Is Reconciliation Being Railroaded?

Convivium, 20 February 2020

Indigenous land claim protests might spell the death of reconciliation if they continue threatening the rule of law.

“Reconciliation is dead and we will shut down Canada until Canada pays attention and listens to and meets our demands.”

That’s Cricket Guest, an Anishinaabekwe Métis quoted in the Toronto Star at solidarity protests in Toronto about the Coastal GasLink pipeline. 

The Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs are upset that the elected Wet’suwet’en chiefs – and all other Indigenous band councils along the pipeline route – have either endorsed or not opposed the pipeline project. Their objection to the decision of their fellow Indigenous chiefs is fierce and they reject the validity of the agreements those chiefs have made with Coastal GasLink and with various levels of government. So intense is their opposition that they have blockaded access to the work site and defied a court injunction ordering them to give way. 

The protests of Cricket Guest and others – shutting down the rail network in Ontario, disrupting ports, blocking traffic, preventing access to the B.C. legislature – are in solidarity with the hereditary chiefs against the elected band councils. 

It’s not easy to track all the factions is this inter-Indigenous fight, but a most admirable attempt to sort out the status of the hereditary chiefs is here.

Andrew Coyne summarizes that Coastal GasLink has been consulting with everyone who will talk to them, but that does not satisfy the hereditary chiefs, who seek not consultation, but a veto over all projects. 

Jody Wilson-Raybould, quondam attorney-general of Canada and minister of justice – the first Indigenous person to hold those posts – writes that all the structures put in place by the “colonial Indian Act” are inadequate, including the band councils. An entirely new governance structure for Indigenous Canadians is needed and an entirely new relationship with the Crown, which sounds like it would be impossible, even in theory, to get Indigenous consent to any project in the short or medium term.

All of which are thoughtful analyses of the complexity of the situation. Yet the matter is urgent. And much is at stake. Reconciliation may well be killed this month in Canada.

Continue reading at Convivum:
https://www.convivium.ca/articles/is-reconciliation-being-railroaded/