“Aboriginal Fatigue”

Prime Minister Mark Carney has been carefully changing the culture of the Liberal government, from the free-spending approach of the Trudeau years to a more fiscally pragmatic one. He also has a willingness to shed some of the environmental controls that hindered resource development and is directing heavy spending into Canada’s military, signalling a strong departure from the priorities of the previous leadership, though he is keeping some key policies including the industrial carbon tax.

On the fiscal accountability front, one move Carney could and should make is to bring back the enforcement measures within the First Nations Financial Transparency Act (FNFTA).

More than a decade ago, I found myself enjoying a summer drink on a Vancouver patio with a friend. Partway through, we were joined by a friend-of-my-friend — Mark, who worked in facilities management. We eased into the usual small talk, and I offered the inevitable confession that I worked in public procurement.

One beer became two, as they tend to do on a warm afternoon, and eventually the conversation drifted into that warm, truth-serum stage of mild intoxication. Mark leaned in, lowered his voice with theatrical seriousness, and asked the question he’d clearly been waiting to unload, “So… have you ever been offered a bribe?”

An Ontario company that put down a deposit to buy a luxury hotel in Richmond, B.C., pulled out of the deal worth tens of millions of dollars weeks later because of “uncertainty” caused by the landmark Cowichan Tribes Aboriginal title ruling, according to the marketers of the property.

Court documents show that the 14-storey Versante Hotel, close to Vancouver International Airport, was instead bought by a Hong Kong purchaser in October for the lower price of $51.5 million.

Chiefs from Treaty 8 First Nations of Alberta are calling for a pause on the pipeline memorandum of understanding until they are consulted and sign off on the potential project. And they’re threatening legal action if that doesn’t happen.

The chiefs spoke in Ottawa Thursday, decrying what they said was a lack of consultation with First Nations before Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith agreed to the MOU in November.

“We have formally notified the prime minister that any further attempt by Canada, Alberta, or industry to move ahead without us will result in immediate action,” Grand Chief Trevor Mercredi said.

Canadians were told to tighten our belts during COVID-19. Cancel trips. Skip funerals. Close small businesses. Trust the public health orders and trust the people moving “emergency” money.

Now we learn that a large share of pandemic funding routed through the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) is tagged as “questionable,” not because of politics, but because basic documents were missing.

That is not a culture war. It is a receipts war.

(Incognito)

It has been clear for some months now that David Eby and the B.C. NDP’s approach to Indigenous reconciliation would have ruinous consequences for British Columbia’s economy. Last Friday, the situation got even worse, as a new court ruling poured more cold water on economic activity in the province and opened the door to every B.C. law being subject to interpretation through a United Nations human rights document. The implications for British Columbia could not be much more dire.

Across Canada, indigenous land acknowledgements are now routinely imposed on audiences at all kinds of public meetings. With few exceptions, this relatively new practice has not been debated or approved by the citizens who are required to sit through these political statements.

The Edmonton-Ottawa memorandum of understanding will be meaningless if First Nations are given a veto, even in areas they don’t legally control

If there is one takeaway from the recent memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the federal and Alberta governments on a potential new oil pipeline to the West Coast, it’s that Canada needs to abandon the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and return to our own framework for reconciliation: Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982

OneBC Caucus is proud to present Making a Killing: Reconciliation, Genocide, and Plunder in Canada. Making a Killing is a feature documentary film exposing the massive scandal behind the taking of wealth, land, and power from the Canadian public to benefit indigenous tribes. It debunks the worst lie in Canadian history: the lie that 215 bodies were found at the Kamloops Residential School and that Canadians committed a mass murder against indigenous children. Making a Killing is the first documentary film produced by an elected caucus.

h/t Mauser

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) is a non-binding resolution from an international body. Even so, it is exerting a tangible influence in Canada on issues ranging from a move in B.C. to rename streets, towns, and cities, to a push to grant rivers “legal personhood.”

UNDRIP is a United Nations resolution passed in September 2007. The 15-page document contains 46 “Articles” that put forth a vision of the rights of indigenous peoples worldwide.