By Tom Fletcher
Dec 13 2006
Surrey Leader [Link]
With the initialing last week of the first urban treaty at Tsawwassen, and the first multi-tribe treaty on the west coast of Vancouver Island, the movement towards treaty settlements across the province now has a momentum that appears unstoppable.
I still have trouble believing that it’s happening, and so quickly. But now that a series of aboriginal communities have committed to throwing off the shackles of the Indian Act and taking control of their own future, many others will follow.
The dollar figures in these treaty deals are mind-boggling. Taking land values into account, the settlement for 2,000 Maa-Nulth people living along the west coast of Vancouver Island has been estimated at as much as half a billion dollars. And that’s not the end for that region, with the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nation still at the bargaining table.
Can B.C. afford the billions that it’s going to cost to settle the 57 treaties now in process, and more that may come to the table once they see the results that can be gained? I put that question to Premier Gordon Campbell after the first of this year’s final agreements was reached, with the Lheidli T’enneh near Prince George.
“We can’t afford not to do it,” Campbell replied.
It should be noted that dependence on government funds does not end with the signing of new treaties. While tax exemptions are phased out over the next decade, ongoing federal and provincial support for social programs continues to flow, in some cases indefinitely. But that’s not really different from health and welfare payments going to any remote community.
This past year has been an education for me on B.C. history from the native point of view. Perhaps the biggest eye-opener was the $31.5-million settlement for the land on which the B.C. legislature stands. Colonial governor James Douglas, who lived on an estate next door, set aside the land as a native reserve in 1850, in a series of treaties that allowed him to purchase much of modern-day Victoria for the attractive price of 122 pounds sterling.
But by 1858 the future legislature site was needed for sensible street layout and the maps simply started referring to it as a “government reserve.” In essence the land was stolen, but the original maps and documents survived and became the basis for a lawsuit launched in 2001.
Huu-ay-aht Chief Robert Dennis made reference to that and other deals at the ceremony Saturday to initial the treaty agreement for the Maa-nulth group on the west coast of Vancouver Island. “We’re very honoured to hear that the governments have now paid their rent,” he said.
Two big objections surfaced around the Tsawwassen agreement. The first was that land is to be taken out of the agricultural reserve and transferred to the Tsawwassen people so they can be partners in an expanded container port there. Delta’s mayor protests that this is preferential treatment not extended to non-aboriginal farmers.
So are we going to tell the Tsawwassen people, no, you can’t have industrial development there, next to our ferry terminal and coal port that have already degraded the rich marine environment that attracted you to settle here thousands of years ago?
The other objection is that non-aboriginal residents living in housing developments on leased reserve land don’t get a vote in the Tsawwassen government. Their situation isn’t changed that much. As cabin owners leasing reserve land on Pitt Lake found out a couple of years ago, if the band decides not to renew the lease, they might have found themselves forced to move out, leaving their homes behind without compensation.