A British Columbia Supreme Court decision made last August in the case of Cowichan Tribes vs. Canada upheld the Nation’s title claims to about 800 acres in Richmond, B.C.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
I love a good land acknowledgment.
Many will disagree with me. They’d argue that land acknowledgments are just empty, mispronounced words that don’t mean a thing. But I think when a non-Indigenous person starts a public meeting reminding everyone about the land they are standing on, it means something.
Every time someone does it, I believe they learn. This might be the only time they have to consider speaking an Indigenous language, to toss the unknown words around on their tongue, to think about the living, breathing land beneath their feet and what it has given them.
What they’re not meant to do is terrify people, or make Canadians think the Indians are coming, riding fast over the hills to take your houses away.
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But this fear-mongering forms the start of the Canadian-American thinker David Frum’s recent essay in The Atlantic, “Good Intentions, Gone Bad: How Canada’s ‘reconciliation’ with its Indigenous peoples went wrong.” Mr. Frum begins by warning that land acknowledgments are “rote confessions of historical guilt” that are being reinterpreted by Canadian courts as “legally enforceable admissions of wrongful possession.” And, he warned, those acknowledgments are creeping up into “liberal areas of the U.S.” too.
Mr. Frum misses the point entirely. Land acknowledgments are about respect, historical recognition of this continent’s tortured history, the continued legacy of Indian Residential Schools, Indian Act oppression, and the non-recognition of Indigenous human rights. He alludes to the outcomes of these issues at the end of his essay – the shortened lifespan of Indigenous peoples, low high-school graduation rates, addiction problems – but he doesn’t see how the willful blindness toward legally binding agreements made 260 years ago led to the disparities of today.
The ostensible reason for Mr. Frum’s essay is the British Columbia Supreme Court decision, made last August, regarding the case of Cowichan Tribes vs. Canada, which upheld the Nation’s title claims to about 800 acres in Richmond, B.C. Mr. Frum extrapolates this could eventually mean the end of private property ownership in B.C. and throughout Canada.
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He sees this decision as a symptom of the problem of reconciliation, which he argues is “one-sided,” because he feels all Canada seems to do is give. “Demands by Indigenous nations and affiliated nongovernmental groups, produce concessions, which invite yet more demands, which beget yet more concessions,” he writes.
This is an old, disappointing trope. While Mr. Frum’s essay covers a lot of ground, underlying it all is the thought that Canadian courts and government have made a grave error – that this decision will lead to the downfall of the Canadian state because Indigenous peoples will become economic barriers, and leave us powerless against the expansionist reach of U.S. President Donald Trump.
I disagree with Mr. Frum’s interpretations. First, the courts said that the Cowichan ruling was not to do with lands held by private individual owners, and so, as the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs have also made clear, no one is coming to take away anyone’s homes.
What the courts actually did was respect one of the foundational documents that built this country: the Royal Proclamation of 1763. That proclamation, made by King George III, outlined First Nations’ right to exist, and laid out the principles of First Nations land rights and self-government.
After it was issued, it was presented in Niagara to First Nations leadership. It was translated and read out in many languages, and wampum belts were created. The legal tone was set for Crown-Indigenous relations and how treaties would form.
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But somehow, the Royal Proclamation became a forgotten footnote in history. Every lawyer in Canada was taught it was insignificant, a vestige of the past. Except that the Proclamation was enshrined in the 1982 Canadian Constitution.
The Cowichan decision reflects the Proclamation and other court decisions, upholding the fact that Canada operates in partnership, and is built on relations with Indigenous peoples. This is why the decision is not a threat – it is a reaffirmation. And seeing it as a threat applies a Trumpian lens to the Canadian state: that relationships should be transactional, and not about building a better, equitable country for all our children.
If Canada wants to put its “elbows up” against Mr. Trump and his expansionist moves, then it is time to build on the foundations of the relationship built into our history. The Canadian courts, the Cowichan decision and the others before them, are pushing forward in the right direction. Prime Minister Mark Carney, the Canadian government and the provinces all have the opportunity now to move forward by working on major national projects and infrastructure with First Nations, respecting and abiding by the true nature of our relations. After all, making all of us stronger makes Canada stronger. Pulling us apart makes us weak.