Lloyd Augustine 2 hrs · Welcome to Colonial Courtrooms, should have been the title of the Supreme Courts landmark aboriginal rights judgment. While First Nations were busy last week celebrating the courts affirmation of their aboriginal title, they should have paid closer attention to the fine print. In spite of all the hand-wringing about threats to resource development and the land mass of British Columbia, this is a big victory for governments. First, they must establish they are the same people who have been living on and using the land forever, and then their rights will be decided by governments through talks or, in the end, by appointed judges. Although aboriginal peoples have some extra rights constitutionally, government can still expropriate or place easements on their land - just as they can to anyone elses in the name of the greater good. Like the rest of us, native people have the right to take their case to court, wrote McLachlin. As long as the government negotiates in good faith and is willing to cut a reasonable cheque, any industrial development, mine, or pipeline can proceed. There is no aboriginal veto. Consider as well that if the Tsilhqotin decision is a benchmark, we could hand the same deal to B.C.s roughly 200 other First Nations and still have twothirds of the province left. What they won here was an area of some 1,700 square kilometres - a wilderness with about 200 residents, a handful of whom are nonaboriginal. This 339-day trial was an embarrassment: Private lawyers got rich, and the costs were in excess of at least $40 million. The dispute, in its broadest sense, involved at most a grouping of six bands numbering 3,000 people and raw, isolated land that isnt worth a fraction of the cost of the litigation. This decision is a death knell for their dreams of sovereignty, and signals a new aboriginal land and resource exploitation rush. With this judgment, the focus shifts from the recognition of aboriginal self-government and the devolution of powers to appropriate First Nations structures to divvying up the pie. We will see a burgeoning of the already crowded industry of land claims lawyers, consultants and native ethno-cultural-historiographers, and a blizzard of new litigation. Think this decades-long court case is unique? Just wait. This decision has brought clarity, but its a clarity that brings consequences that many aboriginal people may not welcome. We can infringe on aboriginal title as long as we justify it as a necessary part of the reconciliation of aboriginal societies with the broader political community of which they are part. Resistance is futile. Its a game-changer all right, but maybe not in the way aboriginal people think.
Posted on: Fri, 04 Jul 2014 00:17:03 +0000
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