Voting on Aboriginal Issues

In the midst of this federal election, I’ve weighed my choices fairly carefully, and I’m voting Green. Locally we have an excellent candidate running in Andrea Goldsmith who is currently a councilor at the Town of Gibsons, on the Sunshine Coast, just the other side of the inlet I live in.

For me, Aboriginal issues are a key part of the campaign, even if they seem to be off most people’s radar screens. But in this riding we have two First Nations who are well advanced in the BC Treaty Process. Both Sliammon and Sechelt have concluded or signed Agreements-in-Principle with the federal and provincial governments. In canvassing the parties on Aboriginal issues, this is what I found:

The Greens have a vague policy statement, but when I wrote to them with a few ideas on how to create sustainable First Nations communities through a combination of fiscal arrangements and green resource economics, I got a personalized email back from their policy chair and an invitation to continue to engage with the party after the election. I have never belonged to a political party, but I’d be happy to work with Greens in developing ideas that can be taken to Parliament and/or stolen by other parties.

The Liberals have the most extensive Aboriginal infrastructure in the country. They have a Commission within the party which features several friends of mine on the Executive. Their Aboriginal platform is small but vague. I have found in the past that when the rubber hits the road, the Liberals have stood back on Aboriginal issues. This includes:

• failing to comprehensively implement the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples recommendations (a watered down response was called Gathering Strength, and it has largely fallen by the wayside)
• an inability to embrace creative solutions to finalize treaties, especially in the fiscal relations area, leading to deadlocks at many treaty tables
• a refusal to follow up from the legal implications of the Delgamuukw decision on Aboriginal titles and an inability to discuss meaningful reconciliation initiatives.
• a disastrous Governance Act which almost became law over the objections of nearly everybody in the Aboriginal community. It was such a debacle that even the First Nations-led governance initiatives had a hard time getting started in response.

There have been a few Liberal successes, notably the Nisga’a Treaty here in British Columbia, the Urban Aboriginal Strategy and the Liberals did keep the Treaty process going while the provincial government was dithering, but in general, the Liberals seems shy to pull the trigger on real innovation.

The New Democrats offer platitudes in their platform (.pdf), but the most intriguing idea is guaranteeing Aboriginal seats in Parliament, much as the Maori seats are structured in New Zealand. I personally think that a better idea would be a push for proportional representation that would allow for an Aboriginal party to gain a meaningful voice in Parliament, much like New Zealand (see this interview with co-leader Pita Sharples). I’m also amused that the NDP will train 10,000 Aboriginal people in health, education and social services. In general a vague platform and other than the Parliamentary reform idea, one that is not long on creativity.

The Conservatives may be the strangest bunch of all. There is no reference to Aboriginal issues in their platform that I could find. So I called my current MP, John Reynolds, who is a senior member of the Party and asked him his opinion. He said that the platform does contain two ideas, one involving converting reserve land to private land so it can be used as security for equity. No mention of how to protect community assets though. Also his party supports the rights of Aboriginal with respect to matrimonial assets.

When I asked him about the treaty process, he said all he wants to do is see it get moving. When I asked him how he asked me for some ideas, and I shared the same ideas on fiscal and tax reform with him as I did with the Greens but he didn’t seem interested. I asked about his relationships with local First Nations and he said that Maynard Harry, the chief at Sliammon is an NDP member and slags him all the time, complaining that Reynolds never meeting with the community when in fact he said he meets with people in the community who have been opposed to the chief.

Reynolds also told me that a Conservative government would have strong leadership on Aboriginal issues from John Duncan “who’s wife is a Native.” Duncan is well known for his opposition to the Nisga’a treaty, calling the “Nisga’a Disagreement.” He is not widely regarded as an ally of First Nations interests in his riding or nationally.

So why am I voting Green? If you look at the Green platform in it’s totality and apply it to First Nations communities it provides for a very comprehensive set of ideas for creating small sustainable resource communities which is exactly what First Nations need: culturally sustainable communities and viable economies. Increasing integration with industrial economies has only heightened tensions between First Nations and non-Aboriginal communities while depleting resources within traditional territories before agreements can be signed. For small isolated communities, Green ideas point the way to sustainable futures culturally, socially and economicially.