Tansi Nîtôtemtik,
With today’s post we are wrapping up our reflection posts about the 2020 Indigenous Bar Association conference with the plenary session featuring Jaime Battiste and Jagmeet Singh.
Jaime Battiste is Canada’s first Mi’kmaq Member of Parliament, representing Nova Scotia in the House of Commons. He is also the Indigenous chair for the Liberal caucus. The second speaker, Jagmeet Singh, is the leader of the federal New Democrat Party (NDP), representing Burnaby South in the House of Commons. There was some overlap in the topics addressed in this session and by the Honorable Jody Wison-Raybould in her session on Canada’s failure to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).
The Members of Parliament used their presentation to touch on some of the current events affecting Indigenous people in Canada. Mr. Singh described the failure of the federal government to provide clean drinking water to the Neskantaga First Nation for the past 25 years. Appalling enough as that detail is, the community was in the news again this week because their water was shut off completely after an oily substance was found in the reservoir on October 19.[1] Almost all of the population of 300 residents evacuated, with only 20 people staying behind to care for pets and keep empty homes heated and safe.[2] Those residents left behind can only access water by hauling it out in buckets from a local lake.[3]
We agree with Mr. Singh’s statement about this crisis in Neskantaga, “If this was any other city, any other place, we would not accept 25 years [without clean drinking water]. Imagine in Ottawa and Halifax, in Toronto and Vancouver and Montreal, that there was a week without clean drinking water. That would be solved.” It is horrifying that an Indigenous community is forced to evacuate their homes in the midst of a pandemic and in freezing temperatures. Mr. Singh is right; Canadians would never roll over and accept this outcome for non-Indigenous communities. Canada has failed the Neskantaga First Nation. And this isn’t the only area where the federal government has failed recently.
The speakers also touched on the hostilities in Nova Scotia. As we discussed in our Wednesday post, there is a direct correlation between this crisis and Canada’s failure to adequately implement Indigenous rights. On the same day as the IBA conference, the Government of Canada appointed Allister Surette as a “Federal Special Representative” to “rebuild trust between commercial and Indigenous fishers.” He will also make recommendations “with the objective of decreasing tensions and preventing further escalation of [the] conflict” between the Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq and commercial sector leaders and harvesters.[4] Let’s hope that Mr. Surette moves quickly. Chief Mike Sack told reporters that the fishers can not find buyers for the lobster they have pulled from the water, and cannot even purchase supplies from local suppliers.[5] “There's pressure that the [lobster] industry is putting on anyone who will do business with us... They've been told they will be blacklisted and boycotted. We're really handcuffed down there."[6]
To paraphrase Mr. Singh, in the case of the Mi’kmaq, it is not sufficient to take an incremental approach to resolve this conflict. Mr. Battiste said he is calling for an approach that results in nationhood and partnership, not paternalism. Canada has a history of failing Indigenous people, let this not be included in the long list of deficiencies.
Mr. Battiste also touched on the work of his father, James Youngblood Henderson, as one of the original drafters of UNDRIP. UNDRIP was adopted by the United Nations in 2007 to preserve the rights that “constitute the minimum standards for the survival, dignity and well-being of the Indigenous peoples of the world.[7]” This declaration caused a shift in the international human rights consensus and placed political and moral demands on states to protect Indigenous collective land rights and the right to self-determination.[8] Canada officially adopted UNDRIP without qualification in 2016. However, UNDRIP is not a binding treaty or convention, and there are no consequences for nations that do not follow its provisions.[9]
Mr. Battiste said that he knows “[he represents] a country that has failed indigenous people... [he represents] a country that it did its best to deport his father while he was representing the Mi’kmaq at the United Nations in the 80s.” He also said that “[he] really had a hard time when [he] swore an oath to faithfully represent the Crown and the Queen.” But at his swearing in ceremony, one of the Mi’kmaq community members who were there to support him reminded him to never forget that the treaties say that the Crown is a Mi’kmaq ally. Mr. Battiste could be someone who changes things for the betterment of the Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia, and all Indigenous people in Canada.
To this end, Mr. Battiste said he has been putting pressure on Cabinet and Minister Lametti to move forward with UNDRIP legislation since he was appointed as an MP, and the current Liberal government has promised to table UNDRIP legislation by the end of 2020. Mr. Singh countered that if we want to see federal UNDRIP legislation passed, we need to vote out the Liberal party and elect an NDP government. With all due respect to Mr. Singh, we disagree. To redirect Mr. Singh’s own words back at him: “If we right these wrongs it is a victory for all of us.” We are tired of hearing about how this party failed and that party failed, and how we need to elect in someone else to see results—we want to see results now—we want to see results with UNDRIP legislation, clean drinking water in Neskantaga, moderate livelihood fisheries in Nova Scotia, and so much more. If both the minority Liberal government and the NDP agree that a victory for Indigenous people is a victory for all of us, then the mudslinging needs to stop, the partisanship needs to stop, and the two parties need to cooperate to change how Indigenous people are treated in this country during this session. The time for change is now.
Until next time,
Team ReconciliAction YEG
1Jody Porter, “Few left behind in Neskantaga First Nation prepare for winter without water”, CBC News (26 October 2020), online: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/neskantaga-left-behind-1.5776993.
2Ibid.
3Ibid.
4Government of Canada, News Release, “Government of Canada appoints Federal Special Representative to facilitate discussions between commercial lobster industry and First Nations in Atlantic Canada”, (23 October 2020), online: https://www.canada.ca/en/fisheries-oceans/news/2020/10/government-of-canada-appoints-federal-special-representative-to-facilitate-discussions-between-commercial-lobster-industry-and-first-nations-in-atl.html.
5Michael MacDonald, “Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq chief casts doubt on Ottawa’s bid to quell violence over lobster”, CTV News (25 October 2020), online: https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/nova-scotia-mi-kmaq-chief-casts-doubt-on-ottawa-s-bid-to-quell-violence-over-lobster-1.5160313.
6Ibid.
7United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, GA Res 61/295, UNGAOR, 61st Sess, UN Doc A/61/295 (2007), art 43 [UNDRIP].
8Sheryl R Lightfoot “Emerging international indigenous rights norms and ‘over-compliance’ in New Zealand and Canada” (2010) 62:1 Political Science 84 at 87.
9Ibid.
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