There are more questions than answers after last month’s historic Supreme Court of Canada ruling, which, for the first time ever, granted Aboriginal title to a B.C. First Nation, in this case the Tsilhqot’in (Chilcotin) Nation in the west central Interior.
In Sechelt, where self-government has been a fact of life for almost 30 years, Chief Calvin Craigan said the ruling will put Crown resource land under Band control and usher in an era of “co-management and sharing” with local governments.
But what does that mean, and who gets to decide? If First Nations get a bigger piece of the pie, who gets a smaller one, and how will that affect taxpayers, industry and government?
Those are existential questions that won’t be answered too quickly, judging by the province’s response to the ruling. While First Nation leaders are tentatively set to meet with Premier Christy Clark on Sept. 11, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the B.C. Council of Indian Chiefs told CBC that he did not expect a plan to be ready until next spring.
The issues are on the table, however, and it was fascinating to watch Gibsons council raise some of them Tuesday night in committee after a legal briefing paper on the ruling was included on the agenda.
Veteran councillor Lee Ann Johnson, appearing more muted than I’ve ever seen her, asked “how far advanced the Squamish might be” and when council would be able to discuss the new order with the Squamish as well as the Sechelt.
“It seems to me this is a huge shift in rights and title for First Nations, and we have two First Nations that are heavily involved in rights and title issues,” Johnson said. “So I’m just wondering when do we find out about how it applies to us locally? How do we go about it?”
Mayor Wayne Rowe, a lawyer, said he knew that legal education seminars were being organized across the province to explore the implications of the ruling.
“So there’s a lot of minds being turned to it. Some minds are saying it’s a game changer, other minds are saying it’s more of the same, it’s just a slightly different level of consultation that may be required. But it’s not something that I have any expertise in,” Rowe said.
Coun. Dan Bouman said he had read about six legal overviews, including one that said the impacts on forestry would be greater than the mountain pine beetle and would collapse the industry.
Bouman said he did not think that was going to happen.
“I can’t see the First Nations shutting down the forest industry. I can see that some places are going to be off limits that were previously OK to log. I can see that they’re going to want to see a lot more jobs coming from harvesting. They’re probably going to takes steps to put a stop to raw log exporting at the volumes that are happening — things like that,” he said.
“I guess the way I see things is that it’s very positive,” he concluded. “It’s a second chance at resource management, an opportunity to see community benefits coming back into forestry and a chance to do things right and maybe get our fish back.”
Coun. Gerry Tretick ended the discussion by injecting “a little bit of levity,” as he put it: “I think the law profession will be the one that benefits most.”
To which Bouman piped back: “I’ve got a more positive attitude than that.”
Expect a lot of this kind of talk during the next few months.
