Poles and buildings at the Haida Heritage Centre at Kay ‘Llnagaay
In the midst of alarm and manufactured paranoia about the recent Cowichan Tribes case confirming their Aboriginal title to some lands in Richmond, I offer two things to help folks see this decision in it’s historical context and it’s promise for the future.
The first is this: the CBC published a useful background article on the history of these lands and the Cowichan’s relationship to them and it’s worth reading this to understand that this is neither a new issue or a particularly novel issue. The Crown obligated itself to negotiate in good faith with First Nations back in 1763 and in 1998 Aboriginal title was confirmed as existing in law in Canada. The current state of affairs is just one more stage in the long road towards reconciling the reality that both the Crown and First Nations have interests in land that are accommodated in the Constitution. We just need to work them out together.
And to that end, I came across this quote from Squamish chief Joe Mathias from back in 1987. He was attending the First Ministers conferences that followed the partition of Canada’s Constitution in 1981. The federal government committed to a series of conferences with Indigenous leaders and provincial and territorial premiers to figure out what section 35 of the new constitution was really about. That section confirmed that “The existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada are hereby recognized and affirmed.”
There was a fantastic pair of documentaries made about these conferences that are available at the National Film Board of Canada, called “Dancing Around the Table.” In one of those, Joe Mathias says this:
“What’s going to happen if they reach an agreement with the Aboriginal people, is we put something in the earth that’s never been there before: a relationship. Between a Nation of Indian people and European people. That’s the whole point of creation – a planting of the seed. Putting something on the earth that wasn’t there before. so that in modern contemporary Canada, we have put something on the earth that was not there before.”
Back when Joe Mathias said that, in about 1987 or so, I was in the first year of my undergraduate degree in Native Studies at Trent University. This was the kind of thing we heard all the time about the relationship that was being shaped in the Federal-Provincial First Ministers Conferences on Aboriginal Constitutional Matters (link is to one set of proceedings) and the desires that Indigenous peoples and Nations held for the future of Canada when something new, novel, just and creative could happen here. The documentary shows the intransigence, disrespect and outright hostility that many of the federal and provincial leaders held for First Nations, Inuit and Metis people, but that was nothing new for the Indigenous leaders in the room. Since the very beginning of relations between newcomers and Indigenous populations these were the kinds of people and attitudes that they encountered. Every effort to reach agreements was predicated, from the Indigenous side, on this idea of relationally, co-creation and opportunity. And it seems from the government side of the treaty (and often unilaterally) table the idea was to dispose of Indigenous interests quickly, conveniently and forever.
This is the reason why First Nations keep going to court on these issues and the reason why the keep winning. And even when folks like the Cowichan Tribes or the Haida Nations say “WE ARE NOT INTERESTED IN PRIVATE LAND HELD BY INDIVIDUALS” many people choose not to hear that. I think that comes from a deep shadow of colonization. The folks stirring up the hate see these relationships as a zero-sum game, becasue that is what the colonial mindset has been: “It is either our land or it’s their land.” But that has never been the case on the Indigenous side of the table, except perhaps were things were so framed by a zero-sum game that people had to find to keep what is theirs before inviting a future relationship. Private land title sits on top of provincial land and federal land. This is why you cannot do whatever you want on your own private land. You need permits to cut trees or store toxic waste. You have to abide by local by-laws about septic fields and water runoff. You cannot take your land out of Canada and give it to the United States or Denmark or Kenya. Land title and jurisdiction is not “either this or that.” Aboriginal title is NOT the same as fee simple or provincial or federal title. They can all co-exist.
So with all of the rhetoric (much of which is just plain incorrect legal interpretation bordering on deliberate misinformation) I encourage us all to understand what reconciliation has always been. It has ALWAYS been about planting a new seed together, of using the potential of relationship in Canada to do something remarkable and world-leading and showing humanity what will happen when we place what Joe Mathias would have known as “chenchénstway” – lifting each other up – at the centre of possibility, collaboration, development and relationship. This is the untapped potential of pursuing pathways towards reconciliation. It is hard work but it is SO beautifully rewarding for everyone. I plead with my fellow settler Canadians to deeply understand what reconciliation really means, to hold the potential for a world which no one can see alone, and to approach the conversations and deliberations around this work with the same generosity of spirit and vision that Joe Mathias and hundreds of other Indigenous leaders have always had. It’s an invitation. Let’s say yes.
Some important and dire warnings about the way the current federal government is going about its business making policy on artificial intelligence. Or perhaps, more accurately, how it is letting AI make policy on artificial intelligence and other things.
One of the dangers of using AI for public policy can be seen in this article, published in Slugger O Toole, a blog on Northern Ireland issues. The author uses a context-free ChatGPT definition of reconciliation and then asks the question “how are we to practice the vague, abstract notion of reconciliation?” It sent alarm bells ringing in my head. Here is the response I wrote:
You’ve lost me at using a ChatGPT definition of reconciliation. Defining reconciliation is as much a part of reconciliation as enacting practices and structural reforms to sustain it. The context of reconciliation matters tremendously. In South Africa it was a crucial decision to take as a majority population finally assumed power once the state became democratic. The potential for terrible violence was present and the way the majority took power mattered, hence the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Here in Canada reconciliation is a socio-historical imperative, to transcend centuries of colonial policy that have been called genocidal by the government’s own inquiries. But it is also a legal concept in which Aboriginal rights and title, which are recognized in Canadian law, need to be reconciled with the Crown’s rights and title and interest in lands. If you will excuse my directness, using a ChatGPT definition of reconciliation in the context of real, meaningful and very specific needs is not only lazy writing, but potentially dangerous and destabilizing public policy. Reconciliation is not a goal, it is a direction of travel and, perhaps, an evaluation criteria in which future generations can say: “they took actions which reconciled us.” It requires deep sensitivity to the dynamics of the present, and a commitment to that ongoing direction in the context of the unique affordances of time and opportunity which people might pursue together.
Seems to me that the essence of democratic deliberation is to work out what we can do together given the current state of play. I’m sure AI has it’s usefulness in deliberative practice in democracies, but our federal government’s blind pursuit of it as an engine for economic growth and Hughie Beag’s uncritical use of it to set a public policy agenda that ignores the reality of the society in which he is embedded show to of the dangers from succumbing to it’s seduction.
Christina Baldwin, in a lovely post remembering her father’s death:
We often pray to our ancestors and call upon the angelic/invisible realms for help. We attune ourselves, like this favorite quote from Willa Cather (in Death Comes for the Archbishop): “Miracles seem to rest not so much upon healing power coming near us from afar, but on our perceptions being made finer so that our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there around us always.” We look for signals, for morphed presence. A bee that hovers, a raven that follows us, a light but discernible hand on the shoulder, a voice that calls out warning or blessing.
Thirty years ago tomorrow, Back in 1995, Quebecers nearly voted to leave Canada. Paul Wells was at the Montreal Gazette during those days and wrote a great piece for The Walrus about his experience covering the campaign.
This week I’m in Calgary where Albertans are facing two Constitutional issues. Yesterday the provincial government used the notwithstanding clause of the Canadian Constitution to end a legal teacher’s strike and unilaterally impose a contract settlement on teachers in the Province. This clause, which is a weird piece of Canadian law, allows governments to temporarily suspend some Constitutionally protected Charter rights for a fixed period of time. It has been used recently for populist causes, to suspend the rights of children in Saskatchewan, to order education support workers off the picket lines in Ontario, to ban the wearing of religious symbols in public by Quebec public servants and, yesterday, to end a teacher’s strike in Alberta teachers. Ironically, it is often the supporters of these governments that advocate for the sanctity of the Charter of Rights.
The other Constitutional issue Alberta is facing is a problem of the Premier, Danielle Smiths’s own making. Populists are fond of courting outrage and a nascent spark of a separatist movement has been fanned into a smouldering pile of angry incoherence by the Premier and her government as she tries to hold on to folks at the far right of her base. In a very clever effort to upend this movement, Thomas Lukaszuk, tabled a petition request to create a “Forever Canada” referendum and he secured hundreds of thousands more signatures than the referendum law required. By law, that referendum would have to be held first, before any separatist referendum takes place. Strange things happen in Alberta above the waterline, but deep down folks are both focused on making their communities and province better and also a lot more thoughtful about how to do so. The outrageous soundbites we hear from political leaders are just not what everyone is always talking about. Those signals are important to heed.
If we want anything from our governments – roads, drinkable water, an education system, health care, a pipeline, postal service, safe working conditions, air traffic control, security – we have to pay for it. Governments fund these things through taxation, charging royalties on publicly-owned resources, borrowing, or, in the case of the federal government, creating money. This first of those three things seem to be things most political parties campaign against, meaning that they often add “tax cuts, royalty exemptions, and deficit reduction” to the list. .
What about the fourth?
Read Dougald Lamont and let’s talk about this. Because the problems we are having aren’t due to underfunding.
If nothing else, the deep divisions and culture wars in the US, and here in Canada too, are providing us with an opportunity to engage in deep practices of listening across difference. It’s harder now that it has ever been Dan Oestrich, who knows a thing or two about this, explains why.
Process artistry also has its place. Arts and well-hosted conversation are at work in Alberta where a group of researchers have initiated the Common Ground project to address stereotypes in the province. It is providing some useful lessons.
Depolarizing conversations is an initiative of my friends and colleagues at the Alaska Humanities Forum. It arose in 2021 during COVID when social media had divided families and small towns and disagreements had devolved into violence, assaults and the tearing of the social fabric. They have published some really helpful tools and resources on hosting these kinds of conversations. Get them while you can (and support them in continuing their work).
Irreconcilable difference is inevitable in a complex society but not every issue is an irreconcilable difference. Some are just conflicting perspectives. As long as we conflate conflict with war, we will maintain a tendency to want to avoid conflict instead of courting and supporting difference. Conflict transformation has long been the approach used to create a resilient container for what I call conflict preservation. We need this more than ever. And so do the orcas and the salmon.
One of the tools I use for working with polarities where there is a strong both/and situation is polarity mapping. I’ve written about it before but I love the way Kai Cheng Thom weaves it into her Loving Justice framework.
For more tools and training I can recommend Lewis Deep Democracy as one deeper approach to this work. It’s based in Arnold and Amy Mindel’s processwork. In Canada, I can recommend Camille Dumond and her colleagues at the Waterline Co-op. You’ll see my testimonial on their website. It’s accessible and practical training, even for experienced practitioners, and it will take your own practice deeper.