Ottawa in bind of own making
Trudeau agreed to UN accord he can’t live up to
According to an ancient political proverb, governments that pander to the globalist sword fighters at the United Nations run a grave risk of getting their policy necks lopped off. And so, as prophesied, that object now rolling across the Canadian West toward Ottawa is the Trudeau government’s self- righteous 2016 decision to wrap its arms around UNDRIP — the 2007 United Nations United Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
With Canada now signed on to the United Nations’ feel- good indigenous agenda, UN operatives are back and claiming, as is their practice, that Canada is failing to live up to the full meaning of the declaration, which among other things requires Ottawa and the provinces receive full agreement from Indigenous peoples before proceeding with economic development.
Through a subgroup called the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination ( CERD), the UN has drafted a two- page decision calling on Canada to “immediately cease” construction of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, to “immediately suspend” construction on the Site C dam in British Columbia and to “immediately halt” all work on the Coastal Gas Link LNG pipeline.
In other words, says the UN, Canada should stop all work on its three largest energy projects worth billions in new investment. According to the “decision” — following typical global bureaucratese — CERD said it is “concerned” about the pipeline plans, “disturbed” by forced removal and harassment of protesters and “alarmed” by what it calls escalating threats of violence against Indigenous people.
Had the Trudeau government refrained from enthusiastically adopting the UN Indigenous rights declaration in 2016, the quick answer to these insistent directives would be to tell the global agency to look to parts of the world where rights are actually being trampled on. China, for example.
Or how about Venezuela? Iran, anyone?
But having signed on to the declaration, Canada is an easier target, a goose with its self- righteous neck sticking out for easy political removal. When Canada adopted the declaration in May 2016 — nine years late — the formal announcement by Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett was greeted with a standing ovation at the UN.
Canada, she said, is “now a full supporter of the declaration, without qualification.”
Well, not quite. There are a couple of clauses in the declaration that most legal scholars and clear- eyed politicians view as all but impossible to adopt within Canada’s constitutional framework.
Even former Trudeau justice minister Jody Wilson- Raybould sounded more than skeptical about the UNDRIP adoption.
In a 2016 speech, she said much as she would like to cast Canada’s Indian Act into the fire of history, “simplistic approaches, such as adopting the UNDRIP as being Canadian law, are unworkable.”
In another comment, she said “it is important to appreciate how come it cannot be simply incorporated, word for word, into Canadian law.”
But that is exactly what the UN wants Canada to do.
In its decision calling for the shutdown and suspension of Trans Mountain and Coastal Gas Link pipelines, CERD insists that Canada constitutionally adopt a UNDRIP legal concept that requires Canadian governments to seek the “free, prior and informed consent” of Indigenous people over large- scale economic development projects that may impair their rights, culture and way of life.
Free, prior and informed consent — known in the business as FPIC — is embedded in UNDRIP and was for a decade the major reason Canada did not sign the 2007 declaration. Canada was so strongly opposed to the idea that it was the only UN member to refuse the UN’S FPIC principles.
Even after the Trudeau government adopted UNDRIP, it continued to fudge the issue. A recent paper in the International Indigenous Policy Journal says the latest Trudeau government pronouncement on FPIC is weak. The best Ottawa can do is claim that it “recognizes that meaningful engagement with Indigenous peoples aims to secure their free, prior and informed consent.”
A policy that “aims to” do something is not a hard policy.
Canada’s Supreme Court has ruled that governments, including provinces, have a “duty to consult” Indigenous peoples, but legal experts say FPIC takes the concept several steps beyond mere consultation to requiring full “free-will” agreement.
The province of British Columbia has also embraced UNDRIP, so it will have to find a way to respond to the UN criticisms of the Site C hydro project.
The Trudeau Liberals are now in a bind of their own making. Ottawa moved to adopt UN principles that are incompatible with Canadian constitutional law, and now the UN is knocking at Canada’s door demanding action.
Alberta has firmly responded: “With all the injustice in the world,” said Minister of Energy Sonya Savage, “it’s beyond rich that the unelected, unaccountable United Nations would seemingly single out Canada — one of the greatest champions of human rights, democracy and the rule of law.”
What will Ottawa do?
In his postelection mandate letter to Bennett as minister of Indigenous relations, the prime minister instructed her to “support the minister of justice and attorney general of Canada in work to introduce co- developed legislation to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by the end of 2020.”
If legal scholars and Wilson-Raybould are right, introducing “free and prior consent” into Canadian law is a legal impossibility, which means that the Trudeau Liberals will have to live with being in breach of a UN declaration they should never have adopted.
The only option is to let the pipelines be built and to hell with the UN.