This is no way to run a country
‘Other’ crisis is nowhere near resolved
If Canada’s typically low-key response to COVID-19 proves unfit for purpose, medical historians may wonder what on earth the Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee was doing meeting in Ottawa on Tuesday. Suddenly “the Indigenous crisis in Quebec and Canada” — the odd title the committee has given the nationwide foofaraw over Coastal Gaslink’s pipeline project on Wet’suwet’en territory in British Columbia — doesn’t look quite as crisis-y as it did two weeks ago.
Nevertheless, Wet’suwet’en member Theresa Tait-day’s compelling testimony on Tuesday was a welcome reminder of just how many loose ends remain to be tied, now that the trains are running again, and once we’ve dealt with this most novel coronavirus.
For starters, we still don’t know the details of the arrangement, struck earlier this month between Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs and federal and provincial government officials, that allowed for pipeline work to resume. Those details could well represent positive progress on establishing just what the Wet’suwet’en’s legal claim on their lands — affirmed by the Supreme Court in 1997 — really means. But did the government have any business negotiating with the chiefs in question in the first place?
Tait-day doesn’t think so. The Office of the Hereditary Chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en, she told the committee, is “not accountable to the (Wet’suwet’en) nation.”
“By refusing to hear from elected councils, these governments have without merit prevented the most credible current governing voices from being heard,” she told the committee. “The Indian Act system must be reformed, but that does not invalidate the role of the elected councils. While imperfect, they continue to speak for the people until a better model is implemented.”
Even setting aside the exclusion of elected councils, the negotiations were of dubious legitimacy. They weren’t with the hereditary chiefs per se; rather, they were with the hereditary chiefs who oppose the pipeline. Not all do, and some support it — including Tait-day, Gloria George and Darlene Glaim, founders of the Wet’suwet’en Matrilineal Coalition. For their apostasy, male chiefs simply stripped them of their titles. This is not in dispute: “We’ve stripped the names from three female hereditary chiefs for supporting the pipeline,” John Ridsdale, whose hereditary title is Chief Na’moks, told APTN News in 2018. “A name is more important than money.”
Using the title of Chief Woos, Frank Alec has become the leading public face of the anti-pipeline hereditary chiefs. On his behalf, Canadians both Indigenous and non-indigenous have shut down rail lines and blocked access to the B.C. legislature and marched in the streets. Until 2018, the title of Chief Woos belonged to Glaim. He took it from her precisely because she dared support the pipeline and the benefits that will flow from it to her people.
“By negotiating directly with (the Office of the Hereditary Chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en), Canada and British Columbia give legitimacy to a group of bullies and abusers of women,” Tait-day told the committee. “We cannot be dictated to by a group of five guys.”
Indeed, you would think not. It’s dubious enough for governments to be discussing potentially epochal land claims with a group of hereditary chiefs who all agree on a pipeline, excluding any who disagree, contrary to the opinion of the vast majority of rank-and-file Wet’suwet’en. It’s well beyond dubious when those chiefs simply excommunicate any chiefs who break ranks — or any female chiefs, as the case may be.
Herb Naziel, whose hereditary house chief title is Samooh, had been on the fence on CGL — not wanting to further divide a deeply fractured community, he told The Globe and Mail last week. He’s off the fence now. "I don’t want to stir up the nest,” he said, “but it’s not right for people to stop business.” Asked if he was afraid of being stripped of his title, he told the Globe: “I’d like to see them try.” It would be telling, surely, if they didn’t.
Evidence is mounting, furthermore, that a key component of the secret agreement — that it be taken to the Wet’suwet’en people for ratification — is not being fulfilled. Tait-day told the committee that no largescale consultations had been undertaken, but rather small clan meetings. Elected officials including Dan George, of the Wet’suwet’en Ts’il Kaz Koh First Nation, have complained they haven’t even been given a copy of the agreement to consult before an upcoming meeting.
In an interview with the Vancouver Sun’s Vaughn Palmer this week, George argued Wet’suwet’en need to sort out their governance structure before they, as a community, can credibly sign off on any kind of land claims agreement. There is much wisdom there. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work with government timelines. Federal ministers didn’t parachute into Wet’suwet’en territory because of a land claims emergency. They parachuted in because some Mohawks several thousand kilometres away had decided to blockade CN’S main line in solidarity with the anti-pipeline hereditary chiefs, and the Ontario Provincial Police refused to do anything about it.
That’s it. That’s all. It’s no way to run a country, and Canadians deserve assurances such a crisis won’t be allowed to happen again.