Canada confronts its own reckoning on failures over First Nations accountability
As Americans take to the streets to uphold their constitutional rights, Canadians must also acknowledge our own shortcomings in terms of policing, but also concerning the governance provided by the tribal governments that are in charge of nearly one million members of Canada’s 632 First Nations.
Indigenous lawyer Catherine Twinn noted to me recently that the principle of “equal justice under law” that American protesters are fighting for does not always apply here. This is because since 2015, the federal government has left law and order mostly up to tribal chiefs and councils.
“Do Canada’s values permit those First Nation chiefs — some of who are mini Trumps — to systematically violate equal justice under law to those they govern, enabled by Canada’s blind and deferential eye? When is this conversation going to open up?” she asked.
In Canada, many First Nations run their own elections, police forces and provide services, such as housing, health care and other benefits.
Like municipalities and provinces, First Nations should be allowed to pass and enforce their own laws, but not if they abrogate the constitutional rights of their residents.
That’s when the federal government and the courts are supposed to step in. Only they often don’t, according to Twinn.
In 2015, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took power, the federal government gave full autonomy to tribal governments and stopped enforcing the First Nations Financial Transparency Act (FNFTA).
The law requires Indigenous leaders, often hereditary chiefs, to be accountable and transparent by forcing them to publish audits of band expenses, including their own compensation.
This involves billions of tax dollars, but has essentially become voluntarily — some do it and some don’t.
Before Trudeau, Canada enforced the FNFTA and initiated action against a handful of non-compliant First Nations.
The government was also involved in civil rights actions involving individual band members and their leaders.
Now, “the compliancy burden (has) shifted to those least able — band members,” said Twinn.
“Few can afford to hire lawyers, go up against the resources in the command of chief and council and risk their necessities, such as housing, program supports and jobs, often controlled by the elected leadership.”
An FNFTA case involving the Onion Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan only proceeded because a band member, Charmaine Stick, was able to enlist the financial help of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation to go to court to get the band audits released, as required by law.
Onion Lake was found in contempt of court and the matter is currently headed to the court of appeal.
Then there is the matter of tribal memberships, said Twinn.
“Some (membership) applications sit for decades without decision. Other applications, like the children of an incumbent chief, are processed quickly and secretly.… It is very lonely and challenging for individual members, or those entitled to be members, to hold a rogue exercise of power accountable. Canada created this condition and its abdication consummates an unholy political union with self-government sovereignty assertions.”
Trudeau’s hands-off policy also contributed to last winter’s rail blockades.
These began after a handful of hereditary chiefs arbitrarily opposed the construction of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) pipeline in British Columbia, despite the fact that local tribes and members had approved the project.
Ellis Ross, a prominent Indigenous leader and a Liberal MLA in B.C., said in an online interview with Resource Works News that climate change radicals, aimed at shutting down Canada’s resource base by sowing division among tribal leaders, were behind the crisis, in opposition to what the majority of local band members wanted.
“The (First Nations) communities know full well what LNG is all about. They approved it. They signed onto it. They wanted the training. The media is not telling the whole story,” he said.
“There is a well-co-ordinated, well-funded machine shutting down Canada. The agenda is basically anti-fossil fuel, but also forestry and mining. This machine has set back Aboriginal reconciliation by 20 years.”
So, while America burns,
Twinn is correct: It’s time for Canadians to have a conversation about providing charter rights for Indigenous People.