Sorry took so long to get back to this.
Empathy. Life is both busy & time consuming.
I’ve read both of those letters now arguing that the numbered treaties situated in Alberta are a higher, purer form of authority; that secession talk violates treaty rights; and that treaty land is literally their property and thus untransferable.
We get statements like the one by Grand Chief Greg Desjarlais of Treaty 6, who
wrote that Smith’s referendum-friendly amendments were a “direct violation of the Treaty relationship that exists between our Nations and the Crown,” adding, “Our Treaties are internationally binding, solemn covenants and cannot be broken by any province or political party…. These Lands were never ceded, nor surrendered.” What he meant by “internationally binding” wasn’t clear, and he certainly wasn’t correct about cessation. Treaty land is by definition ceded land — it was surrendered in exchange for benefits provided by the Crown.
Meanwhile, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs took greater liberties in
explaining their view of the law, making the case that Alberta isn’t a “nation” at international law, but that First Nations are, per the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Provinces, says the assembly, are “administrative regions within the Canadian federation and do not possess the right to self-determination,” while First Nations have sovereignty and self-determination rights.
It’s a nearly malicious retelling of how Canada works: First Nations aren’t sovereign — they’re Crown subjects like anyone else; provinces have a large degree of self-determination power, which is detailed in the constitution. The fact that UNDRIP validates the existence of Indigenous groups around the world doesn’t make other levels of human organization illegitimate.
Similarly, the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations released a
statement arguing that “Any process of separation that fails to honour the true spirit and intent of our treaties would violate both constitutional and international law.”
Their frustrations make sense. Constitutional protection and the stability of a long relationship with Ottawa and hammered-out expectations are worth a lot. Plus, it’s the federal government that provides funding and benefits while laying off on the thorny matters of financial disclosure. The current federal government has been generous in signing billion-dollar settlements,
including one for $1.4 billion last year in Alberta.
Weighing in on Alberta, Dwight Newman, a constitutional law professor, Indigenous rights expert and Canada-Research-Chair-holder at the University of Saskatchewan, told me the treaties would raise “genuine issues” were the province to separate.
The most extreme parts of the Indigenous side have been arguing for ethno-sovereignty for years, embracing the freemen-on-the-land-like “land back” movement and urging for an expansion of unique treatment under Canadian law. They use UNDRIP, memetic news stories, and “reconciliation” as levers to pull for even more state benefits and permissions, and the current federal government almost never says no.
Their exaggerated understanding of Indigenous sovereignty — on display in their statements about separation — and their hold on Canadian land is voraciously lapped up by our own media, which often presents these views without counterpoints, giving them the appearance of legitimacy. Sure, they claim to love the Crown now, but just wait until it’s convenient to once again blame it for all their woes.
The Alberta separatists, too, put blind faith in the UN — in particular, a treaty that appears to guarantee port access for landlocked states (but in practice, nope!).
That said, Indigenous sovereigntists and Alberta separatists are both antagonistic to the Canadian project
apple.news
They, too, have outsized claims about their hold on these lands, drunk on nostalgia for a libertarian utopia that will never exist because the majority of the province doesn’t indeed want it. The provincial government doesn’t tell them to buzz off, and instead amends its laws to better accommodate their desires.
www.youtube.com
www.youtube.com
