In a sop to their west-coast cracker-nut constituency, Harper announced a few days ago that he will not support a race-based fishery.
And Prentice spent yesterday at the AFN Assembly pretending not to be backed into a corner.
What nonsense.
Let’s get a few facts straight.
First, the issue is that salmon stocks in the Fraser River appear –after rising in the last few years – to be declining.
Some blame the decline on illegal fishing by natives upstream in the Fraser. If that is the case, then it’s not a race-based fishery, it’s poaching.
But the term ‘race-based’ or ‘racially-segregated’ is the troubling one here. It’s fall-back to the old Reform line that any specific program or policy providing benefit to First Nations is wrong because it is based on race.
In other words… interesting to see Tom Flanagan is still around? Will the real Minister of Indian Affairs, please stand up?
The notion of race here is the big lie. Natives don’t want race-based anything. They want – quite rightly – their treaty rights respected.
The problem in BC is that they don’t have a treaty. It’s not just a problem for them either… because it means the land and the resources there contained, are in dispute.
It’s all well and fine for Harper to say everyone should have the same access to a commercial fishery.
But we’d all think it was nutty if he started handing out licenses for the fjords of Norway, wouldn’t we? Because that is some one else’s land….
No one is arguing that the Fraser River is not Canadian territory, but it is disputed land. And until that dispute is settled, maybe it’s worth trying to sort out some sort of interim deal with the original and current occupants?
That’s not a race-based anything. It’s called common sense and respect. It's access to resources – like a fishery – based on treaties. Treaties like, oh, I dunno, NAFO?
And I haven’t seen any comments from Loyola Hearn on the race-based fishing enforced through NAFO in the Atlantic…
Prentice contradicts Harper: Race-based economic development is OK
Prentice applied Orwellian newspeak yesterday and immediately contradicted Harper, noting that DFO still plans to buy out non-native licenses and provide these to First Nations, but only for economic development purposes, not because of rights.
So race-based economic development is ok?
Of course Prentice is doing what Flanagan and Harper have not done… reading the decisions from a myriad of court decisions which repeatedly tell the federal government to fulfill its obligations, and provide access to resources on disputed land.
The bottom-line here is that Harper has – once again – inflamed racial tensions instead of mediating them.
This is the politics of old-fashioned racism, just the kind of thing that leads to segregation and anger, that divides nations instead of uniting them.
And its one nasty way to fish for votes on the west coast.
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3 comments:
It's not a race issue anyways. It's an historical and heritage rights issue. It has nothing to do with race.
I believe the Lapps have certain rights to hunt and fish in Norway, Finland, Estonia and Russia that are not afforded others because they are aboriginal and have a heritage claim to these rights.
They are also white.
There is no race issue here, nor do we even have to delve into complicated questions of heritage claims (although we can). But why not keep it simple - we are talking about constitutionally-entrenched rights of First Nations. To deny these rights is to ignore the rule of law.
I am going to disagree here. The constitutional issue lies around section 35, which even in the constitution is a nebulous and largely undefined piece of law.
It has often been described by the Ab leadership as an empty box, needing to be filled.
Further, part of section 35, was a commitment from the feds to bring together First Ministers and FNs to fill in the box, and this has yet to happen.
So who is filling in the box right now? The courts... it's a wasted opportunity.
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