Out Beyond the Memes

I need to make an admission. My first reaction to the blockades being held in support with the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs (who unanimously opposed the Coastal Gas Link/Trans Canada pipeline and did not give consent for work to go forward on their land) was in favour of shutting them down, because of the harm  being done to the businesses, corporations, farmers and individuals who were being hurt by these blockades. I forwarded a post which claimed that the elected chiefs and the native people were largely in support of the pipeline. Because of this the pipeline should go forward. 

Quoted from the article - “But the protesters have aligned themselves with five Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs opposed to the pipeline, and not the 13,000 Indigenous British Columbians represented by all the band councils that support it....It’s an especially inconvenient fact for pipeline protesters who say they are blocking roads, bridges, highways, train tracks and public buildings in solidarity with Indigenous people. They sure aren’t representing the Indigenous people working on the pipeline. Of the 1,000 people currently employed by the project, about one-third are estimated to be First Nations.” (https://theprovince.com/news/bc-politics/mike-smyth-the-inconvenient-truth-for-pipeline-blockaders?). “

My comment - “It’s the hereditary chiefs that are against this pipeline, the elected are for it. Food for thought here, maybe the old men and women need to get out of the way and let the younger people move forward.” 

And besides that I have commented that lots of times protesters just jump on the bandwagon without really knowing the facts behind their actions. Running on emotions dredged up by memes.

I regret having said this. Why? Well, I read some more, I checked out the other side of the story. There always is another side, often several other sides. Like most people, I tend to instantly take the side that agrees with my thinking, to pass on the article or meme that corroborates my point of view. But I do at least read what I pass on. Reading articles, going beyond the memes that mimic our core beliefs, does not seem to be a common undertaking amongst Facebook users. Nor does fact checking. Fact checking is hard and often quite difficult to accomplish. This is a complex issue. To get our facts straight we would need to go into depth, into history, do massive amounts of reading and still may find ourselves unqualified to make a judgement.

So did I change my opinion on this controversial subject? Well, it’s certainly been altered. Politicians keep hammering on the illegality of the blockades, the harm they are causing, the “rule of law” that’s being stomped upon. Trudeau seems to be simply watching things unfold, no action to end the blockades and move the pipeline forward. Sheer is blustering, calling for a vote of confidence, making sure people remember that he is still the leader of the federal Conservative party.

But I am finding in my continued reading, that, once again, it seems Canada has failed to do its due diligence, has failed to negotiate with those who are actually in charge. Rule of Law - whose law? What have the courts said over the years about the rule of law in unceded territories? Is Canada’s law the law that needs to be upheld in this case? Read this article from the Tyee (https://thetyee.ca/News/2020/02/14/Wetsuweten-Crisis-Whose-Rule-Law/?utm_source=daily) and maybe you’ll begin to see why Canada should not, cannot, claim “rule of law” to justify immediately shutting down these protests and going forward with the pipeline, why they must now negotiate with the hereditary chiefs. 

Another point, what in blazes is the difference between hereditary chiefs and elected chiefs? Why do the hereditary chiefs have jurisdiction and not the elected chiefs? Read on.

A long article on this subject has been circulating on Facebook, original author’s name was withheld. I have pulled out a few paragraphs which provided information previously unknown to me. Is this source accurate? Is any? 

“Wet'suwet'en, Canadian, and international laws do in fact recognize the hereditary chiefs as the rightful decision-makers on their respective territories. These rights and titles have never been extinguished or surrendered. By all legal rights, they are sovereign people.

“Furthermore, in Canada, the duty to consult is a statutory, contractual, and common law obligation that must be fulfilled by the Crown prior to taking actions or making decisions that may have consequences for the rights of Indigenous peoples. This has been affirmed and clarified by various SCC rules including the Haida case in 2004, Beckham v. little Salmon/Carmacks case in 2010, and Tsilhqot'in Nation v. BC in 2014.

“So, when consultation happened, the hereditary chiefs of all five clans of Wet'suwet'en unanimously opposed the pipeline proposal and did not give consent for Coastal Gas Link/Trans Canada to work on their lands. The Wet’Suwet’en hereditary chiefs instead proposed an alternate route for the pipeline that wouldn’t go through sensitive cultural and ecological areas.

“On December 31, 2019, the Supreme Court of BC ruled that the permits of Coastal Gas Link trumped Wet'suwet'en law. Read that again. Industry permit somehow was chosen over law that has been in place since time immemorial. 

“... the Indian Act ...create(d) and forcibly implement(ed) a new governance system, the band council (aka "elected chiefs"), onto Indigenous nations. This governance system was specifically designed to mimic the Canadian system and ignore traditional First Nations governance. Essentially, the band council is an extension of the Canadian government and is designed to assimilate the nation into Canada to facilitate colonial settlement and resource extraction. When the media/elected officials start blasting, "but the band council says this," this is what you need to keep in mind. Do you think it's a coincidence that the Canadian government continue(s) to publicly proclaim the decisions of elected officials in a system the government themselves created? No, it's not a coincidence, it's strategy.

“... traditional forms of governance did not end in 1867 and they did not end with the Indian Act. They have never ended. Nations never surrendered their sovereignty over to the Canadian government and protocol has always been that the band council has jurisdiction over what happens on reserve, but hereditary chiefs have, and have always had, jurisdiction over traditional territory.

Sro, remember the 22,000 sq km I talked about before? That's what the hereditary chiefs have control over and what is in contention with Coastal Gas Link today.”

 I originally learned that the hereditary chiefs have proposed an alternate route that would be acceptable from news sources outside of Canada or the USA. We are getting a lot of international press on this issue. Controversy over Indigenous rights vs colonial rights is not exclusively a Canadian problem. The world is watching. How will this crisis be solved? Why has Canadian media been so quiet about this possible “alternative route”? How can we solve this controversy to the satisfaction of these hereditary chiefs and those in opposition to them? Surely we cannot allow these blockades to continue! Maybe we should agree to a moratorium, cease the blockades while negotiations between Canada and those who stand on the right side of the “rule of law” take place. Jurisdiction over indigenous lands needs to be honoured. We need to start doing consultations on such projects properly, instead of hoping we can quickly and quietly bulldoze our way to project completion unnoticed by those affected. We would save millions of dollars by doing it right in the first place.