LYTLE: Maybe we should be rewriting treaties to share the resource wealth

I have been thinking recently about the meaning of “reconciliation” in the context of relations with our First Nations neighbours.The term is much used, perhaps excessively by well meaning but nevertheless virtue-signalling corporations and governments. But what is it exactly? Surely it involves more than making financial and material contributions to on-reserve initiatives. Isn’t there something in the Bible about contributing such that the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing? From a corporate perspective, that is a tough thing to do for many valid, fiduciary reasons.The reconciliation concept, of course, was jump-started by the residential school furor. I have significant doubts about the validity of this argument because I know some who went to residential schools and are grateful for the experience. I have also discussed the issue with several First Nations acquaintances who agreed they were effectively raised by their grandparents, the generation most affected by the residential school problems. I have read the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report and found it to be a lot more moderate in its accusations than much of the discourse today and I remember former Alberta Human Services Minister Mike Cardinal, himself a First Nations person, assigning the blame for the explosion of on-reserve social issues to the introduction of welfare payments rather than residential school abuses. Based on published interviews, I find Tom Flanagan’s arguments about errors in the current understanding of the residential school issue to be compelling. But none of this is an argument for not seeking a reconciliation with First Nations groups.By way of example (US rather than Canadian), the recent movie “Killers of the Flower Moon” accurately portrays the homicidal actions of an adjacent white community to usurp the financial benefits accruing to the Osage band of the American southwest in the early decades of the 20th century. More recently, the same Osage band has won a court settlement over a wind power company that ignored band council resolutions and court orders to effectively steal Osage land and resources for their energy projects. Are the Osage people unique in these abuses? I don’t think so. Read the Manitoba Act of 1870 and compare its clauses with the situation faced by affected First Nations groups in Manitoba. Read the Haldimand Treaty of 1784 and consider the situation of the tribes living in the catchment area of the Grand River. I am not a lawyer and could not presume to suggest how such issues are to be resolved given the complex history of these and subsequent treaties, but it seems clear to me that there are issues.Since I cannot offer legal solutions, permit me to make a suggestion for consideration. I contend the legal principle of “the honour of the Crown” argues for a rethinking of the scope of the numbered treaties. These treaties ignored the subsurface wealth of the ceded and surrendered lands specified in those treaties. A reconsideration of how to share that subsurface wealth and include it into the numbered treaties might be a place to start real reconciliation. Perhaps a royalty share of this wealth should be allocated to tribes within either provincial or treaty boundaries. Perhaps participation in the distribution of the royalty wealth would be on a per capita basis and require the participating bands to first remove themselves from the Indian Act. Former attorney general of Canada and First Nations lawyer, Jody Wilson-Raybould, has written persuasively that real reconciliation starts with a rejection of this outdated legislation. Perhaps it is time that all bands are allowed to enjoy the wealth of their ancestral lands rather than just those bands that landed on top of mineral wealth when the music stopped on reserve allocation. Specific agreements between corporations and First Nation tribes will continue to be signed regarding specific resource projects but might it now be prudent for the treaties to recognize subsurface wealth in a way that prospers all First Nations tribes?Declaring our meetings and events to be taking place on (ceded and surrendered) tribal lands is 'cheap grace' and not reconciliation no matter how solemnly we pronounce those words. Sharing the wealth of those ceded lands based on government-to-government agreements that supersede the Indian Act and in which all signatory tribes participate, might take us closer to a real reconciliation. The honour of the Crown demands it.Murray Lytle P. Eng is a former commissioner of the National Energy Board

LYTLE: Maybe we should be rewriting treaties to share the resource wealth

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