Aboriginal rights defined:More than berry picking

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Beautiful British Columbia kept its ugly secret for far too long.

But the Supreme Court of Canada, in rendering its landmark decision in the Delgamuukw case, has exposed the injustices perpetrated by successive generations of the West Coast establishment over the last century-and-a-half. One could say it's about time.

In 1991, Allan McEachern, the then Chief Justice of the British Columbia Supreme Court, was representative of the prevailing attitudes in his province when he refused to consider the history of Aboriginal peoples, and ruled that the settlers who arrived west of the Rocky Mountains early in the 19th century should be allowed to keep the land they took (without compensation) from its original inhabitants. McEachern even went so far as to insult the Gitxsan and Wet'suwet'en people who were arguing before him, declaring that their traditional, pre-contact way of life was "nasty, brutish and short."

When British Columbia entered Confederation in 1871, treaties with Aboriginal peoples across Canada stretched westward to the top of the Rockies. The federal government of the day exerted pressure to convince the westernmost province to negotiate its own treaties, but. the provincial authorities of the day, reluctant to offer any compensation for the resource-rich wonders of the territory, refused. Canada may not have a proud history of fair dealings with Aboriginal peoples, but British Columbia almost makes Canada's record look good.

An Aboriginal lawyer who decided he didn't need the political headaches that came with having his name attached to a controversial, if brutally honest, quote, said this after reading the decision:

"In 1973, in the Calder case, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Aboriginal people in this country have rights. In 1997 - a quarter of a century later - the court in Delgamuukw told us what those rights are."

The Gitxsan and Wet'suwet'en people have performed a great service for Aboriginal people and for supporters of the rule of law all over the world. Canada and British Columbia will now have the opportunity to show that there is a belief in decency and fairness inherent in their system of government by negotiating fairly and in good faith. If not, the courts are still there and the law is still the law.

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