Indigenous issues not on agenda for talks
Negotiations in latest round focused on long list of other topics
OTTAWA— Free trade negotiators find themselves at a crossroads. Make that a crossrivers.
The secret talks to rewrite the North American Free Trade Agreement are taking place behind closed doors right across from a waterfall where the Rideau River plunges into the broad sweep of the Ottawa River.
This place was once at the heart of a thriving trade between European settlers and Indigenous peoples who exchanged beaver pelts for utilitarian goods such as needles, axes and kettles.
There’s not even a whisper of that trading history, or its colonial fallout, here.
The Canadian government’s drive to “modernize” the NAFTA by demanding it include a new chapter on Indigenous peoples does not even appear on the agenda for this third round of talks.
Instead, according to a schedule obtained by the Star, negotiators are hashing out the nitty-gritty of more than two dozen topics ranging from government procurement, digital trade, the environment, state-owned enterprises, financial services, labour, rules of origin, trade remedies and dispute settlement mechanisms. You name it, it’s on the agenda. Negotiators spent a full day Saturday devoted to discussions of Canada’s demand to include a chapter on “gender” in the new deal, as the recently-updated Canada-Chile free trade deal did.
They’re even talking about topics where the United States has failed to put out specific proposals for its pet demands, according to Canadian officials: auto, dairy, trade-dispute-resolution panels.
International trade lawyer Michael Woods, who’s a big advocate of a new Indigenous chapter, said he’s not disappointed, “because I think the government is planting the seed.”
But Woods, who is working with a group called the International Intertribal Trade Organization which made a submission to Global Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland on the subject, is skeptical there is enough time to get it done.
“It’s something brand new. It’s never been conceived of before in traditional trade law or trade policy,” he said. “And the other parties who are under domestic pressures of their own want some clarity, and, until there’s some clarity, it would be difficult to engage in substantive discussion of what the chapter’s all about.”
“Obviously, the U.S. has made it pretty clear it wants these negotiations wrapped up by the end of the year, and, in that context, I would say additional chapters and new areas might be seen as problematic given that timeline,” he added.
Then there is the Trudeau government’s own commitment to consult with Indigenous people, Woods said.
“The government wants to get it right and is consulting with and talking with Indigenous people, groups here in Canada. But in the NAFTA context, ideally all three parties would have to engage and agree. So there has to be more done in laying the foundation of what it is we’re talking about.”
It’s not that nobody has any idea what might go into such a chapter.
The International Intertribal Trade Organization has done work on this since 2015, and presented proposals to Freeland that are pretty specific.
For a start, the group argues the government of Canada “does not have the right to act unilaterally on behalf of Indigenous Peoples” and must include them in the process of negotiating a new international trade treaty, just as it consulted with provinces and territories when it was trying to seal a free trade deal with the European Union. “At minimum, Indigenous people need to be consulted, but, above all, need to be involved, in the NAFTA trade negotiations,” the submission reads. The group says a new NAFTA should establish a committee of Indigenous Peoples with representation from all three NAFTA partners, respect measures to protect and preserve “Aboriginal rights, treaty rights and Aboriginal title interests in land” as in the Trans-Pacif- ic Partnership deal in limbo after the U.S. withdrew. It should allow freer cross-border movement of Indigenous people and the goods traded by them in line with a treaty signed by the United States and Great Britain in 1794. And it should provide “greater protection to Indigenous cultural property and traditional knowledge,” the group argues.
For its part, the Assembly of First Nations, which applauded the move by Canada to add an Indigenous chapter, is keeping a distance from the talks. Whereas dozens of other so-called “stakeholders” are keeping an eagle eye on negotiations here, lurking in the basement of the venue where talks are being held, the AFN has not attended. National chief Perry Bellegarde declined the Star’s request for comment on the talks.
Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland downplayed media reports of concern and uncertainty surrounding what Washington wants at the negotiating table because the American team hasn’t yet provided clarification of its demands on a whole range of contentious topics.
“I think Canadians might get the impression that we’re not talking about everything yet; that is not the case. We have 28 tables where people are actively negotiating and working. We really are right now working on all areas of the negotiation,” she told reporters, stressing the talks have been constructive. A senior Canadian official told the Star not every topic is discussed at every round, and the government “is still engaging in consultations” on objectives for the Indigenous chapter.