The author of First Nations, Second Thoughts says the numbered treaties excluded the indigenous from any claim to resource revenues on non-reserve lands.. Tom FlanaganProfessor Tom Flanagan .On April 5, at an Assembly of First Nations Special Chiefs Assembly in Ottawa, Grand Chief Brian Hardlotte from Prince Albert Grand Council asked Justice Minister David Lametti to “rescind the act, The Natural Resource Transfer Act … It affects our treaty rights of course.”.Under the Constitution Act, 1867, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario, and Quebec, retained ownership of Crown lands and resources, as did British Columbia in 1871 and Prince Edward Island in 1873 as they joined Canada. However, neither Manitoba, which became a province in 1870, nor Alberta and Saskatchewan, which entered confederation in 1905, were denied such rights prior to the NRTA..Tom Flanagan, author and professor emeritus of political science from the University of Calgary, says the idea of nixing the 1930 Natural Resource Transfer Act (NRTA) is “crazy” and a “non-starter.”.“There are three separate natural resource transfer agreements, one for each of the Prairie provinces. And each one was passed by a separate piece of federal legislation and concurrent piece of provincial legislation,” Flanagan said in an interview with the Western Standard..“I don’t think this can be amended without the consent of the province. Section 24 of the Alberta Natural Resources Act says, “[T]his agreement may be varied by agreement confirmed by concurrent statutes of the Parliament of Canada and the Legislature of the Province.”.At the AFN meeting, Chief Don Maracle of the Mohawks of Bay of Quinte complained, “Those resources were given to the provinces, without ever asking one Indian if it was OK to do that, or what benefits the First Nations expect to receive by Canada consenting to that arrangement.”.Flanagan said the matter was already settled in the Canadian mind..“The Indians weren't consulted because the legal understanding of the day was they surrendered their rights to the land to the Crown and right of Canada. So there was no need to consult. They didn’t have any rights,” Flanagan explained. Reserve lands are excluded under the NRTA and remain in federal jurisdiction. Flanagan said court decisions imposed a duty for governments to consult indigenous bands where development might affect traditional lands..“[That] was originally promulgated in British Columbia where there are no treaties and was then extended to treaty situations. I personally think that was a mistake, but that's what the court did.”.Section 92A of the Constitution Act, 1982, gives provinces exclusive legal jurisdiction for “exploration for non-renewable natural resources” as well as their “development, conservation and management.”.On April 10, the premiers of Alberta and Saskatchewan called for an apology and retraction from Justice Minister David Lametti. A joint statement with the premier of Manitoba reinforced the provincial stance, something Flanagan supports..“Nobody should be talking this way at all because this an agreement between the provinces and the federal government which is now part of the Constitution, and can only be amended with consent of the provinces. So, they're quite right to raise strong objections to it, absolutely.”.The Alberta’s Sovereignty Act, which received royal assent Dec. 15, reinforced provincial jurisdiction over resources, as did Bill 88, the Saskatchewan First Act, passed March 16 and proclaimed on April 6..On March 18, Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) Chief Bobby Cameron told Global News Bill 88 violated treaties and the FSIN would fight doggedly against it..“We’re going to remain vocal and we’ll exhaust all avenues, technically, politically and legally. And in the end, if we have to, our people are ready. Our people are ready to protect their lands and waters like they did in the Oka crisis in the ’90s,” Cameron said..Flanagan doesn’t believe Cameron’s stance is well-founded..“A lot of Indian spokesmen will say today they never surrendered their ownership of land and natural resources. This is a new interpretation of treaties. The argument is the treaties don't mean what they say they mean, what they appear to say,” Flanagan explained..“One version is the Indians only surrendered the land for agricultural purposes, or a shovel’s depths, or a plow’s depth into the soil, but deeper the Indians retained control of the ownership of the natural resources.."As I say, there are different versions of this, and none of them make any sense to me, but you will often hear statements to that effect.”.In an April 10 news release, the FSIN said few resource extraction companies made agreements with bands, and the organization was “mobilizing to make foreign interests aware that natural resource extraction is not as simple as governments claim.”.Flanagan says unless a band has land in or near a city, resource extraction is their best hope for economic development..“That's the name of the game for the largest number of First Nations. And if you cut that off, you're cutting your own throat.”.In a statement to the Canadian Press on April 10, Lametti’s office admitted, “The act does not fall within Minister Lametti’s responsibilities.”
