MORGAN: Carney must tell indigenous chiefs where to go

It took a week before an indigenous band came out in opposition to Mark Carney’s designation of the Pacific Link pipeline as a project in the national interest. That’s about six days longer than I thought it would take. There will surely be others getting in line to try and halt the projects soon. The court challenges are very lucrative for activists and the parasitic law firms that serve them.Unless Carney finds the courage to exercise his constitutional authority to get these projects done, they will never get done. That means committing Canadian blasphemy by telling indigenous activists to get stuffed.The Cold Lake band will use funds given to it by the Canadian taxpayers to fight against the industries that generate the wealth that keeps the lights on and the furnaces running on the reserve. Native chiefs live in cloistered worlds of handouts, entitlement and dependency. They need not take things such as economic reality into account when biting the hand that overfeeds them.Proximity to the project means nothing. The Cold Lake reserve is hundreds of kilometers away from where the proposed pipe will be. The pipeline will impact Cold Lake reserve residents about as much as it will impact Mohawks living on reserves in Quebec. That is to say, if the pipeline gets completed it will generate even more money to pour into grievance industry that makes indigenous chiefs wealthy from coast to coast while their people remain mired in poverty and unemployment on the reserves. Did I mention that chiefs aren’t bound by economic reality? Fear not! The race-based opposition to new energy projects isn’t just limited to chiefs and councils elected by their local bands. Hereditary chiefs have of course jumped into the mix. These “chiefs” are often self-appointed and occasionally aren’t even indigenous. There is no mechanism or structure that offers them any real authority over Canadian policies or projects, but thanks to Trudeau’s cowardice during the chronically delayed construction of the Coastal Gaslink pipeline, these “chiefs” were given a de facto authority which had to be respected at great cost. Their permission, which was never needed in the first place, was never granted anyway. And they eventually had to be moved out of the way by police. They never should have been allowed to block progress in the first place.Other lobby groups are scrambling to jump into the fray. The Coastal First Nations are in fierce opposition. They do have an official-sounding name and taxpayers do indeed give them funding to chronically oppose development, but they are just another environmental activist group cloaking itself in indigenous garb. Call it red-washing if you will.The word “consent” doesn’t exist in Section 35 of the Constitution. In fact, “consult” isn’t in there either. That obligation to indigenous bands was read into the Constitution in 2004. Let’s not pretend adequate consultation hasn’t been done. Consultation has been done ad nauseum for decades. We all know what pipelines are and what they do. Most of the proposed ones don’t even cross indigenous lands. They cross “traditional territory,” which means pretty much anywhere a native person may have walked in the last couple thousand years.Carney refuses to outright say the only thing that will get a new pipeline completed. He must bluntly point out that indigenous consent isn’t needed. If he won’t say that the line will never get done.There will always be another court challenge and there will always be another chief whether elected or self-identifying claiming their consent is required. Getting consensus is impossible. The government can’t let itself be bound by that goal.Ceding authority for projects to representatives of a certain race is a step backward in human development.Race based policy is always wrong yet Canada is slipping deeper and deeper into it.The social divisions between indigenous people will widen and the economy will continue to plummet until Canada finds the leadership to say enough is enough and tell some indigenous chiefs to sit down. A cut in funding to these organizations will be far more effective in instilling a cooperative attitude than pandering to them ever will.Will Carney put his foot down?I won’t hold my breath.

MORGAN: Carney must tell indigenous chiefs where to go

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