Juno News - Could First Nations block an Independent Alberta？ Law professor explains

00:00:00.000 hi i'm candace malcolm and this is the candace malcolm show we have a great episode for you

00:00:06.880 today bruce party is going to be joining the show in a little bit now i want to point your attention

00:00:11.760 to this news piece you may have seen it circulating on social media the assembly of first nations is

00:00:17.280 to meet on bill c5 they called an emergency meeting to discuss bill c5 so remember bill c5

00:00:24.000 is the bill introduced by mark carney and his government last friday called the free trade

00:00:28.240 labor mobility act and the build canada act i've been quite complimentary of this bill folks i think

00:00:33.520 it is exactly what canadians need we need to get energy and pipelines built to market and this bill

00:00:39.840 basically allows the government to override some of the most overzealous environmental rules brought

00:00:45.120 in by the trudeau government and that is again what we need but apparently some in the first nations

00:00:50.000 are very worried and very upset about this let me read a little bit from the globe and mail here

00:00:54.480 the assembly of first nations has called an emergency meeting for all 634 chiefs on june 16th

00:01:00.720 to address growing concerns over bill c5 which would allow the feds to fast track infrastructural

00:01:05.600 approvals indigenous leaders warned the bill could override the right to free prior and informed consent

00:01:12.240 effectively undermining the indigenous veto power over resource development folks ask yourself this

00:01:18.240 question why do some indigenous groups get a veto power over natural resources why on earth do we

00:01:24.160 have this law on the books what is free prior and informed consent it is such a confused legal concept

00:01:30.240 and the fact that this is on the books in canada is one of the greatest shames of the trudeau government

00:01:36.000 i will continue here from the global mail it says the afn will use the meeting to coordinate a legal and

00:01:41.520 political response arguing that bill c5 threatens treaty rights and violates canada's commitments to

00:01:47.440 indigenous peoples so just to continue this at a presser in ottawa the assembly of first nations bc

00:01:54.080 regional chief terry tagui said that while no government has a veto over natural resource projects

00:01:59.280 canada needs to properly consult on national energy legislation let's play that clip no government has a

00:02:05.680 veto meaning that when we come to a decision all governments come into room to make a decision together

00:02:12.880 and i think you know first nations uh certainly as a part of this need to be part of the decision

00:02:18.720 making process so what he said there that no government has a veto remember that attorney

00:02:24.160 general sean fraser said that last week he said that indigenous groups and no government gets a veto

00:02:29.760 power and apparently the backlash to that comment was so strong and so intense that he came out the

00:02:34.640 next day apologized for even taking the question and he claimed that his answer hurt people and set back

00:02:41.040 the conversation with first nations but all of this raises a question at least to me is why is it that

00:02:47.440 some groups why is it the first nation groups get these special privileges and get more rights than

00:02:52.240 the rest of canadians like i was told that canada's a free democratic country and that we all have the

00:02:57.520 same laws and privileges and yet clearly um the rules are unequal and this leads me to another story

00:03:04.000 similarly that some first nations really oppose what premier daniel smith is doing out in alberta

00:03:10.640 they really oppose the citizens initiative act remember that the day after the federal election

00:03:15.680 daniel smith came out and announced changes to citizens initiative act that will lower the

00:03:20.480 threshold to trigger a referendum on sovereignty if that is what the people want so look at this

00:03:26.000 press conference this is unbelievable on may 6th at this press conference the blackfoot and cree chiefs

00:03:32.480 slammed citizens initiative act which is also known as bill 54 in alberta they called it garbage

00:03:38.160 uh they threw it on the ground very theatric press conference here and they basically gave a warning

00:03:43.920 a fierce warning to the premier let's play that clip bill 54 this is what we think of you

00:03:51.200 you're garbage like that this is treaty land and we stand on it today this is treaty country and any 0.93

00:04:00.000 talk and of separation is really insanity and if you feel that you have problems with first nations

00:04:09.920 you could leave so i don't really think that anyone has problems with first nations our problem is that

00:04:14.720 there are some laws that treat canadians differently and we're going to get to the bottom of that so in

00:04:19.600 response to this press conference and other pushback premier daniel smith wrote a letter to first nations this

00:04:25.200 came on may 13th she said among other things i wish to reiterate what i shared my address to albertans on

00:04:31.040 may 5th as premier i am entirely committed to protecting a holding and honoring the constitutional

00:04:37.440 rights of first nations metis and inuit people this includes ensuring that any citizens initiative

00:04:42.240 referendum if passed must uphold and honor treaties six seven and eight here is a clip of the premier saying

00:04:49.360 that i also want to state unequivocally that as premier i'm entirely committed to protecting

00:04:54.640 upholding and honoring the inherent rights of first nations metis and inuit peoples

00:05:01.040 therefore any citizen initiated referendum question must not violate the constitutional rights

00:05:06.480 of first nations metis and inuit peoples and must uphold and honor honor treaties six seven and

00:05:13.280 eight should any referendum question ever pass this is non-negotiable so basically the deals that

00:05:21.040 were drafted with the canadian people with the crown uh with the with ottawa i would carry over

00:05:28.240 into an independent alberta and you might say oh well that seems only fair uh but the reality is that

00:05:33.840 things aren't exactly going very well for first nations relative to the rest of the canadian public

00:05:38.000 data shows that and so the idea that we would just take the broken system and apply it to the new

00:05:42.960 alberta government if that were to ever happen just sort of seems to undermine the whole project in my mind

00:05:48.480 now that apparently wasn't good enough for some in the first nations community because the onion

00:05:52.800 lake creenation uh we learned is going to proceed with a legal challenge against alberta sovereignty

00:05:59.760 and against premier danielle smith so this is ctv reporting on may 15. alberta's recent passage of bill

00:06:05.200 54 which lowers the threshold to trigger referendum has prompted onion lake creenation to revive its legal

00:06:11.200 challenge against the alberta sovereignty act the nation argues the act and the bill infringe on treaty

00:06:16.560 six rights and paved the way for a separatist agenda chief henry lewis says the province failed to

00:06:21.680 consult indigenous communities violating the honor of the crown okay i want to bring in bruce cart party

00:06:29.680 to have a conversation on this help us understand a little bit more bruce is a legal scholar and

00:06:34.560 professor of law at queen's university and bruce has an excellent an excellent article that's very

00:06:40.160 related to this over on his subsec page saying that there should be no special aboriginal rights

00:06:46.560 in a free alberta so uh bruce first of all welcome to the show thank you for joining us thank

00:06:51.200 you candace thanks for having me okay so let's start with your article um really thought provoking

00:06:57.600 as usual um i really appreciated it and i want you to sort of walk us through um what what you write

00:07:04.240 and um sort of where where this came from right so as you as you pointed out and as the clip demonstrated

00:07:12.320 uh daniel smith has indicated that in a independent alberta if it came to that that uh aboriginal

00:07:20.560 rights treaty rights and so on would be honored and a lot of people in the separation movement have said

00:07:25.040 the same thing i think that is a mistake the kinds of stories that you referred to uh and shown showed

00:07:34.000 clips from is exactly the kind of result that you get when we have a legal system that provides

00:07:41.760 different rights to different people we've lost the idea in this country of blind justice blind

00:07:51.120 justice means that the law treats everybody in the same way everybody has the same rights and freedoms

00:07:58.480 as everybody else without regard to their lineage or who their parents are now of course

00:08:05.360 the idea of aboriginal rights is very deeply embedded in canada it is in the constitution so you just can't

00:08:15.840 do away with it within the canadian context but if you had a a new country an independent alberta

00:08:24.640 then my proposition is that that special rights for anybody including aboriginal people ought not to

00:08:32.640 exist you need to start again and by the way if it is a new country if it is a new independent country

00:08:39.840 then the canadian constitution does not automatically apply the new country can start again with a clean

00:08:45.520 slate and say all right folks how do we want this country to work and so and one of the things

00:08:52.880 that that i think if if albertans really want a free country and this comes along with the word free

00:08:58.320 free includes i think the rule of law and one of the bits of the rule of law is blind justice blind

00:09:05.360 justice means the law does not care who you are and that means that that that there should be no

00:09:15.280 special status for anyone and as you pointed out for an awful lot of indigenous individuals

00:09:21.200 this special status that they have works to their disadvantage because their aboriginal rights are 1.00

00:09:29.040 group rights which do not work the same way at all the problem with group rights is that those group

00:09:36.240 rights tend to be under the control of of of an elite so for example let's say you belong to a group that

00:09:44.880 has a reserve reserve rights okay that does not mean that you own property on the reserve

00:09:51.600 the reserve is under the control of the group and you have permission to live there

00:09:56.320 you do not own a lot that you are allowed to sell or mortgage or improve in other words on the reserve

00:10:04.640 individual aboriginal people are denied the same kinds of rights as everybody else

00:10:11.200 and so one of the ways to empower the indigenous individual is to get rid of the idea of group

00:10:18.320 rights special group rights and say and insist that everybody has the same rights as everybody else and

00:10:25.840 we should bring this old out of date idea to an end well one of the really interesting parts that stood

00:10:34.240 out to me in your essay here bruce was you talk about the british isles you talk about how there was

00:10:39.360 a mix of invasion migration and mixing is you say it's a history of humanity the romans invaded the

00:10:45.440 british isles in 55 bc they conquered the place about 100 years later and on their second tribe by 500

00:10:50.960 a.d saxons had established themselves as a dominant power in 1066 the normans overthrew the saxon kingdom

00:10:57.120 today british law does not have different rights for the descendants of romans saxons and normans they're

00:11:02.080 all british people uh what a great analogy because you know we're talking about the events that

00:11:08.400 happened you know 500 years ago in some cases where you know the history since then is the history of

00:11:15.200 the development of canada right there has been mixing there has been in intermarriage there have

00:11:19.440 been different groups that have come and go and so it's hard to kind of reconcile why it is that we

00:11:25.280 have this special status caved out and i understand why first nations chiefs specifically would want to

00:11:33.200 maintain their system of control because they have a lot of power they have a lot of influence they get a

00:11:37.360 lot of money and a lot of times the money comes through the chiefs and it doesn't necessarily

00:11:40.880 trickle its way down to the rank and file members of the community and we've all heard many stories

00:11:47.280 and seen many stories where you see a chief living large and the people living in squalor and you you

00:11:52.880 wouldn't you wouldn't see that in other parts of canadian society right you wouldn't see a situation

00:11:57.440 where a small town mayor would be incredibly wealthy and all of the inhabitants of that town would be poor

00:12:03.280 independent upon that mayor that just doesn't happen in canadian society and yet in in too many cases

00:12:08.480 it does happen in first nations and so i i guess my question just for you bruce is like how do we

00:12:16.080 overcome this right like even just the mere mention of a new independent country uh in alberta we're not

00:12:23.360 even halfway there right we're still ways away um and you you see the chiefs you know throwing the papers

00:12:29.440 away and saying this is unacceptable uh you can't do this we're not going to support it um and a lot

00:12:35.200 of talk has come about you know what what whether these rights would have to pass over to an independent

00:12:40.400 alberta and then you have the premier saying at least in under you know while she's premier it it

00:12:45.600 wouldn't um so like what what what's the next step here well the next step i think for uh people

00:12:55.040 individually is to is to is to correct the the fiction the myth that there are distinct peoples

00:13:06.320 in this country that deserve different sets of rights so for example a long time ago i was having

00:13:16.000 a conversation with uh a self-described invi indigenous person and and he said to me you know we we were here

00:13:24.640 first you know we have been here for longer than you and i asked him how old he was

00:13:33.280 and he said he was in his late 20s and i said well in that case i have been here longer than you

00:13:43.920 and i don't care who your parents are i don't care what your genes are i don't wear your don't don't 0.71

00:13:48.160 care where your genes come from i don't care what kind of affiliations that you claim for yourself

00:13:53.120 which is entirely your business the fact that you can trace ancestry back to somewhere hundreds of

00:14:00.560 years ago makes no difference to me whatsoever because that idea in other contexts would be

00:14:07.360 resoundingly rejected this is an appeal to purity in a sense and frankly i don't think anybody is pure and

00:14:18.560 who cares we are all mixtures of things i am not european and i don't even know what that means

00:14:27.200 anyway europeans are mixtures of things i'm a canadian i was born here i'm native to the place i am as

00:14:34.560 native to the place as anybody else and i object to the idea that somebody should say well you know i come

00:14:41.440 from this people and therefore i don't care deals that were made between two distinct groups of

00:14:48.560 people hundreds of years ago have nothing to do with me and nothing frankly to do with anybody who's

00:14:55.600 alive today the idea that this that the deals made between distinct peoples hundreds of years ago

00:15:01.920 should be binding on people who are now all mixed up is frankly absurd well i i tend to agree like if we

00:15:10.880 were having this conversation say you know like so like myself i'm a ninth generation canadian which

00:15:16.000 means my children are 10th generation canadian at least on one side but then on another side you know

00:15:20.400 my grandfather was born in the uk so you know only a second generation canadian on that side um whereas

00:15:26.080 my husband moved to canada as a child and so he is a first generation canadian and i would argue that

00:15:31.360 he is more patriotic and loves the country more than anyone in my family certainly like like and and if

00:15:36.320 anyone were to suggest that someone who came to canada as a child wasn't a true canadian because

00:15:41.120 their family hadn't been here as long as someone else i think it would be routinely rejected as

00:15:46.320 just unacceptable and yet to your point um let's just let's just try a thought experiment let's say

00:15:51.680 tomorrow canada was invaded you know and we wouldn't like that and we would try to resist and so we should

00:15:58.080 do we really care who was here and who was not and who the descendants are and how they mix

00:16:28.080 and who they married and how they procreated and whether or not you can trace more of your lineage

00:16:32.960 and your genes to that group or that group i mean this is the recipe for a permanent disaster

00:16:39.040 and if if this was the way it was done all over the world then then it wouldn't work it'd be obvious

00:16:46.960 it'd be obvious going back to to the uk example i mean imagine if the uk insisted upon having different

00:16:53.200 groups of rights depending upon whether you were more norman or more saxon that's insane and yet we

00:17:02.880 are more or less doing the same thing here in canada and thinking of it as the natural order of things

00:17:09.360 it is it is actually the reverse well and people think they're being progressive by doing it but you

00:17:15.440 mentioned in the piece as well that uh you know to someone who came from india and say was trying to

00:17:20.240 escape the caste system right where you where you're born and who your parents are dictates every

00:17:26.480 single uh aspect of of you know what kind of job you'll get who you'll marry where you can live

00:17:30.720 etc uh and to come to canada and sort of be met by this strange and yes and this is a very old idea

00:17:39.200 right that your rights depend upon your lineage i mean though that idea has existed all over the place

00:17:44.640 at all different kinds of times i mean you can also see that that that idea in old times in the uk

00:17:51.520 right that the ruler was the son of the ruler before him and for no other reason and if your

00:17:59.200 parents were serfs your serf you were a serf too that's the way it worked everything depended upon

00:18:05.040 lineage and then we did away with that idea the law evolved so that everybody had the right to vote

00:18:13.120 everybody could run everybody could own property and buy and sell it as they chose everybody can

00:18:18.320 marry whoever they want to and divorce as they saw fit that's the way it's supposed to be it's supposed 0.92

00:18:23.760 to be that every individual has the same rights and freedoms as everybody else without regard to their

00:18:29.840 identity or genes or lineage or parents and it is it is i think it is no longer appropriate

00:18:38.640 to rely on a a story that happened a long time ago in our history so as to divide the people who are

00:18:48.000 here alive today regardless of where they came from whether or not they were born here whether or not

00:18:54.160 they arrived here recently whether or not they can trace their their family tree to one place or another

00:19:00.240 it doesn't matter we are all canadian we all get the same rights and freedoms as everybody else

00:19:06.880 wow if only our politicians had that much uh common sense bruce i want to quickly ask you

00:19:12.000 about this concept of the right to free prior and informed consent because it seems to me that the

00:19:19.120 this i mean i mean it came from the united nations and this idea that first nations have to be

00:19:24.240 integrately involved in any kind of development project that it does sort of give them a veto

00:19:29.360 over projects passing through their land i think this is a really dangerous concept um and you know

00:19:35.360 it's it's it's it's there it's canada's kind of stuck with it at this point um i will just say

00:19:40.240 i'm a little optimistic that bill c5 seems to give the minister power to sort of override some of these

00:19:47.280 more ridiculous uh laws that were brought in uh what what do you make of this concept and this sort of

00:19:53.840 veto power that has been given to first nations yes so the supreme court of canada found within

00:20:00.400 section 35 of the constitution a duty to consult meaning that before projects are approved before

00:20:07.360 government goes ahead with things they have to consult with first nations now that duty although

00:20:13.040 it's it's a it's a significant obstacle to developing all kinds of things but it is not strictly speaking

00:20:20.080 a veto in fact the supreme court said that explicitly it is not a veto however in the meantime both the

00:20:26.400 federal government and the bc government passed statutes incorporating the un declaration on the

00:20:33.600 rights of indigenous people into both federal and bc law and that declaration from the un basically says

00:20:40.800 that indigenous peoples are entitled to to to a veto over development so now we have a contest between 0.99

00:20:48.480 whether it is simply a duty to consult and then get on with it or whether or not there is actually a

00:20:54.080 veto and the argument being made is not a bad one that the statutes passed by the federal government

00:21:00.160 and the bc government for that matter do in fact provide a veto to first nations over anything that

00:21:08.720 affects any land that they ever used occupied or or or as the as the case may be and so yeah whether or not

00:21:16.480 bill c5 will prevail over that older statute uh remains to be remains to be seen but but this is

00:21:23.120 this is just a reflection of the tangle that we are now in because some groups of people get more rights

00:21:31.920 than other groups of people if i might just um mention the suggestion that i've made about a way out

00:21:38.160 of this in a new alberta which it would be this take reserve lands which right now are controlled by the

00:21:45.680 group and not owned by individual aboriginal people take those reserve lands chop them up into lots 0.99

00:21:53.600 give those lots give title to those lots to individual members of the group so that they

00:22:00.400 can do with that land as they wish just like everybody else that will empower the indigenous

00:22:06.320 individual and take power away from these elite leaders who are dictating the way these group rights

00:22:13.040 will be honored well uh given the housing market in canada today and the cost of property i think

00:22:19.200 that would probably be a great deal and that many first nations people would gladly uh you know

00:22:24.080 leave all of this sort of bureaucratic tangle in exchange for land that belongs to them personally

00:22:30.000 as opposed to uh their their community and their chief uh bruce thanks so much for joining the show

00:22:35.680 it's always really uh interesting and uh thank you for your insights my pleasure candace thanks for

00:22:40.880 having me all right folks that's all the time we have for today we have a little bit of a different

00:22:46.240 programming coming up in the next few days we're heading into a summer schedule so i'll be scaling

00:22:50.320 back the candace malcolm show and only coming to you a few times a week and then we have a whole bunch of

00:22:54.480 other exciting new shows that we're going to be introducing the coming days so you'll always get

00:22:58.800 a new video from us every single day here at juno news but it won't always be from me so thank you so much

00:23:04.560 folks i'm candace malcolm this is candace malcolm show thank you and god bless you're watching juno news

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Juno News - June 12, 2025

Could First Nations block an Independent Alberta？ Law professor explains

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