Working towards a resolution

It’s a first step – a helpful start – but not a solution.

In fact, a solution may be a long time coming.

On Sunday, Frank Alec, who bears the Wet’suwet’en hereditary name Woos, federal Crown-indigenous Relations Minister Caroline Bennett, and Scott Fraser, B.C.’S minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation, announced a deal to recognize the rights of the hereditary chief system of the Wet’suwet’en Nation. The deal was called a landmark one, and one that hopefully will bring to an end the railway blockades that have stalled thousands of train cars of Canadian goods, from wheat to crude oil to much-needed propane for parts of the Atlantic region.

But there are still significant hurdles: the deal has not been released and won’t be until members of the Wet’suwet’en meet to discuss the plan. Some details about how it will work have not been completely finalized, meaning it’s very much a work in progress.

But the deal doesn’t change the progress of the Coastal Gaslink’s pipeline through Wet’suwet’en territory. Construction of the natural gas pipeline – the issue that sparked the protests and blockades in the first place – is still going ahead, with the company maintaining its work has been properly permitted. The governments suggest that the new system for land claims will apply going forward. (It’s hard, in the absence of seeing the actual agreement, to know what is and isn’t on the table.) The issues involved are still very much live. In fact, it didn’t even mean an end to the rail blockades.

In Kahnawake, a blockade of the Canadian Pacific main line continued into Monday, as representatives of the Mohawk Nation say they still have to determine if the Wet’suwet’en deal is an acceptable one.

“It’s a big decision to decide to take down the barricade or not – and they want to make sure they have everything before they make that decision,” Kenneth Deer, secretary of the Mohawk Nation in Kahnawake, told reporters on Sunday.

Even though Canadian National Railway has started calling back workers to deal with what it says will be “several weeks” of work untangling the delays left after 21 days of rail blockades, it’s clear that we’re only part way along the road to a solution.

There is a much larger problem here, and hopefully one that federal and provincial governments recognize and address before Indigenous anger reaches another flash point. This is a work in progress.

For the Indigenous groups involved, the “progress” part of that work in progress will be key.

Otherwise, we’re likely to be back here again – because if nothing else, rail blockades have been shown to be easy to erect, difficult to remove and remarkably effective, not to mention remarkably divisive.

The time for work is now.