VICTORIA — New Democratic Party leader John Horgan chose a gathering of native leaders last week to lay out a major promise in the platform he will take into the 2017 provincial election.
“A B.C. government, led by me, will officially adopt the United Nations declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples,” declared the Opposition leader in a speech to the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs meeting in Vancouver.
“It will be in our election platform,” he continued. “It will be in the mandate letters to my government ministers and I will work with you to align the actions of my government with the declaration.”
The declaration, issued in 2007, is a lengthy statement of the rights of indigenous peoples, foremost among them self-determination and control of the land they have traditionally owned and occupied.
Horgan followed his vow to implement the UN declaration with a similar commitment regarding the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the federally appointed commission that reported out last year on the residential schools tragedy.
“With the UN Declaration, and the Truth and Reconciliation calls to action as our guide, we can revitalize communities and build a province that’s stable and rich and healthy for all British Columbians,” said the NDP leader.
The quotes are all from the speech Horgan delivered last Thursday to the UBCIC at the community centre on the Musqueam reserve in Vancouver. A copy of the prepared text was supplied by his staff.
There were some 94 calls to action in last year’s report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, one of them implementation of the UN declaration. The latter includes 46 separate articles, so as I make it, Horgan has bound an NDP government to get moving on 139 measures in all.
“Will it be easy?” he asked near the end of the speech. “No. Reconciliation is not for wimps.”
The bit about wimps is Horgan quoting Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, the longtime head of the UBCIC and also a longtime supporter of the New Democratic Party.
In the 2009 provincial election, Phillip turned out for some mainstreeting with then-NDP leader Carole James.
“I have been a New Democrat for a long time,” he told reporters, proudly hauling his membership card for all to see. “I will always be a New Democrat.”
He is also the most militant and outspoken of the province’s major aboriginal leaders, a point underscored this week when he announced he would not be attending a reconciliation ceremony at Government House with the visiting Royals, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
“The suffering of our communities is too great,” said Phillip, citing a range of concerns with the federal and provincial governments. “We do not mean any disrespect. It is a matter of principle.”
Horgan did attend the ceremony in Victoria on Monday night, but left the following reception soon afterward, telling reporter Rob Shaw of The Vancouver Sun he was heading home in the suburb of Langford.
In his speech last week, Horgan blasted Premier Christy Clark for a range of failings with First Nations, accusing her of engaging in mere “check-box consultations and photo ops.”
Clark has indeed avoided embracing the United Nations declaration out of concern for the legal and constitutional implications. But in that regard, the recent experience of the new national government may be instructive.
The federal Liberal election platform included a commitment to implement the UN declaration, backstopped by a personal pledge from party leader Justin Trudeau delivered to the annual meeting of the Assembly of First Nations in the summer of 2015.
But on the mid-July anniversary of that appearance, Trudeau’s Minister of Justice Jody Wilson-Raybould returned to the AFN meeting to deliver a significant caveat.
“Simplistic approaches such as adopting the United Nations declaration as being Canadian law are unworkable, and respectfully, a political distraction to undertaking the hard work actually required to implement it back home in communities.”
Not to say that the government was backing away altogether. Rather the declaration will be implemented incrementally, via an “efficient process of transition that lights a fire under the process of decolonization but does so in a controlled manner that respects where indigenous communities are in terms of rebuilding.”
“We need to let the air out slowly,” said the minister, who hails from British Columbia. As to why the national government might be hesitating, one concern might be the content of article 26 in the UN declaration, dealing with land and resources.
“Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired,” it reads in part. “Indigenous peoples have the right to own, use, develop and control the lands, territories and resources that they possess by reason of traditional ownership or other traditional occupation or use, as well as those which they have otherwise acquired. States shall give legal recognition and protection to these lands, territories and resources.”
Such legal recognition, protection and control could apply pretty much everywhere in B.C., the entire province being the traditional territory of one or another of some 200 First Nations.
Not surprisingly given the scope, the Horgan promise is getting attention in the indigenous community.
Following the speech to the UBCIC, the NDP leader has been invited to address the rival First Nations Summit and the Assembly of First Nations and highlight what will likely be one of the dividing issues between the two main parties in the next election.
