{"id":266699,"date":"2018-11-12T11:31:45","date_gmt":"2018-11-12T16:31:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/issues\/ottawa-should-abandon-flawed-indigenous-rights-framework\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T22:18:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T02:18:18","slug":"ottawa-should-abandon-flawed-indigenous-rights-framework","status":"publish","type":"issues","link":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2018\/11\/ottawa-should-abandon-flawed-indigenous-rights-framework\/","title":{"rendered":"Ottawa should abandon flawed Indigenous rights framework"},"content":{"rendered":"

In September, at a national forum hosted by the Assembly of First Nations, a number of\u00a0First Nations chiefs\u00a0expressed their opposition to the\u00a0federal government\u2019s\u00a0Recognition and Implementation of Rights Framework<\/a>. In advance of that meeting,\u00a0the\u00a0legal scholar and former judge Mary Ellen\u00a0Turpel-Lafond,\u00a0a\u00a0former\u00a0commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,\u00a0Wilton Littlechild, and British Columbia Chief Ed John sent Prime Minister Trudeau a\u00a0letter<\/a>\u00a0challenging the\u00a0Indigenous\u00a0rights recognition framework as more \u201crights-denying\u201d\u00a0than rights-recognizing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

These critics\u00a0are right; the very idea of federal legislation to create an \u201cIndigenous rights recognition framework\u201d is fundamentally flawed, even misguided. The treaty relationship, as first articulated by the Peace and Friendship Treaties in the Maritimes\u00a0(where we are from), does not give the Crown the right to define a framework under which the Crown will \u201crecognize\u201d what \u201crights\u201d Indigenous peoples have. For Indigenous peoples, the very idea of \u201crights,\u201d as something granted to citizens by a sovereign,\u00a0is\u00a0the language of colonialism. It is high time we replaced the language of rights with the language of\u00a0sovereignty and the treaties. We need to understand the history of Crown-Indigenous relations as one\u00a0of sovereign Indigenous nations\u00a0sharing\u00a0their sovereignty, through treaty,\u00a0with the European settlers.\u00a0As the\u00a0elders tell us, it is up to Indigenous peoples to keep\u00a0treaties alive. Today, keeping the treaties alive means opposing the imposition of a \u201crights recognition framework\u201d\u00a0by the federal government.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The courts seem\u00a0to understand, at least at times, that reconciliation\u00a0requires the recognition of Indigenous sovereignty and respect for this\u00a0sovereignty in how our governments work together. Back in 2004, in its\u00a0Haida Nation<\/i>\u00a0v. British Columbia (Minister of Forests)<\/i><\/a>\u00a0decision, the Supreme Court of Canada recognized\u00a0that Indigenous sovereignty predated\u00a0the Crown\u2019s assertion of sovereignty. The Court\u00a0compared pre-existing Indigenous sovereignty with\u00a0merely \u201cassumed\u201d Crown sovereignty. The Court\u00a0also\u00a0said that conflicting claims of sovereignty had to be reconciled through \u201cthe\u00a0process of honourable negotiation.\u201d It is important to keep in mind that the Supreme Court said \u201cnegotiation,\u201d not \u201cconsultation.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

More recently, the Federal Court of Appeal,\u00a0in its\u00a0decision on the Trans Mountain pipeline extension<\/a>,\u00a0said that serious consultation does not exist simply to allow Indigenous peoples to \u201cblow off steam\u201d before the Crown goes forward with what it was intending to do anyway.\u00a0The court said,\u00a0\u201cConsultation is meaningless when it excludes from the outset any form of\u00a0accommodation,\u201d\u00a0and\u00a0\u201cmeaningful dialogue is a prerequisite for reasonable consultation.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Dialogue\u00a0is how sovereign nations resolve conflicts when they wish to find a cooperative way to manage shared interests, for example by negotiating a treaty of peace and friendship.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Don Lenihan, who has had extensive experience in managing dialogue and citizen engagement processes,\u00a0defined \u201cdialogue\u201d<\/a>\u00a0in the aftermath of the Court of Appeal decision, participants are expected to listen to one another, learn about each other\u2019s concerns and perspectives, discuss their similarities and differences, weigh the evidence before them and work together to strike a balance\u00a0among\u00a0their competing interests that everyone can feel is fair.\u00a0Dialogue,\u00a0then, is\u00a0how\u00a0sovereign nations\u00a0resolve conflicts when they\u00a0wish to find a cooperative way to manage\u00a0shared interests, for example by negotiating a treaty of peace and friendship.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the federal government does not yet seem\u00a0to understand that reconciliation requires real, active recognition of Indigenous sovereignty and a commitment to work with Indigenous nations as nations within\u00a0the\u00a0multinational community that is Canada. The\u00a0federal government\u2019s full implementation of the\u00a0United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples<\/a>\u00a0(UNDRIP)\u00a0\u2014\u00a0with its core commitment to the principle that Indigenous nations have the right to decide for themselves whether to grant or withhold \u201cfree, prior and informed consent\u201d to actions that would interfere with their lands, resources and sovereignties\u00a0\u2014\u00a0would help to take Canada back to a relationship of reconciliation,\u00a0as found\u00a0in the early\u00a0Peace and Friendship Treaties.\u00a0The\u00a0Truth and Reconciliation Commission<\/a>\u00a0also understood that reaffirming the nation-to-nation relationship between Indigenous peoples and the Crown\u00a0and renewing the treaty relationship\u00a0are\u00a0essential first steps\u00a0toward reconciliation, as it told us in Call to Action 45.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite the rhetorical commitment of this federal government to accept and implement\u00a0UNDRIP\u00a0and to act on all of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission\u2019s\u00a0calls to\u00a0action,\u00a0Fisheries Minister Jonathan Wilkinson<\/a>\u00a0has said that the courts, not Indigenous peoples, are the only players that need to be satisfied by the federal government\u2019s actions.\u00a0This seems\u00a0far from\u00a0a commitment to respect\u00a0Indigenous sovereignty and actually implement the core\u00a0commitments\u00a0of\u00a0UNDRIP\u00a0and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission\u2019s\u00a0calls to\u00a0action.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The answer\u00a0to\u00a0how to move forward toward reconciliation is in the history of how the Crown and Indigenous nations made the first treaties. The federal government should cede control of the process, by abandoning the very idea of defining a \u201crights recognition framework\u201d in a piece of federal legislation drafted by federal officials. Instead, the government should\u00a0sit down with the Indigenous nations of Canada to\u00a0negotiate a new treaty,\u00a0like the 18th-century Peace and Friendship Treaties and the Treaty of Niagara,\u00a0to guide how the sovereign nations who share this land will share their sovereignty in the 21st\u00a0century in peace and friendship. Only such a process as this will\u00a0achieve true reconciliation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Photo: Indigenous leaders gather in Gatineau, Quebec at the Assembly of First Nations\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/span>National Policy Forum on Affirming Rights, Title and Jurisdiction<\/span><\/span>, on Sept.25, 2018. Photo courtesy of the Assembly of First Nations.<\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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In September, at a national forum hosted by the Assembly of First Nations, a number of\u00a0First Nations chiefs\u00a0expressed their opposition to the\u00a0federal government\u2019s\u00a0Recognition and Implementation of Rights Framework. In advance of that meeting,\u00a0the\u00a0legal scholar and former judge Mary Ellen\u00a0Turpel-Lafond,\u00a0a\u00a0former\u00a0commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,\u00a0Wilton Littlechild, and British Columbia Chief Ed John sent Prime Minister […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":274802,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2025-10-08T02:18:20Z","apple_news_api_id":"c6d8bf5e-e5a4-4de8-97d9-75029922f923","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2025-10-08T02:18:20Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/Axti_XuWkTeiX2XUCmSL5Iw","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[9380,9358,9372],"tags":[],"article-status":[],"irpp-category":[4371,4295],"section":[],"irpp-tag":[],"class_list":["post-266699","issues","type-issues","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-autochtones","category-politique","category-recent-stories-fr","irpp-category-autochtones","irpp-category-politique"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nOttawa should abandon flawed Indigenous rights framework<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2018\/11\/ottawa-should-abandon-flawed-indigenous-rights-framework\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"fr_FR\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ottawa should abandon flawed Indigenous rights framework\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In September, at a national forum hosted by the Assembly of First Nations, a number of\u00a0First Nations chiefs\u00a0expressed their opposition to the\u00a0federal government\u2019s\u00a0Recognition and Implementation of Rights Framework. 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