Following up on the recent — and anonymously sourced — report that the Harper Government™ intends to legislate to establish individual property rights on First Nations reserves, both the Globe and Mail editorial board and John Ibbitson weigh in today. Ibbitson's column, in particular, provides a pretty succinct summary of the real motive behind this push. When you look past the paternalistic argument that the only way First Nations communities can possibly thrive is to be more like us, this is what's left:
...businesses that want to unlock the economic potential of reserves, from real estate development to forestry and mining, need the legal certainty that a property regime makes possible.
In this context, "unlock the economic potential" looks very much like a euphemism for "streamline the regulatory and tax regime to make it as easy as possible for us to suck all the wealth out." We've been unlocking our own economic potential since around the time Reagan was elected president south of the border. We've unlocked so much economic potential that we now live in the Age of Austerity because all the money is stashed in offshore accounts. If the First Nations have any sense, they'll tell us to get stuffed.
And note that Tom Flanagan makes an appearance in Ibbitson's column. About that...
Flanagan will no doubt be a presence in a lot of these articles because he's written extensively on the subject. And admittedly he has. But that doesn't mean he's written well on the subject. It certainly doesn't mean that he's some kind of objective expert or that his work represents anything but a very narrow agenda. Since that agenda is shared by the Harper Government™ and its supporters, I expect Flanagan to be an "expert" they invoke whenever possible.
That would be the same Tom Flanagan who has claimed that the free market would properly resolve human rights issues without intervention by governments and that human activity plays no part in climate change. Personally I think his record of being a reliable and objective expert is a bit spotty.
As for Ibbitson's closer:
But one is tempted to ask: Do the opponents oppose because they think things are going so well?
That implies that the only alternative to this proposal is to do nothing and that would be a classic false dichotomy. One is tempted to ask: isn't Ibbitson smart enough to know that's a fallacy?
It definitely is a false dichotomy. Very similar to the justifications used for NATO interventions. To sit back is to support untenable conditions under tyrants.
I'm guessing we'll also be hearing tons from the far right Frontier Institute who have been yammering away for private property rights on Reserve for at least a decade. Said institute is also big on denying global warming/climate change. Anyway, whenever they trot out an expert for a CBC radio interview on FN events (such as the recent AFN elections) it's either the disowned FN Member (Norway House?) or some Metis fellow. Sadly, those families who are struggling economically are being manipulated into thinking this is a good thing.
And now it gets positively diabolical:
So they slash already inadequate funding which will make life on the reserves even harder. And then they dangle this legislative change as a way to make things better.From yesterday, this is Pam Palmater at her blog Indigenous Nationhood in response to the original reports about the proposed legislation. Her title is a comment in itself: Flanagan National Petroleum Ownership Act: Stop Big Oil Land Grab. The post has some history and some analysis. And some pointed comments on Tom Flanagan.
I'm not sure what I find most disgusting about this entire stinking situation, but I'll take a short run at it anyway. Harper and Flanagan and many other dangerous people dream of permanently extinguishing any and all First Nations treaties and rights, selling the trees, stripping the land, fracking it sideways, sucking up all the water, selling the soil and piping the oil and dilbit to the closest Chinese tanker or the US border.. and there must be gold or copper we can dig up and take too !
The Great White Leader from the East (Ottawalberta), has moved to Fort Calgary to make sure any frontier resistance is squashed.. and he has his ridiculous thugs Oliver, Kent, Baird, Kenney, Flaherty and Ethical Ezra et al along as his blustery carpetbagger cavalry. If he thought he could just outright steal the land, via legislation, RCMP or Canadian Forces he'd probably try.. and sic his Con$ervative lawyers on any First Nations that tried to stay on their land or defend their homes.
Harper and his like have been doing this forever. Divine Right and Eminent Domain and Hellalujah.. lets all have some whisky and get some missionaries in here to save the Indians from themselves. Look how their 'environmental' strategy to 'solve' the disappearing boreal and southern caribou of Alberta and BC is to shoot or poison the damn wolves. I can't wait to see how getting rid of fish habitat will deliver jobs, prosperity and good government. The further the First Nations can keep this creep and his political loutpack and resource thieves away from their land, families and future, the better.
Fortunately.. the First Nations have vast experience with glib, pudgy white folk pissing on their leg and trying to tell them its raining. Harper et al don't and won't pass the smell test.. and just can't get away anymore with rounding up people who know how to defend themselves from rabid political animals who want to rip them off
I really feel like pointing out the contrast between this kind of extractive, divide-and-con policy and land policies in Venezuela. Land reform in Venezuela has largely passed rural land to groups of peasants rather than individuals, and given title to homes in urban barrios to families rather than individuals; they own the homes, which they never did before, but cannot sell them. The idea is for people to have, work, use and keep the land rather than for it to be made available to capitalists to buy.
Has anyone here ever read Harold Cardinal's The Unjust Society?
See, over 40 years ago Pierre Trudeau had the bright idea of getting rid of Native status, giving responsibility for social services to Natives to the provinces and basically making the Treaties null and void.
Sound familiar?
Cardinal wrote The Unjust Society as a very blunt rebuttal to Trudeau's proposals. More than that, Cardinal pointed out that the whole damn reason Native people now put up with crime, poverty and other bullshit is because the rest of Canada tried to assimilate them!
And when the Natives proved not to be too keen to respond to the federal government's early efforts, they tried to force the issue with the residential schools. And we all know how well that turned out...
I haven't read this closely yet but I wanted to come back to it so I'm going to stash it here. It's an op-ed by an AFN regional chief: First Nations want property rights, but on our own terms.
Article tweeted by Pam Palmater about efforts to give poor people title to their bits of land not working so well:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hey_wait_a_minute/2005/01/the_de_soto_delusion.single.html#pagebreak_anchor_2
Holly, interesting article. Nothing too surprising to people not blinded by the dollar signs. But it's amazing how consistently these sort of populist but very market-based solutions fail to work; remember microlending?