GIESBRECHT: BC is creating a new apartheid through Aboriginal title and modern treaties

Remember Art Hanger and the Reform Party? Art was vilified and ridiculed for calling for the end of all race-based policies. That included repealing the Indian Act and phasing out the reserve system. Reserve land would be sold to Indians in fee simple, and reserves would be merged into existing municipalities or become standalone municipalities.But the parts of their Indian policies that were most objectionable to the Indian leaders were their proposal that Indians should be equal to other Canadians in every way. That is, there would no longer be a separate legal status for Indians. They would not be “Musqueams”, “Cree” or any of the other hundreds of other tribes that once hunted in what is now Canada — they would be regular Canadians, but with indigenous identities.None of Hanger’s proposals suggested that Indian Canadians should be required to give up any part of their indigenous culture or identities. Like other Canadians, they could continue to celebrate their ethnicities in any way they liked.But despite that, Hanger and his fellow Reform Party members were ridiculed and called “dinosaurs” for daring to suggest that Canada’s Indian apartheid system was a racist and antiquated scheme that acted as a severe drag on the national economy.But the Reform proposals were actually remarkably similar to Pierre Trudeau’s infamous “White Paper” in 1969, in which Trudeau proposed essentially the same thing. Indians would be Canadians — “no more and no less.” Like all other Canadians, they would have individual rights, but no special collective (tribal) rights. Like Reform’s proposal, Trudeau’s “White Paper” was also shouted down by Indian chiefs who were determined to hang on to their special entitlements..And the “White Paper” itself followed federal government initiatives led by Deputy Superintendent General of the Department of Indian Affairs, Duncan Campbell Scott, in 1920, when the Conservatives were in power, and then again in 1933, when the Liberals were back, to end all legal distinctions between Indian Canadians and other Canadians. That attempt also failed for similar reasons. So Art Hanger and his Reform colleagues weren’t advocating “dinosaur” policies. They were reintroducing policies that both the Liberals and Conservatives had tried to implement on previous occasions — a return to the Canada that our founders wanted in the first place.It is the “modern treaty/aboriginal title” concept that BC appears to be heading towards that is the dinosaur. The closest model to it would probably be the 1948-1994 South African apartheid regime, with their Bantustans model. These were areas where individual tribes would each have their own “homeland” governed by their own tribal laws.Government descriptions given for the creation of the Bantustans were remarkably similar to 2026 BC government descriptions of the reasons for the creation of areas, like Haida Gwaii. Haida Gwaii is a racial enclave under Haida jurisdiction, where Haida laws will apply, and people of Haida descent will have rights and powers superior to those of other ethnicities. There are promises of more such racial enclaves to follow. This is exactly what Bantustans were. Each tribe had its own homeland, where its own culture was practiced. Membership was determined by blood quantum — i.e. one’s birth determined whether or not you were entitled to live in that Bantustan, and what tribal rights you had. It is interesting that some of the most powerful black chiefs aggressively supported the creation of the Bantustans. Like Canada’s Indian chiefs, they “knew where their bread was buttered” — namely, they were determined to keep the perks that their privileged positions gave them. The welfare of the people without power came second..So, BC in 2026 appears to be reverting to the tribalism favoured by white and black chiefs in South Africa’s apartheid era. Haida Gwaii, and the other racial enclaves that will be created in the next few years, will look much like they would have looked before Europeans arrived on the west coast. There will be pickup trucks and cell phones, of course, but the individual tribes will live what they imagine to be their traditional ways of life, while the federal and provincial governments provide the usual services and financial support, that is. As for the non-indigenous BC residents who live in or near those racial enclaves, I suppose that they will just be expected to adjust to their new lives. Perhaps they will have to pay special rents or taxes, and perhaps they will have to obey special laws that won’t apply to the indigenous members. Time will tell. Unless there is a major change, they will have to adjust to that second-class status.Will Canada become Bantustanada? That is the exact opposite of what our founders created. They wanted a country where everyone’s citizenship was of equal value and where everyone had equal rights regardless of birth, race, or ethnicity. Instead, our courts and politicians are turning BC into a dystopian Bantustanada.But for those of us who do not live in BC and look in horror at what is going on there, we should not assume that the BC Aboriginal title/modern treaty dystopia is something that will end at the BC-Alberta border.Because it won’t..The toxic combination of UNDRIP, Aboriginal title, and the signing of “modern treaties” in BC has made the extension of what is transpiring in BC to the rest of Canada inevitable.In fact, it’s already here.Aboriginal title cases are proceeding in New Brunswick and other provinces. The numbered treaties, under which the Indians agreed to surrender their land interests, are already being shredded in cases, like Restoule, where the judge asserted that the Indians did not surrender their land — they only agreed to “share,” are being decided. Simply put, there is no way that what is currently happening in BC will not spread beyond its borders. Indian chiefs across Canada are seeing their BC counterparts striking it rich, and they will not be satisfied with their modest nineteenth-century treaties. They are backed by some of Canada’s most expensive law firms, whose fees are directly or indirectly paid by the taxpayer. The practice directives now in effect mean that government lawyers negotiating agreements or trying to defend cases can’t argue that the 1870 Indians surrendered their land interests, even if they wanted to. They must accept the “shared land” claim. It is a winning formula. “Extinguishment” is now a dirty word.In hindsight, it is too bad that we didn’t listen to Art Hanger and Preston Manning when they proposed an end to all race-based policies. Or to Pierre Trudeau, Jean Chrétien, or Duncan Campbell Scott before them, when a simple Act of Parliament could have put an end to this madness. If we had managed to rid Canada of the albatross that is the Indian apartheid system, we would not now have the disaster that is playing out in BC, and is already heading east. But it is occurring to many Canadians, who once scoffed at those people who wanted an end to race-based policies, that they were right. Because the “modern treaty/aboriginal title/duty to consult” Canada — with its growing patchwork of racial enclaves — is unworkable..When Scott and Trudeau first proposed an end to race-based policies, a simple Act of Parliament could have achieved that result. But now constitutional discussions are the only way to bring it to an end. More and more Canadians are beginning to realize that we will have to bite the bullet and do exactly that if we want Canada as we know it to survive.And finally, for those who claim that all of this “reconciliation” reordering of Canada was worth it because it has achieved some noble purpose, consider this: In 2015, when the new Trudeau government began its massively increased indigenous spending, and BC’s indigenous changes were in their infancy, the average Indian male on the prairies lived a life 15 years shorter than his non-indigenous counterpart. Today, after all of the spending, legal changes, and new indigenous agreements, that shocking gap has become 20. The average Indian male now lives a life that is 20 years shorter.Yes, reconciliation is making some people rich.But not those people.

GIESBRECHT: BC is creating a new apartheid through Aboriginal title and modern treaties

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