[stonogo]

> On moral grounds, I find it questionable to give some citizens special birth rights greater than others.

Kind of the point here is that it was happening the other way for a couple hundred years, so just abrogating current inequality still leaves one party as a disadvantage. The hard part is deciding when these catch-up priveleges have run their course. Since first nations metrics along the lines of economic status are still below the national average, it's clear we're not there just yet.

[nikitaga]

> Since first nations metrics along the lines of economic status are still below the national average, it's clear we're not there just yet.

Instead of rushing for race-based policies, how about implementing policies that would help all disadvantaged people equally without looking at their race.

You can't compensate for past racism with modern racism. It will never end. Canada will learn that the hard way, it seems.

[philistine]

I see you took Pierre Elliot Trudeau’s plan from way back in the 70s out of the moth balls and are now trying to pass it as new.

It cannot work. Our government signed binding treaties with independent nations in the past. Those treaties are still valid, and we cannot declare them null and void because it’s unfair that they give more fishing rights to 3% of people.

[nikitaga]

This isn't about treaties – BC signed very few treaties, unlike other provinces. The rights to fish come from a couple of very vague paragraphs in the constitution and the royal proclamation. They are very much free to interpretation, and the courts have been re-interpreting them for decades to match the contemporary social attitudes.

For example, does the constitution guarantee the indigenous people the right to subsistence fishing with traditional methods, or to large scale commercial fishing unlimited by any Canadian regulations, or something in between? None of that is defined in the constitution, it's all up for interpretation.

And this isn't about fishing either. No one's chanting #fishback around here, it's all #landback. 90%+ of BC land is currently public land that all Canadians are free to enjoy. Whether it stays public, or whether it is entirely privatized based on race, like the activists want, is a much bigger issue than who gets to overfish.

[bawolff]

> The rights to fish come from a couple of very vague paragraphs in the constitution and the royal proclamation. They are very much free to interpretation, and the courts have been re-interpreting them for decades to match the contemporary social attitudes.

That is the supreme court's job. They decide how to interpret things. Their interpretation is law.

Interpreting the constitution in the context of current social views of course is not a canadian invention but comes to us from the british https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_tree_doctrine

[nikitaga]

You say it like it's a good thing, but it's not. Specifically, the fact that our country's foundational document is so vague about our fundamental rights, is a very bad thing for everyone involved. If it was more specific, our fundamental rights would not only be more clear, they would also be more stable, not subject to the momentary (on a historical scale) whims of pop culture.

If our fundamental rights are subject to change every few years with a new Supreme Court decision, then we're either abusing the process to make these changes, or these rights should not be in the constitution in the first place. The constitution is supposed to contain the most fundamental, the most immutable rights.

We have a proper democratic process to update the constitution, but it requires a certain high level of consensus, as it should – these being our fundamental rights, after all. Yet this process is completely bypassed by activist judges who of course are happy to use the power that their predecessors afforded themselves. That is not a good thing in any way.

[philistine]

First Nations right have nothing to do with our constitution; it’s either treaties, or in the absence of it, a court agreeing to a nation asserting itself.

[smallmancontrov]

So why not run programs along the lines of current economic status, which is relatively easy to objectively determine and relatively light on ethnic, racial, and national animus? It is impossible to do a good job of litigating history and it is guaranteed to make people hate each other.

[elefanten]

This is absolutely the correct answer, all identity-based solutions are coarse and imprecise ways to solve a directly measurable problem (relative economic hardship). But the identity-based lever has proven too effective rhetorically and creates ample rent-seeking and self-enrichment opportunities to those wielding political power with an identity-based community. Plus, general means-based intervention is generally scary to the “wealthy” identity (cutting across all other identity divisions).

[sdenton4]

I'm not sure how you get from 'the Canadian government must respect the treaties that it signed' to 'identity-based solutions.'

[nickff]

Complicating this calculation is the way that the 'catch-up rights' are provided via tribal mechanisms, which incentivizes 'chiefs' and 'council members'/'elders' to prolong the inequality so that they can maintain their power & control.

[BigParm]

When the catch up is in the form of hiring quotas for a mining project on native lands, that’s just a consensual business deal and it’s positive.

But sometimes the situation is taken advantage of and the appeasement goes too far. Like instead of cutting firewood for the wood stove, you just throw all your furniture and cabinetry and doors in there. Then you just ask for new ones from a big company who just wants to quietly put this problem away without stirring up a fuss and risking their project or bigger costs later. That actually happened lol.

It’s not a race issue or a cultural issue. Natives are competent people. We may have different ancestral traditions, but we share exactly the same culture today. Where do you think the Canadian accent comes from? That’s a native accent. Our cultures mixed together.

If a business and a land owning band want to cut a deal, by all means. If the government and the bands want to settle land compensation, then settle it once and for all. It really just never ends as it stands. Like what does free post secondary have to do with land claims? It really looks like systemic racism.

And if the government was serious about any of this they’d give them autonomy in their lands. Statehood. That hasn’t happened. Why not? I get that you can’t sign over Vancouver because it’s been developed, but a lot of these places are in the bush.

It’s really a shit show. We’re not the rich country we once were. We can’t afford to pay billions forever on repeat just to make it go away for a little while. Settle it all immediately and make all races equal.

[lm411]

"Instead of cutting firewood for the wood stove, you just throw all your furniture and cabinetry and doors in there. Then you just ask for new ones..."

Having spent quite a bit of time on various reservations in Western Canada, I've literally seen this happen with my own eyes.

[philistine]

To do that you need to break international law by declaring the treaties signed in the past null and void. You also need to break international law by refusing to negotiate with nations who never signed treaties, and want deals at least as good as nations who signed treaties.

There’s a very good reason why what you’re proposing is not what’s happening: it’s because you’re dealing with nation to nation negotiations, and the other nations want nothing of fairness and equality. They want their full rights, and denying them that is turning back the clock decades.

[travisb]

How would it be breaking international law? Who would enforce it? Would the US stop trading with Canada because Canada nullified some treaties with a third party (ie. not the USA)? Would Germany invade Canada?

Treaties are just agreements and are broken all the time; for an obvious example look at trade treaties or weapons treaties. In the Canadian context the constitution states that Canada must maintain those existing treaties with Aboriginal tribes, but constitutions are changeable. Every other treaty is a mere act of Government away from nullification.

[philistine]

The whole current recounciliation is based on the premise that we will respect the treaties we didn’t in the past. Courts literally limited what was written in them in the past, in blatant disregard of common law.

You want to go in the direction of breaking them again, and making Canada look like a fool on the international stage.

[e_i_pi_2]

This reminds me of the Malcolm X quote

> If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there's no progress. If you pull it all the way out that's not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made. And they haven't even pulled the knife out much less heal the wound. They won't even admit the knife is there.

[Tiktaalik]

There is no real special catch up going on here.

What is happening now is that First Nations have leveraged the courts to force a rule of law country like Canada to actually follow through on obeying the rule of law and following through with treaties they had signed and agreements they had made.

[nikitaga]

What treaties? BC signed very few treaties, unlike other provinces. That's why those lawsuits are even considered. We can thank a bunch of long-dead British guys for that.

And let's not pretend that this has anything to do with the constitution or the rule of law. The actual "rules" in the source material are woefully under-specified and open to all kinds of interpretation, so the number one factor actually affecting these decisions is the social popculture that everyone in the country, including the justices, is subject to.

We simply have a bunch of unelected people effectively writing an important part of Canadian law for decades, because the elected people whose actual job it is to write such laws don't want to do it.

[Tiktaalik]

The situation in BC yeah largely without treaties gives the First Nations even more leverage to control their lands under claim because otherwise Canada has to somehow justify being a rule of law country and also stealing people's land in the year 2024.

Obviously it's not going to work, which is why the courts continue to rule in the favour of BC FNs.