The Nisga’a Agreement is a Faulty Blueprint for BC

Release Date: 30 November 1998

VANCOUVER, BC>>>  "If the Nisga’a Agreement is the template for the fifty or more land-claim agreements or treaties yet to be negotiated in BC, as Premier Glen Clark says it is, then at the end of the exercise, British Columbians will wake up to discover that their federal and provincial governments will have substantially altered forever the economic, social and political fabric of their province," says Melvin Smith, QC, in a policy paper, Aboriginal Land Claims in British Columbia: Serious Concerns About the Nisga’a Deal, published today by The Fraser Institute.

Mr. Smith, a respected commentator and former constitutional advisor, considers the third order of government provisions in the Agreement to be unconstitutional because they extend to Nisgaa’a government provincial legislative powers which can never be retrieved. "Treaties, like diamonds, are forever. That is why the Nisga’a Agreement should be subjected to the broadest and most careful public scrutiny," he argues.

His paper addresses the critical questions he thinks British Columbians should be asking about the Nisga’a Agreement:

• Has BC truly neglected its obligation to native peoples?

• What are the total costs associated with this deal?

• Is the proposed Nisga’a government really municipal in nature?

• Why is a referendum necessary?

• Will agreements such as this finally remedy Canada’s discredited native policy?

• Are urban treaties viable?

• Is it true that Nisga’a will become full taxpayers like other Canadians?

• Are treaties just about "minority rights" as the Premier suggests?

• What about the democratic rights of non-Nisga’a who reside on Nisga’a lands?

• Will this process really bring certainty and finality?

Mr. Smith considers the status quo as reflected in the current Indian reserve system to be completely unacceptable, and in this paper proposes eight specific points that are a better solution than the present treaty-making process:

1. Transfer the ownership of Indian reserves to the various bands who now occupy them to be dealt with in the same way as other land-owners deal with their lands.
2. Where treaties do not exist, augment reserve lands with the transfer of Crown land, or dollar compensation in lieu, on the basis of a limited but reasonable interpretation of aboriginal title as found in the Delgamuukw case, with a portion of such lands being made available to individual band members.
3. Encourage, where viable, the establishment of democratically-elected municipal governments on native lands, but outside of the land-claim agreements so as to avoid constitutional rigidity.
4. Limit treaties to interests in land and allow all economic and social programs of general application, both federal and provincial, to be available to native people, with some degree of preferential treatment for twenty-five years.
5. Begin to phase out, to be completed within twenty-five years, the special federal programs for aboriginals only.
6. Confirm that all laws and government institutions both federal and provincial will apply to native people throughout Canada.
7. Repeal the Indian Act.
8. Dissolve the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and the provincial ministries responsible for aboriginal affairs.

All of this, Mr. Smith argues would extend to native people, fully and completely, the rights and responsibilities of Canadian citizenship. "The end result would be to integrate native people into Canadian society and yet provide once and for all compensation for their special land rights—integration without cultural assimilation. It is the only workable solution for all concerned."

Established in 1974, The Fraser Institute is an independent public policy organization based in Vancouver.

For further information:

Suzanne Walters, Director of Communications,

The Fraser Institute, (604) 714-4582,
Email suzannew@fraserinstitute.ca

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