Nisga'a Treaty:

The Nisga’a agreement is unjust and immoral. The next provincial election will, to some degree be fought on the social and moral validity of the treaty, and for once those slippery guys we call politicians have been quite clear about their feelings. The ruling government, which is still smarting from the Bingo scandal, will try to regain the moral high ground by claiming that they are doing what is fair and just for the native people. What I will argue in this article is that the Nisga’a Treaty is the moral low ground, not the high ground.

The NDP case is based mainly on two contentions. One is that the native people have hard lives and deserve a break today, and secondly, we are just recognizing their traditional property rights. Now let us all agree that the average Canadian, justifiably or unjustifiably, has a guilt trip about the sad plight of many aboriginal people, and would a agree to a healthy dose of charity. I do too, as long as this charity does not conflict with fundamental rules of justice.

However, how much would Canadians be willing to pay to be free of this necessary or unnecessary guilt? I am sure that if I went from house to house collecting for the aboriginals, I would find the true price of guilt relief to be somewhere between $10 and $100. Some people would slam the door in my face, and others would gladly part with their new BMW out of compassion. Generally, Canada is a compassionate country as long as the money comes out of some other pocket. In real life, kindness and compassion have a practical limit.

But what about aboriginal property rights, or should we say privileges? Space doesn’t allow me to go into detail. Let me just refer the reader to Mel Smith’s excellent new book, Canada - Our Home or Native Land. In it he asserts that if the present trend is extrapolated, one third of Canada will soon be in native hands. We ROC’s will not be the natives! This in spite of the fact that most of us are born in this blessed country. Surely that is extreme?!

Now let me, in summary form, give what I believe are the relevant moral arguments:

1. The Nisga’a persons (not their un-elected leaders) are somewhat unhappy with this agreement. They see their cash go to high-priced lawyers, and "their" land will be administered by the BC Government. Thanks a lot! What a deal!
2. Self-government is precisely not what this deal is giving the native persons. They will simply trade "white" government tyranny with traditional chief tyranny. The ordinary Nisga’a person will have as little to say about his or her fate as (s)he does now; maybe less.
3. Whenever you give a group a collective benefit, especially as huge as this one, you are creating a recipe for chaos and dissension. Right away the parasites and freeloaders, as well as bureaucrats and professional politicians, not to mention the perennial do-gooders who believe that "everybody is entitled to the benefit of our opinions" will come out of the woodwork and the ordinary native person will experience a resentment the like of which we have not seen yet. There will be inter-tribal warfare, and intra-tribal warfare. The official contention that there will be eternal peace after this agreement is laughably wrong.
4. The deal is fundamentally unfair, because it violates the concepts of equal rights for all Canadians. The standard argument given by aboriginal leaders is that Indians were here first. This is not true. The persons who now call themselves "aboriginal" were born here just like most other Canadians. Their ancestors were invaders just like the Europeans, and even if they had owned all the soil of Canada, which is arguable, Canadian taxes and the normal human mismanagement would have reduced this patrimony to practically nil.
5. There is something deeply repugnant about delivering the native population to the tender mercies of tribal law. The tribe members will not be protected by the Canadian Justice System flawed as it is. Children, especially, might fare poorly under the new administration.
6. There are going to be practically insuperable problems with deciding who is a native and who is excluded from the bag of goodies.
7. A document that is based on race is racist.
8. The deal is plainly fraudulent. Cui bono? Who benefits? The primary beneficiaries are the lawyers whose pay comes straight out of the taxpayer’s much assaulted wallet. The politicians will get rewarded by feeling that they have done a noble thing for the poor suffering natives. They hope to get re-elected because they will seem to be generous and noble leaders of a compassionate society, whereas in fact, they are being generous at another’s expense, which is not so moral. The third major beneficiary are the chiefs. The agreement hands them unbelievable powers, executive, judicial, financial and social. We are in the process of creating 600 potential petty dictators, mostly male incidentally. Democracy flies out the window. The chiefs want money and power; can we blame them for that? Well, yes, maybe.
9. A particularly ridiculous feature of the deal is the so-called new level of government, because it gives political independence coupled with financial dependency. Each native person will cost (not collect!) one million dollars. We are talking about sums as large as the national debt. We Canadians are governed by idiots with a weak moral character. Or so it seems.
10. Nobody asked the salmon who they really belong to. Animal rights activists, get motivated! Aboriginal peoples all over the world have been as destructive of the environment as anyone else. If you don’t believe that, look at the billboards on native land along the highways of the province.
11. The traditional native tribal organization is patriarchal, not matriarchal. It is far from sure whether women will fare any better than children under chief-based management. Feminists of Canada, raise the war whoop! Your sisters are in danger. If you believe they are not your sisters, then you’re a racist. If you believe that native women are indeed your sisters, you must try to protect them, or give up feminism.
12. The argument is politically correct. Some people think that is good. I think it is bad, because political correctness confuses morality with what my students used to call suck-holiness.
13. Canadians are constitutional wimps. We believe our rights are to be gratefully accepted from a good natured government. But rights are not grants from the state, but basic human entitlements. The task of government is not to cook up deals with special interest groups (lawyers in this case) and then to present them to the public as a fait accompli. Government belongs to the people, not the other way around.
14. If the agreement had been negotiated by a committee selected from the Nisga’a population as a whole by democratic (read "moral") means, then it might have had some moral and philosophical validity. Most Canadians haven’t taken political science courses, but you do not need to be an expert to see how screwed up the entire enterprise really is. When is a little logic, a little common sense going to enter Canadian political life? No wonder Canadians scorn politicians, perhaps even more than lawyers.
15. It is your land that is given away by the politicians. It is your salmon that are being kicked around. It is your country that is being mangled. It is your fundamental rights that are being mocked. Shouldn’t you be the person who is consulted? Did we ever get a vote on the basic concept of aboriginal rights? The Canadian Constitution is a creature of politicians and lawyers. Are you really ready to give your fundamental rights into the hands of self-appointed experts? Nowhere in Canada do we get government of the people, by the people and for the people. Everything in Canada is decided by lobbyism. This little group screams. That little group screams. That large group is being ignored. The True North Strong and Free? I am still very happy to be a Canadian, but I am no longer proud to be a Canadian.
16. Thinking of native persons as "them", the non-persons, is as morally undesirable as native people thinking of "Europeans" as "them", not real people but rather images. There is something very dangerous about objectifying persons. The idea that aboriginal people are like the buffalo, part of Canada’s natural order, is morally repugnant. "Oh look, how cute! See the buffalo grazing! And over there are the natives!" It doesn’t sound right, does it?

For a contrary view, see Editorial

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