Vancouver Province
for May 14, 1999

There are two sure fire ways to be branded a racist in this community – criticize the state of Israel or the Nisga’a Treaty. No matter how good your "liberal" credentials – and mine are excellent – a word of displeasure at Israel creating self fulfilling ambitions by settling on disputed land or a word of caution about the settlement with Nisga’a and the critics jump out with a sneer on their lips, not to do battle on the issue raised, but to imply and often say that yours is the criticism of a racist. The fact that not a Jew I know believes for one moment that I am anti Semitic counts for nothing. That I was solidly supported in my political career by the Kamloops Indian Band, it’s chief and members seems irrelevant. In fact it was the oh-so-liberal NDP that seized part of the Kamloops Indian land and crammed it into the City of Kamloops in 1973 and it was I and the Social Credit government in 1976, barely weeks after taking office, that returned the land.

It’s a shame that important questions cannot be debated without the race card being played. Evidently we’re not sufficiently mature to deal with matters on their merits.

This article is about Nisga’a and I’m past giving a damn about being called a racist. This deal is a bad deal.

I’d feel much more comfortable with the Treaty if those who support it would meet argument with argument but they don’t – because they can’t.

There’s no question that non natives on Nisga’a land will not receive the same democratic rights as do Nisga’a. And I for one can understand that while the principle of one citizen, one vote is critical to a democracy, there may have to be different ways of doing that with aboriginal settlements. It would be preposterous to have non natives living in trailer parks out voting the natives – I have no trouble understanding that. But we must find innovative ways to provide safeguards for non natives and Nisga’a, to the limited extent it tries to do that, fails.

There is no question but that Nisga’a will have a special commercial fishery of their own. This is a race based fishery as much as if one were granted to Italian, German or British Canadians or just plain white Canadians. There is no gainsaying this – but when the issue is raised by Mel Smith, Gordon Gibson, Phil Eidsveck or me it is we who are the racists!

It’s impossible to deny that this Treaty permanently takes powers away from both the Federal and Provincial governments. The courts have consistently held that there are but two governments entitled to share the spectrum of powers in this country, the Federal and Provincial governments, and those powers are set forth in sections 91 and 92 of the Constitution. Yet when one points this out and reminds people that British Columbians by nearly 70%, with Charlottetown, rejected Aboriginal Self Government entrenched in the Constitution, once more the conscience stricken left wrings its hands and plays the race card.

Can anyone looking carefully at these points deny that they are legitimate arguments? It’s not necessary to agree with those arguments to confirm that they are appropriate matters for public debate. How is it possible in a democratic society that those who wish to raise matters of principle can be shouted down by the same establishment that tried to shout them down with Meech Lake and Charlottetown?

Of course the Nisga’a and all other tribes deserve justice at long last. But as Nisga’a elder Frank Calder, the man who started the native peoples down to path to settlemeents, pointed out, that cannot be at the expense of due process.

Herein lies the tragedy. For any treaty to work over time there must be an acceptance, however grudging, that it was implemented with the consent of the people. That is not the case with Nisga’a. Indeed I would assert that while a majority of Nisga’a supported the agreement in their referendum that a majority does not support the kind of government they will be stuck with.

Nisga’a will be run through the federal parliament like a whirlwind – and British Columbians, native and non native alike, will reap that whirlwind; the generations now watching from their youth and the generations to come will wonder just how the hell it was that such a momentous decision was made without the specific consent of their elders.