The Anishinaabeg as Stakeholder

In his Facilitator's report on the Northwestern Ontario economy, Dr. Rosehart chose to ignore the sad state of our Treaty relationships in his recommendations. It's our Treaties, you recall, that contain the moral, legal and economic principles on which Ontario and Canada are founded. It's our Treaties, even before our constitution, that shaped the all-important, conditional allocation of this land and its resources. As such, these solemn undertakings form the underlying building blocks of our economy.

But Dr. Rosehart is not the first white chap to treat this pesky legal detail with apparent disdain. As the Supreme Court has frequently pointed out in recent years, neither the Provincial nor the Federal Crown have been particularly attentive to their obligations under our Treaties either. But one would think that, in enlightened 2008 PC, the Queen's hired sage might have connected the dots between road blocks, court rulings, confusion and animosity and the Crown's historic neglect of our deal. You'd think that these various symptoms of protests in the streets, Aboriginal leaders in jail, mining companies hauling their dollars and drill rigs to more stable ground and that huge dark jurisdictional cloud casting a constant chill over the future of the forestry industry might actually have caught the attention of an astute Economic Facilitator.

http://www.chroniclejournal.com/top_story.php?id=100456
As reported in the Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal (link above,) a number of senior First Nation leaders were quick to point out that the good Doctor missed this most critical of the many maladies plaguing the Northwestern Ontario economy. In response, Dr. Rosehart dismissed their shared analysis as simply wrong. He helpfully eliminates any concerns these leaders might have by pronouncing his report fit as a fiddle. He does say, however, that the poor Indian's reading skills may be deficient.

Well, as the Anishinaabe leaders and their legal advisors have demonstrated to our highest courts, they can read very well indeed. But it doesn't take a post-graduate degree in English to discern the vestiges of an obsolete colonial attitude infusing the language of Rosehart's text and recommendations. Time after time, he refers to the Anishinaabeg as 'stakeholders', placing them on the same plane of consideration as municipalities, cottage owners' associations and tree-hugger collectives. It is revealing that, among all his footnotes, there does not appear to be one reference to the many Supreme Court decisions that have repeatedly confirmed that First Nations have interests, jurisdiction, rights and decision-making powers far beyond what has been historically acknowledged by the Provincial and Federal governments.

As in most parts of Canada, all families in our area enjoy the benefits of a Treaty. Both First Nation people and we, the more recent arrivals, are 'Treaty people'. We are all affected when our resource agreements are dysfunctional. (Sadly, the effects have been badly imbalanced.) While it should have been a matter of honour, it is now a matter of urgent economic necessity that our sworn intention to build a peaceful country based on equitable sharing needs to be translated into a system of effective and harmonious decision-making and benefit sharing. Considering the terrible legacy of poverty in First Nations and considering the latest economic depression in the whole region, we should be busy building our new, more respectful processes, as soon as possible! The neglect, greed and racism of the past have eroded and undermined the cornerstone agreements of our land-sharing deal. This critical foundation is now incapable of supporting a stable resource economy. It is therefore remarkable that Dr. Rosehart did not insist that mending and strengthening our basic working relationships be the governments' most urgent economic priority.

The process of 'consultation' will not get us there; as practiced by Ontario, getting 'consulted' means you are powerless. Stability can only be achieved if the fundamental Treaty principle of an alliance between friends is our starting point. So long as the representatives (and advisers) of the Crown persist in ignoring or diminishing the principle of true partnership contained in the words of our nation-to nation alliances, then the war in the woods and in the courts will not only continue, it will escalate. The only economic gain in that approach will be enjoyed by police officers, judges and lawyers.

While Dr. Rosehart observes in the text of his report that the principle of Treaty Rights was mentioned as being of "some concern" by a few of the Aboriginal leaders he spoke with, it is clear that he was not sufficiently persuaded of our Treaties' importance to the economy to warrant more than a few feeble references deep in the 74 page body of the report.

The Chiefs are right. This guy missed the most fundamental of our economic problems. Crown Ontario might have wanted an economic visionary -but what they appear to have got was someone who seems to be viewing our world from the perspective of the last century. In the last century a 'forward thinker' like Pierre Trudeau could get away with his opinion that there was no such thing as 'aboriginal rights.' In the pre-Delgamuk days of the last century it still seemed reasonable to flood wild rice fields, clear-cut forests, pollute watersheds and generally marginalize First Nations with virtual impunity; ...so long as it was in the name of the greater good of the (largely non-native) nation. The most any sensitive government or developer had to do was offer a few menial jobs and some other assimilative tokens to the impoverished folks who were being economically and environmentally displaced from their homeland. Thanks to the men and women who are the supreme keepers of our national mythology, those days are gone forever. For the honour of our Treaties and of our country, leading lights like Dr. Rosehart must acknowledge that First Nations cannot be treated as subservient "stakeholders". First Nations are among the founding and continuing governments of this country.

Ultimately, the oversight in the good Doctor's diagnosis and directions for economic recovery won't matter much; (...although his dismissal of the Chiefs' concerns does not do much to improve the atmosphere.) Whether Dr. Rosehart recommends it or not; whether he is capable of reading the signs or not, Treaty issues will command priority attention. Neither the law nor the First Nations will allow them to be ignored any longer. It is pretty safe to predict that the economy of Northwestern Ontario will not be going anywhere so long as our leaders fail to implement those mutually beneficial alliances that are the foundation of our country: that is, our Treaties.

The wheels have fallen off the car but Dr. Rosehart chose to focus his recommendations on mending the upholstery and improving gas consumption.