Battle over 's' may decide future for First Nations

Page 4

There's an international battle going on right now that could decide the future of generations of Canadian Natives. And it's all about a single letter.

An 's' at the end of the term 'Indigenous people' could conceivably change the course of history for Aboriginals world-wide. It would give Natives across Canada more ammunition in their legal war over self-government with Ottawa at the very least.

Under several international declarations and instruments, an Indigenous 'peoples' have rights that plain old 'people' do not. The most significant internationally recognized right brandished by a peoples is their right to self-determination.

What does that mean for the First Nations? Quite a lot. In a purely political sense, it means not being told by anyone else, like the federal and provincial governments for example, how we will run our own affairs.

In a legal sense, it means having the freedom to create our own justice system.

In an economic sense, it means control over our resources. The forests become our trees, the minerals become our ores, the oil and gas becomes our petro-dollars.

And from our right to self-determination flows our right to self-government. As things stand right now, the idea of handing self-government over to Natives is abhorrent to the federal government. The latest word from Ottawa on that subject is in connection with the controversial First Nations Chartered Land Act. The feds have said they will not even move the act up to the House of Commons for first reading until the expression 'inherent right to self-government' is stricken from its pages.

Anyone with a grain of sense can see the logic in including some mention of self-government, even as a concept, in an act that grants land management control to the First Nations. That is, after all, why the act was written in the first place - to move bands one step closer to controlling their own lands and ultimately their own affairs.

So it was no wonder that the Canadian delegation for the World Conference on Human Rights pressured the United Nations to drop the term 'Indigenous peoples' from the draft version of the Vienna Declaration on Human Rights at pre-conference meetings in May. When asked why they did it, External Affairs officials said self-determination would only complicate matters for the First Nations by giving them "unqualified sovereignty."

They even went so far as to say that sovereignty might lead us to separate from the rest of Canada the same way Quebec has so often threatened to do and the UN ought to deny such self-determination to secure the future of the Canadian federation.

A bold-faced lie like that seems ridiculous to anyone who knows anything about the First Nations. Unfortunately, the international community knows little about us. Native leaders like Ted Moses of the Grand Council of the Crees of Quebec, Tony Mercredi of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in Alberta and Frank Abraham of

the Little Black River band in Manitoba went to Vienna to give the UN a more accurate version of Native life in Canada.

But it's urgent that the First Nations do more. Quickly. That sign 's' must be put back into the Vienna Declaration before it's finalized. The UN's July conference in Geneva for the International Year of the World's Indigenous Peoples will be our last opportunity to secure our right to self-determination at the International level. Let's not miss the boat on this one.