New land claims policy 'grave disappointment'

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OTTAWA - The federal government's new land claims policy is "a grave disappointment and an insult to the first nations," according to the Assembly of First Nations.

The AFN indicates it had expected that the government would upgrade its policy to enter into "truly comprehensive relations" with Aboriginal peoples. Instead, according to the AFN, "it now offers a process in which our benefit from the development of our land and resources is deliberately limited."

AFN National Chief George Erasmus says that the policy is akin to "telling a landlord that he is allowed to rent his house for a few years, but once he's made a certain amount of money, he can't make any more. No Canadian would stand for that.

"Taxpayers and the government are as tired as we are of our endless cycle of dependency on the federal government for our existence," says Chief Erasmus. "The capping of our resource revenue sharing will not help us to end the welfare syndrome."

The AFN also protests the fact that the feds are making the constitutional protection of Aboriginal self-government dependent upon "the whims of the recalcitrant provincial governments."

While Liberal Indian Affairs critic Keith Penner says that he does see the Conservative government's new policy as a "cautious and modest step forward from their former position, he says that an "attitudinal change" in the government's dealings with the Aboriginal peoples "would help more than any policy."

According to Penner, what is ultimately needed is a system guaranteeing the implementation of agreements between the federal government and First Nations. Otherwise, cases such as the recent instance of the feds failing to fund programs promised under the James Bay Agreement with the Naskapi Cree of northern Quebec will continue to rise.

Penner says he does agree with the government on one point - that settlement of land claims should be settled through negotiation rather than in the courts.

The government says in its policy statement that "the failure to negotiate carries with the potential not only to disrupt economic and investment in disputed areas, but also to create bitter social antagonisms that might last for generations." The statement can be taken both as an admission of the government's obligation to negotiate, and as a threat.

Among suggested changes to former land claims policy was a suggestion that the government might be willing to end the total extinguishment of title that has accompanied land cessions by First Nations. Under that system, all the lands of the signing Aboriginal people were surrendered to the Crown and then some of them (the reserves) were granted back to the First Nations.

Under the policy, the land for any reserve set up in areas for which claims have not yet been settled would never have to be surrendered.

While the feds have been cited by the Cree and Naskapi peoples by breaking their agreement with them, the policy says that the government recognizes "the resolution of land claims is inextricably linked to questions of authority and control over Aboriginal land."

The government hedges its position on self-government by saying that any agreements would have to "respect existing...government practices." That, judging by past performance, could mean that the government will be fighting Aboriginal self-government at every turn, and backing out of funding arrangements that support self-government whenever they want to save some money.