Chief says Treaty Process a Myth

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After investing many years and millions of dollars in the British Columbia Treaty Process and getting farther in the process than any of the 50 First Nations involved, the Sechelt First Nation decided on May 31 that the process just won't get them a fair and reasonable treaty.

After seven years of allowing the treaty process to unfold, the Sechelt leadership gave up hope that it will be a vehicle they can ride towards a just treaty where they are recognized as equals.

Many disgruntled First Nation leaders feel, now that seven years have gone by and the federal and provincial negotiators have had lots of time to show their real hands, that the process was a trap from the start.

Chiefs have said that negotiators persuaded them to talk about soft issues during the early days of negotiations and then, when it came down to the basic issues of extinguishment of Aboriginal rights and compensation for years of lost access to their lands, the government arbitrarily refused to deal with those issues. At that point, the First Nations, who conduct the negotiations with money they borrow from the government and that must be paid back out of any final settlement, were in too deep to walk away.

Politically, after years of bitter enmity, the province's two major Native political organizations are united in calling for a drastic re-working of the treaty process.

The First Nations Summit, an organization comprised of the First Nations within the treaty process joined in the call for change during last July's Assembly of First Nations/National Congress of American Indians summit. That brought them together with the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC), the organization that has opposed the process from the beginning. That call was renewed by the Assembly of First Nations executive when they met in Vancouver in late January.

"The fundamental flaw with the process is that it does not recognize title," said UBCIC President Stewart Phillip. "The B.C. treaty process, in my view, is a myth. There never was a treaty process. All there has been is an acceleration of the comprehensive claims process."

Specific claims deal with land that was wrongfully or mistakenly alienated from Native control or ownership and deals with clearly identifiable parcels of land. The comprehensive claims process deals with larger and less specific claims. Phillip said the federal and provincial governments found it necessary to create a special process for the province of British Columbia because claims affected almost the entire province. He maintains the government simply opened up access to more negotiators, but did nothing to change the policy which was formulated long before the many important Supreme Court of Canada decisions regarding Aboriginal title to unceded land.

"These are not treaty negotiations, these are comprehensive claims negotiations. Treaties are between sovereign powers and are bilateral in nature and not trilateral. And they refused to deal with title because in the comprehensive claims policy that exists today it says no court in the land has defined Aboriginal title," he said.

Of course, on Dec. 11, 1997, the Supreme Court of Canada did exactly that in the Delgamuukw decision.

"The treaty process, basically, was rendered null and void at that moment," Phillip said. "I think the governments understand privately that at the end of the day our legal arguments will prevail. What they're trying to do, in my view, is settle as many claims as possible to reduce their exposure when they have to face the reality of Delgamuukw.

Native leaders in the province and across the country are now calling for the comprehensive claims policy to be struck down and replaced with something which takes Delgamuukw into account.

With the new-found unity of the Native leadership in the province, it looks like that will be the only thing that will save the treaty process. Phillip said 90 per cent of the First Nations would walk awa if they could and only their indebtedness is keeping the process alive at the moment.