governments, or even sometimes corporations with deep pockets, colonial law is upheld as supreme. This is evident in the failure to adequately adopt UNDRIP and recommendations laid out by the MMIWG inquiry, and in the consistent inaction in addressing concerns such as the clean water crisis on Canadian reserves. Without demonstrable progress towards promises made to Indigenous Canadians, it’s hard to see governmental acts of apparent reconciliation as much more than empty platitudes to curry favour with a population that has been long mistreated and taken advantage of by colonial forces.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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