The Independence We Deserve

First Nations in Canada have long called ourselves independent sovereign nations that partnered with newcomers to develop and build Canada. Our ancestors signed treaties with the British crown based on a nation–to–nation relationship. Those treaties were the foundation upon which Canada was built, and shape our political ideology and relationship with the rest of the country. The once powerful notion of nationhood, symbolized by the treaties, has however morphed into a cycle of increasingly needy demands and fruitless negotiations. Time and time again we face Canada and ask the crown to, ‘Give us rights!’ ‘Give us self-government!’ ‘Give us what we deserve!’

The first time my parents left my brother, sister and I, barely teenagers, alone in charge of our farm during calving season I learned that independence however, is not something you ask for, or negotiate, or demand, it is something you do. As we found out first hand, it can be very uncomfortable and scary (to preclude a Monty Python spiraling debate about how bad we had it as kids, no I did not grow up in a cardboard box in a puddle). It is time we faced this discomfort and did it, for by asserting our nationhood we can create independence that will overcome the critical social situation we find ourselves in. Canada’s largest looming social crisis will not be solved by anyone but us.

Reversing the change from dependency to self-reliance and independence cannot be done by supporting assimilationist policies, championed by Widdowson and Howard in their recent controversial book ‘Disrobing the Aboriginal industry” or Tom Flannigan in “First Nations Second Thoughts”. Nor can our historic nation-to-nation relationship be asserted by removing ourselves from our current Canadian state, as espoused by University of Victoria professor Taiaiake Alfred in “Indigenous Manifesto”. His is an ivory tower model based on an anti-white, racist, romanticized version of us as a people completely removed from reality.

Assimilation is dead, and equally, the idea of removing ourselves from Canada is dead. I like my Canadian passport, healthcare, and Tim Horton’s.

By ‘doing it’ I am referring to asserting our jurisdiction and codifying laws to govern ourselves based on our beliefs, our priorities and our culture – our nationhood. Joseph Kalt and Stephen Cornell from the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development hosted by the John F. Kennedy School of Governance have conducted research with various Tribes in the United States and First Nations in Canada. In their examination of what contributes to successful community-run businesses, they have discovered lessons we can that apply to nationhood.

The first lesson is that the boundary between business and politics must be clear and enforced. In Native businesses where the elected chief and councils are removed from influencing the business and micro-managing the operations, the businesses are five times more likely to succeed than where there is direct political control. If a band operation becomes an employment program for cousins, or constituents, and loses its focus on profits, it will end up not employing anyone.

First Nations must move towards independent dispute resolution systems. These dispute resolution systems must be separated from political interference and influence. Nations must create legislation, codes, and acts to govern conduct. In other words we must create laws.

Laws allow a people to codify their morality. They create an agreed upon base of principals and systems in which everyone agrees to operate. Laws remove governments from acting based on personality and move them towards acting based on rules. Currently there are huge jurisdictional gaps in the laws governing life on reserve. Herein lays the opportunity for First Nations to assert nationhood and build independence. And like the businesses that have a higher chance of success, once we emplace codified systems to run our entities free from the cult of personality and personal gain, they will have a greater chance of success. That goes for economic development agencies as well as social services, housing, education, and public works.

In a First Nations setting we are currently governed largely by the Indian Act. The Indian Act is our law, but it’s an old, outdated law that is full of cracks and voids. On reserves, generally speaking, federal laws have jurisdiction and provincial laws do not (except where there are no federal laws). For example, while on-reserve Native people have to abide by provincial traffic laws, our communities and organizations are not bound by provincial education or human rights acts. Filling the jurisdictional gaps ourselves is a direct method of projecting and practicing our 'nation' status.

We can start by creating First Nations Human Rights Acts and First Nations Education Acts. A First Nations Education Act would ensure a form of legislative oversight and mandate minimum teaching days (there is no legal requirement now). It would also legislate a governance structure, minimum teacher certification and curriculum that are congruent with First Nations culture and language. Presently there are no legal guidelines in place in any of these areas - a newly elected chief could fire all of the certified teachers and place anyone in the job, or close down a school completely, with no legal ramifications. Likewise we can legislate individual human rights for our citizens that model international human rights codes.

The implications extend far beyond the jurisdictional realm. As Dr. Michael Chandler of UBC discovered in his study of suicide rates within first Nations, “…those Aboriginal communities in BC that have, for example, achieved a measure of self-government, or were quick off the mark to litigate for Aboriginal title of traditional lands, and that have otherwise successfully wrestled from the hands of government some measure of control over their own civic lives, have manifestly lower or absent youth suicide rates.”

By asserting our jurisdiction and creating and enforcing laws to govern ourselves, we can take a dramatic step forward in exercising our nationhood. This is what sovereignty and independence is all about. It is about acting to enshrine our rights and exercising our self-determination to produce the self-government systems we deserve.