Irwin urged to settle land issues first

Page 6

Guest Column

In a local New Brunswick newspaper (The Telegraph Journal -- Aug 16, 1995) article, the Minister of Indian Affairs announced the 'start' signal for the First Nations to begin the negotiation process for their input or their statement of claims to self-government on reserve-by- reserve basis. The article states that there are 20 eligible First Nation communities in New Brunswick who could conceivable begin their talks with the federal government at any time with subjects like housing, education, health, policing and natural resources, plus any other negotiable items that may be thrown in, on the agenda.

The boundaries to these negotiables are open or wide-ranging, according to the article. Each individual community would set its own time and agenda to begin their talks with the feds. They would also be given the option to go into the process as deeply as they want or they may withdraw whenever they wish. The minister seems to be implying that nothing will be beyond reach as far as an agenda item: everything will be negotiable.

As a Native person I question this open-ended approach that the government is promoting. It would seem that a lot of First Nation people should be asking the reason whey this wide-open negotiation option is available to us all of a sudden. Are we really ready and versed well enough to risk all at this time? Are the feds trying to unwind themselves of their responsibilities too fast? If so, what is the reason for the rush? Another question is, why should we dance to their jittery tunes right now? What purpose does that serve us? In other words ? let's hold off and assess everything possible and try to find out why the rush before we go in too deep into anything that we can hardly understand.

For instance what are our bargaining chips right now as we stand? We're sitting on these pittance-sized reserves with essentially nothing on them to live from and with only limited potential in them, so why risk losing them also? The smaller reserves extend no more then a few acres and are greatly outnumbered in size by the neighboring white farmlands in most cases. And the largest is a pitiful 6,000 acres in contrast to the New Brunswick land base of 19,000,000 acres. It seems that we should try to achieve some semblance of balance before we open our doors to any negotiations.

Imagine this, if the powers-that-be recognized the fact that we, the Native people, had never, as Nations, ceded the province of New Brunswick, or the Maritimes for that matter, to them (the white settlers of this land) in all our history, then we would indeed have bargaining chips. The 19,000,000 acres that the province presumes to own is the base from which the other side is bargaining and we are located on lands no bigger then a postage stamp in comparison. What do you suppose would be the final outcome if we rushed into dealing with them right now? It would be like matching a cup of water to the ocean if we did enter into negotiation without some prep time.

In all frankness I ask, should we not settle the land issues first of all before we enter into these seemingly no-win situations and negotiations with the feds? Let's be sure to have something substantial in hand prior to giving up the rest of the small land bases that we presently live on. We owe that much to our children and grandchildren.