FIRST NATIONS
The tiny reserve sits on the bustling outskirts of
The treaty has been widely hailed as a "watershed" in relations between Canadian society and aboriginals. Kim Baird, the band's dynamic young female chief, says it will break the ties of dependency once and for all and bring prosperity to her people. But Bertha Williams, who voted against the treaty, is not so sure. "The chief and council won't have to be accountable for that money, not even to governments," she says. "We're just trading one kind of handout for another."
The making of the Tsawwassen treaty exposes some of the peculiarities of first nations rule. To begin with, most of the 360-odd band members live off-reserve, in the Okanagan Valley, in Winnipeg and Ottawa, across the border in Bellingham, Wash., and even as far afield as Alabama and California. The off-reserve band members voted overwhelmingly for the treaty. Nothing that happens on the reserve will directly affect them. As Ms. Williams sees her backyard turned into malls and rail yards, they'll get to cash the cheques. "Some of them have never even visited the reserve," says Ms. Williams. "But they're voting on my life."
In 1980, the Tsawwassen band had shrunk to only 65 members. Then came Bill C-31, which allowed those who'd moved or married off-reserve to regain their status. Shortly afterward, the band struck a profitable deal to lease a parcel of shore land for a fancy non-native housing development. Suddenly, status was worth having, and the ranks of band members began to swell. Today, 160 people live on the reserve. "Nobody was really applying to be a band member until the development came along," says Ms. Williams.
Even without the treaty, the band seems to be doing pretty well. There are few signs of the poverty and decrepitude you see elsewhere. Many of the houses are large and modern, especially those belonging to the chief and her family. Many of the driveways are crammed with newer-model cars and trucks. One of the chief's brothers drives a Hummer. This is, after all, an urban reserve, where jobs and economic opportunities abound. "You have to laugh when Kim says how impoverished we are," says Ms. Williams. "We didn't need this treaty to give us economic independence."
The B.C. government needed this deal even more than the Tsawwassen did - not just to build a mega-port but also to show results for years of costly and frustrating treaty negotiations. "The treaty process has been more drawn out than anybody imagined," says political scientist Norman Ruff, who applauds the deal. To bring the band members on side, the government spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on "information." Band members were offered an immediate reward of $1,000 each if the majority voted Yes. The elders - those 60 and over - were promised $15,000 each. When voting day came last summer, the Yes side won handily.
Bertha Williams isn't the only person to oppose the deal. Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, says the Tsawwassen settled for far less than they were entitled to. Neighbouring bands object because of overlapping title claims. (In all, aboriginal land claims add up to 150 per cent of the area of B.C.) Environmentalists worry about the disappearance of scarce farmland. The area's MP, John Cummins, worries that the treaty will do nothing to change the culture of dependency that tends to afflict reserve life. "This treaty is not going to magically increase kids' desire to get an education, their need to work or their pride in who they are," he says. "All that happens now is that money will be doled out from the band instead of the government."
Ms. Williams agrees. In her view, the band operates through favouritism, not democracy. Two years ago, when she ran against Ms. Baird for band chief, she says she couldn't even get a copy of the band's membership list.
As treaty negotiations drag on and on, not all of B.C.'s first nations have had to wait for a payday. Both the province and the feds have been striking one-off economic deals on all sides. The deals are partly fuelled by court decisions that have dramatically broadened the concept of native land rights for aboriginals across the country. The luck of geography helps, too. Four first nations whose land claims overlap jurisdictions needed for the Olympics have signed lucrative agreements that give them millions in cash, as well as development rights to extremely valuable real estate, construction contracts and marketing exposure for native artists. (Band leaders say their members might mount protests anyway.)
The wealthy Musqueam band, which lays claim to all of Vancouver, has just received a $17-million "shared legacies" deal in exchange for its support for the Olympics. To settle several court cases, the province has also handed over various parcels of land, including a spectacularly valuable golf course. But these settlements have hardly ended the disputes. Nearby municipalities are now taking the province to court, claiming it doesn't have the jurisdiction to expropriate land they say belongs to them. And now, one faction of the band has padlocked the administration centre, demanding to know what's happened to millions of dollars in payments.
Treaties were supposed to resolve everything, by putting resources and power in the hands of the first nations. Instead, the treaty process has ratcheted up aboriginal expectations and been muddied by side deals motivated more by expediency than principle. Ms. Williams, for her part, doubts that treaties will resolve anything. "There's all this pretty talk about revenue and development," she says. "But how is that going to benefit us as individuals?" She points out that some bands east of the
And she is not so sure that the governments that have worked so hard to negotiate these treaties have aboriginals' best interests at heart. "It's really governments saying, 'Let's get rid of this Indian problem.' "