Free-Trade Zones For Indian Reserves in Canada

Winnipeg Free Press ^ | June 13th 2002 | Meaghan Walker-Williams

[somena2001]

The treaty deadlock: There is a solution
Thu, Jun 13, 2002
Meaghan Walker-Williams
VIEWS FROM THE WEST

Treaties -- you can't escape them. They're in the news everywhere. All across the West, it's being discussed with apathy and passion over dinner tables, in coffee klatches, schools and pundit columns. Hard on the heels of the Treaty 8 decision in retro Alberta -- in which a Federal Court judge ruled that a group of Indians in that province does not have to pay taxes on income or property earned or held off reserves -- comes the amateurish attempt by the Campbell government in B.C. to strong-arm the process towards a position of strength for their side.

All in all, it's a good thing. Although the results won't be known until early next month, only about a third of the 2.1 million eligible 'voters' thought enough of the Liberal government's song-and-dance routine to answer the eight laughable questions.

News flash for Gordon Campbell: if you really want to kill the treaty process, here's what you should do: conduct a poll across B.C., poll only first nations band members and ask them how they feel about the treaty process. In many cases, I think you'd discover that the "mandate" that First Nations Treaty Groups had to begin negotiations in the first place was tenuous at best, and has long since been unofficially revoked by the members.

Many aboriginals across the West have long since come to the conclusion (like myself) that the Trick-Or-Treaty process is at best a terrible joke, and at worst a colossal waste of our money. There are some groups who are attempting to re-work the process in a sane direction, but there are lots more who aren't. For instance, two years ago at the annual meeting of the B.C.'s Penelekut First Nation, band member Neil Miller posed a question: "Who wants to remain in this treaty process?" Not a single person raised his hand. In my band's treaty-negotiating body, the Hul'qumi'num Treaty Group, the turnout for annual meetings has been abysmal. Of the some 6,000 members, fewer than 200 show up, and that's in a good year. The importance of this lack of attendance is clearer when you understand that in our traditional culture, deliberately ignoring or shunning a person or a group of people is the standard means of indicating displeasure with them. This is not apathy, this is a deliberate boycott.

I, along with a few others, have demanded that the treaty group stop spending my money and negotiating on my behalf. The treaty negotiators don't listen or care. They don't even answer demands for accountability for the money they are spending on my and their members' behalf.

So, if British Columbians feel that they're not being fairly represented in the treaty process, and vote 'yes' to Campbell's silly questions, all I can say is we're really all in the same leaky canoe.

Blockades. Protest. Direct action. This appears to be the plan for upcoming political activity by first nations in years to come if the British Columbia Treaty Commission process fails. This will be the result if the referendum produces the result it is intended to produce, which is to unconstitutionally diminish first nations land title and rights to self-government. This can only create even more economic uncertainty in B.C. Unfortunately for that province, first nations have a much stronger case for their position in law than the government does. In case anyone is wondering, that's why the Campbell government so desperately wants to negotiate rather than face us in court.

There is another way. How about if Canada and the provinces re-think their entire way of dealing with first nations? Listen to us. We are nations, especially those of us who never signed a treaty. Some first nations have never ceded or extinguished our rights as nations in any sense of that word. Since this is the case, we seek to come to the table on those terms. From my point of view, it's simply insane for Ottawa to continue making multi-million-dollar payouts in exchange for first nations giving up tax-exempt rights and ceding title to lands.

The politics of envy and greed has to stop -- on both sides of the table. Canadians, who have benefited greatly from extracting the wealth and resources of aboriginal title lands, should grow up and simply honour the law when it comes to compensating first nations for those stolen goods. And first nations have to stop thinking in terms of "Sticking it to Whitey," especially when doing so will hurt us in the long run economically.

If British Columbia and other western provinces do not want to restore what was taken, stolen, borrowed, even in the form of fair compensation, there is little we as first nations can do. They outnumber us, they outgun us, and they have all the money. That's unfortunate, but that's the way it is.

But what I love about the B.C. referendum is that it has finally put a real face to the government's agenda and attitude: thugs who think they can do whatever the hell they want, to whomever they want, by sheer force of a popular vote. We, in Indian Country, should be glad for this bald exposure. It's harder to identify a problem or an enemy when the problem is disguised as a solution or an enemy is disguised as a friend.

For years now, I have been flogging the idea of a free-trade plan for first nations. Governments hate it, but I know there's real political strength in this idea because Canadian taxpayers, on the whole, love it. Who wouldn't like the means to have the equivalent of "duty-free zones" (like the kind that currently only exist in airports) pop up all over Canada?

Instead of taxing poor non-natives to death to support us, we simply ask for the freedom to engage in a Hong Kong-like economy, for ourselves and also for our non-native neighbours who wish to come and do business with us in our territory.

It's the absolute reverse of taxation. Canadians would not have to pay taxes to support natives, natives wouldn't be on the receiving end of tax dollars, and both could really help each other by engaging in commerce freely and voluntarily. The results would be spectacular for natives and non-natives alike. The only loser, of course, would be Revenue Canada. What a shame.

It doesn't take a Ph.D. in economics to understand that when you steal from A to give to B, then take from B to give back to A, that both A and B are losing out on money and economic freedom. And the only people who win are the people in charge of taking and then handing out the money. Eliminate the middle-man and what you've got is real free trade in Canada.

First nations need economic self-determination. Other forms of self-determination are also good, but in order for first nations people to survive and thrive and prosper, we need to be paying our own way. Every dollar that you spend is a decision you make about how to live your own life. Whether you spend it frivolously, invest it or donate it to a worthy cause, it is your decision to make. But every dollar that the government takes away from you is a decision about your life that you don't get to make -- it's a decision the government makes for you.

In the case of natives, decisions on what to do with land and resources -- and the capital that could have been produced from them -- have been taken. In the case of taxpayers, it's the loss of that half-a-year's salary. The stealing has to stop. It's hurting all of us.

Meaghan Walker-Williams is a Salish First Nations activist and writer on Vancouver Island.

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[somena2001]

Thought some Canadian Freepers and free-market friends in South of 49, would be interested in this article. MWW