Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/6/2015 (1925 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

The report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is without question the most comprehensive description of the past and present reality of the First Nations and the political bedlam that underpins Canadians' relations with our native citizens. Its 94 far-reaching recommendations meant to redress past failures and abuses may someday propel Canadian/First Nations people towards a fairer future together.

We have, however, travelled this road to nowhere before. Impressive reports, such as the 1997 Royal Commission on Aboriginal People and the 2007 Residential Schools Settlement Agreement for instance, are now mostly forgotten. Yet today Canadians face many of the same issues many assume had been settled by these earlier much celebrated accords.

It is not the lack of sound ideas and recommendations that have held our societies in an endless, evermore hostile deadlock. Rather, it is the failure of commissioners and political leaders on both sides to put words into action.

Deeply researched public policy studies, parliamentary "white papers" and inquiries may provide policy guidance for governments, but it is the rules, norms and officials within administrative structures that create and guard actual policy outcomes.

There is no central agency or department in Ottawa that could possibly manage the implementation of the TRC's recommendations. Notwithstanding the hard work and brilliant analysis of the TRC, we have no practical ideas or recommendations about what a comprehensive, presumably permanent, policy structure meant to manage and hold on course their ideas and recommendations might look like. Putting this in the hands of the federal bureaucracy might produce some very odd results or no results at all.

Under the usual processes, Canadians should expect the federal government to conduct a review of the TRC recommendations through an exchange of views and assessments between the commission's follow-on bureaucracy and federal officials. Though the process might engage the First Nations or a representative body such as the Assembly of First Nations, such an engagement is not necessary, because the government will be answering to the TRC and not the First Nations or their representative. It is a process that has failed First Nations fundamentally in every other such situation because the federal reviews of such inquiries inevitably concentrate on the government's interests and First Nations, at best, are viewed as second-order interveners.

The federal government has to set aside the notion it knows best how to manage the dependent First Nations. The TRC presents an opportunity to create a new Canada/First Nations policy structure designed not only to deal with the TRC recommendations, but also manage our relations with the First Nations. That requires the immediate inclusion of First Nations in any deciding how to respond to the TRC findings.

Such an approach might seem radical or so complicated it might derail the government's response altogether. Moving to direct negotiations with First Nations, however, would not require a revolution in Canada's approach: the building blocks for a modern Canada/First Nations relationship already exist. The Constitutional Act, 1982, "recognized and affirmed" the existing treaty rights of First Nations. Canada also recognized "... that the aboriginal people of Canada have (an inherent) right to govern themselves in relation to matters that are integral to their communities, integral to their unique cultures, identities, traditions, languages and institutions with respect to their special relationships to their land and resources."

Such a joint-response approach could be the first step towards building an entirely new relationship with First Nations in an alliance based on their inherent right to self-government.

History is rarely kind to squabbling people. The likely unfortunate outcome for the TRC recommendations is that they will lose momentum over the summer and as the public turns its mind to the approaching federal election. If this is the fate of the TRC, it will become another source of grievance within the First Nations communities.

Canadians, however, ought to be cautious in their own interests. The young, fast growing, and increasingly uncompromising First Nations and their leaders are not about to retreat peacefully from their demand that Canada recognize their inherent rights. To put the matter squarely before Canadians, First Nations are determined to assert their inherent rights and they have the means to force the issue if necessary. Canadians had best not test that determination.

Douglas Bland is professor emeritus at Queen's University and author of Time Bomb: Canada and the First Nations.