Sunday, March 27, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
"Let's Settle This Once and For All"
If ever there was a statement of our problem with Treaty, this is it!
The Editor of the Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal seems to think that our Treaties are some kind of deal founded on British contract law. "You get this, I get that. Sign here. There, we're done." But our Treaties are not like that. They are statements of complex relationships. They are like describing what it means to be a member of a family. They are our solemn, constitutionally-confirmed commitment to relationships among people who seek to achieve and maintain a peaceful and equitable sharing of land and resources for as long as the grass grows and the rivers run. But forever is a long, long time, so change has to be assumed. Once and for all, carved-in-stone decisions cannot possibly stand the test of this challenging time frame. Perpetuity -- the fundamental assumption on which our Treaties are founded, is the very antithesis of "once and for all," legal, contractual kind of thinking. ***
When we contemplate a relationship that is to last forever we are led into thinking about the sort of sharing that recognizes variable needs over time; one that maintains careful consideration for present and long-term sustainability within a landscape that is partly renewable, always changing and definitely finite. This perspective suggests that decision-making and the capacity for subtle adjustment would best be extremely well connected to the lands and waters that are to sustain us all. Decision-making needs to be sensitive and intimately knowledgeable if this sort of endless equitable sharing is to have any hope of success.
Our Treaties bind two peoples and the land together for a very, very long time. Neither nation gets to abandon the balance beam. The past century of failure, conflict and instability has occurred precisely because past decision-makers treated our Treaties like "once and for all" deals. But "consultation and accommodation", the phrase used by the Supreme Court to describe our Treaty dance, is not a one-shot arrangement.
If we hope to achieve and to maintain the harmonious alliances suggested by the Treaty negotiators, we are going to have to build workable, respectful, processes for shared desision-making -- ongoing processes that permit constant and effective accommodation of inevitable change. We need to have smooth systems for constantly communicating with each other and with the land because "forever" demands that we will be perpetually tweeking and re-balancing our considerations. When one considers the nature of this relationship it soon becomes evident that this sort of sophisticated, elegant balancing act cannot possibly be achieved by distant and disconnected bureaucrats and politicians whose interests are at odds with the sustainability of our Treaty regions and our Treaty people. Any serious attempt to make our Treaties work leads inevitably to the conclusion that there must be made-in-our-Treaty-areas decision-making …in other words, meaningful regional self-government.
If any once-and-for-all action is needed, it's a change to the power structure. We can't achieve the sustainability demanded by our Treaties if Queen's Park and Bay Street control the resources of our region. What's really needed is to move the centre of decision-making into our Treaty Regions ...once and for all. It is only here that the possibility for any kind of respectful, sensitive, sustainable, practical working relationship exists. As people whose lives depend upon these lands, we're capable of making up our own resource regulations …and then changing them as our sustainable Treaty relationship among the lands, waters and the people requires.
***Lawyers actually have a "Rule against perpetuities". You can look it up. The very existence of such a rule says a great deal about the true value of laws and lawyers when they prove incapable of pondering the infinite. On the other hand, Anishnaabe Elders and other deep thinkers think quite a lot about circles and endless cycles ...and they seem to suggest that it would be prudent for other beings who share this small planet to do likewise.
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