Canada's rule of law is conditional

Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have achieved many great feats of cynicism, and on Sunday, Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan apparently felt it was time to get in on the action. Along with three other Liberal ministers, she wrote to Speaker Anthony Rota asking for an emergency debate in the House of Commons, the topic being “the extremely disturbing acts of violence in Nova Scotia related to the Mi’ kmaq constitutionally protected treaty right to fish for a moderate livelihood.” And she posted it on Twitter, like it actually meant something.

Last week, two facilities where Sipekne’ katik First Nation lobstermen were storing their catch were set upon and vandalized by mobs of non-Indigenous competitors. Lobsters were stolen and spoiled. A van was set ablaze.

On Saturday, another lobster pound burned to the ground — “suspicious,” the local RCMP say. A Digby County man was arrested after allegedly assaulting Sipekne'katik Chief Mike Sack.

The Liberals are quite clear that Indigenous fishing rights exist. The Supreme Court's Marshall rulings, which cemented them, are more than 20 years old. And the Liberals are quite clear that protecting them is up to governments and their agents, including their own: on Saturday, Blair and Trudeau pledged more resources for the Nova Scotia RCMP. So what's to debate?

It's painfully obvious what the Liberals are up to, and no one — least of all Indigenous people demanding their rights — is going to fall for it. An emergency debate gives ministers a dramatic backdrop to explain how virtuous they are, and opposition MPs a chance to say something mildly controversial, which the Liberals can then deploy to make themselves look better by comparison.

It's truly pathetic — all the more so because this is, indeed, an emergency.

We have seen this movie before: 20 years ago in New Brunswick, Indigenous and non-Indigenous lobstermen fought a three-year armed ground and sea war in which people very easily could have been killed. It's entirely proper for politicians and fisheries officials to preach calm, discuss and negotiate. Importantly, unlike several other First Nations, Sipekne'katik has not reached an agreement with Ottawa on what exactly constitutes a “moderate livelihood.”

In the meantime, however, Canadians are quite rightly calling on the police not just to ensure things don't get worse, but that the Sipekne'katik lobstermen can pursue a living. In the federal government's own opinion, per Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller on Monday, they are being “let down by the RCMP.” There's nothing the House of Commons can do about that except remind the Liberals that it's a federal police force — one that has been crying out for wholesale reform for as long as anyone can remember.

Reform is a tricky business, mind you. Judging from opinion pieces and social media, many Canadians see this in black and white terms: if the situation were racially reversed — Indigenous lobstermen menacing non-Indigenous — they are sure the police would be out in force. They often note, for example, that the British Columbia RCMP moved in and evicted protesters supporting the hereditary Wet'suwet'en chiefs' campaign against the Coastal Gas Link pipeline.

It's not nearly that simple. The Mounties in B.C. were enforcing a court injunction ordering the protesters to vamoose. To argue against that is to argue against enforcing the rule of law; but enforcing the rule of law is precisely what's being demanded of the Nova Scotia RCMP. Moreover, that enforcement helped move along a project that a great many rank-andfile Wet'suwet'en members — enough to elect pro-pipeline chiefs and band councils, at least — support, in hopes of earning a moderate livelihood. A pipeline is not a lobster trap, but a buck's a buck.

Meanwhile in Ontario, the provincial police force was proud not to enforce a court injunction ordering Mohawk Warriors to end their blockade of the CN main line in solidarity with the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs. They did the same with injunctions ordering Indigenous protesters to stand down during the Caledonia land dispute in 2006 — which often turned violent, unlike the rail blockade and the Wet'suwet'en protests.

Former premier Dalton McGuinty has said he's “proud” of the OPP's performance at Caledonia. And Liberal politicians in Ottawa, who hadn't raised a peep about the B.C. RCMP's enforcement, were entirely supportive of the OPP's inaction on the rail blockade.

When then-Conservative leader Andrew Scheer had the temerity to demand that the rule of law be enforced, Trudeau repaired to his fainting couch, said Scheer “disqualified himself from constructive discussions” and disinvited him from a meeting of party leaders to discuss the crisis.

Indeed, the Nova Scotia RCMP sound a lot like the OPP did about the rail blockade, a million years ago back in February. Asked why no arrests were made during the violence at one of the lobster pounds, a spokesperson explained that “we were there to keep the peace and keep everyone involved as safe as possible in the situation.” In a Halifax Chronicle-Herald op-ed published Monday, the head of the RCMP union wrote that “disputes related to fisheries laws are … not policing issues.”

The takeaway here isn't that the cops always go after Indigenous people and leave white people alone. It's that they enforce rights, laws, rulings and injunctions when they feel like it, and don't enforce them when they don't feel like it — and the politicians who nominally oversee them will support their decision, or not, based on their own preferences. And so will many voters. There is little possibility of coherent police reform if Canadians and their leaders won't support enforcing the most basic laws — the ones guaranteeing our most basic freedoms — on principle, not just when they like the beneficiaries.