Who are we? A Rights-Based Alliance or a Collective of Complainers?

Many distressed cities and towns in the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association are desperately trying to invent a new organization to better promote our region’s economic interests. The municipally biased designers are attempting to patch together a loose fitting body around an ill-connected framework vaguely tied to ‘the Northwest’. Dr. De Matteo, the intellectual guide for the group; a unanimous NOMA resolution, and plain old common sense all insist that First Nations' participation in the design and construction of any new vehicle is ‘crucial’.

The Steering Committee should therefore have been stopped in its tracks last week when the Grand Chiefs summarily rejected the ‘Alliance of the Willing’ approach that would form ‘Common Voice’. (A less generous observer might suggest that an ‘Alliance of the Whining’ might be a more appropriate description.)

What the undeterred promoters of the remaining 'half-assembly' seem to have overlooked is the fact that our region is already organized into large, coherent, legal alliances that are committed to mutual benefit. These existing, powerful partnerships are created by the spirit, intent and the letter of the Treaties that brought this land into the Canadian federation.

We are all, -aboriginal and non-aboriginal alike, beneficiaries of these treaties. Our benefits and our obligations come with being a citizen of this land. As People-Joined-By-Treaty, we share remarkable partnership agreements: -signed, perpetual contracts specifically intended to sustain all our families on this land forever. That’s a pretty powerful shared commitment; and one worth rallying around. As it happens, this existing economic alliance –jointly crafted with the full participation of First Nations, is endorsed by none other than Her Majesty the Queen, confirmed by the Canadian Constitution and it even comes with a built-in guarantee of consultation and accommodation. How’s that for a vehicle capable of promoting our shared interests!?

It seems the wise men and elders who guided us into confederation left us with a careful constitution for living well together on shared land. If we simply allow our treaties to frame our structures and processes, the way quickly becomes clear to create stable, cooperative and made-in-NWO resource planning and sharing mechanisms. Our treaty partnerships also provide us with real power to insist that local benefits be maximized and our economy and our land be sustained. That’s our Treaty promise to each other.

A new collective of complainers called “Common Voice” would be both ineffective and redundant. A formidable legal instrument for generating a harmonious voice for ourselves already exists. Our distinct voice is found in the bonds that draw us together under our treaties. The sound is the deep rich sound of who we truly are as a people: -Treaty People who share a wonderful land. The Grand Council in Treaty #3 and the City of Kenora are rightly insisting that it’s time we started practicing our true voice. It’s the only one that Queen’s Park is forced, by law to hear.