The blockade crisis is reshaping Indigenous politics in Canada.

It has brought to the fore long-simmering tensions within First Nations, between those who support elected councils and chiefs and those who favour traditional hereditary leaders.

In doing so, it has called into question the legitimacy of mainstream organizations, such as the Assembly of First Nations, which is made up of elected chiefs, to speak for Indigenous people.

One Quebec elected chief who dared to call for an end to the blockades this week was quickly forced by his own constituents to recant.

As the rail blockages in support of the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs take their toll on workers and communities across the country, the crisis also threatens to eat into the consensus among non-Indigenous Canadians that reconciliation with First Nations is a worthwhile goal.

Simply put, it’s easy to support Indigenous rights in the abstract. It’s harder when such support comes at a cost.

The federal Conservatives understand this. That’s why party leader Andrew Scheer has chosen to refer to protestors in such harsh terms. His contention that shadowy, foreign, climate “radicals” are secretly directing the blockades is patently absurd.

The Tyendinaga Mohawks blocking the CN mainline near Belleville may be wrong-headed. But they are not, as the Conservatives would have it, catspaws of American billionaire environmentalists, such as George Soros.

Painting them as such, however, allows Scheer to denounce Indigenous protestors without taking the politically incorrect move of doing so directly.

The third area where native politics has changed is the relationship of Indigenous people to the courts.

In recent decades, no organization has been a greater friend to Indigenous rights than the Supreme Court of Canada. At a time when governments, both federal and provincial, were loath to act, the top court delivered landmark decisions that expanded Aboriginal rights greatly.

One of those decisions, the 1997 Delgamuukw case, dealt directly with a claim by Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs for jurisdiction over a big chunk of unceded land in northern British Columbia.

While not ruling on the specifics of the case (the court said a new trial — which has never been held — would be necessary to do that) the justices indicated that the Wet’suwet’en nation did indeed hold Aboriginal title over a undefined portion of this land.

However, the court said this Aboriginal title did not confer exclusive jurisdiction. In particular, it said, federal and provincial governments retained the right to overrule Aboriginal title for valid reasons of economic development.

The court did not address the question of whether Aboriginal title would rest with the hereditary chiefs or elected band councils.

Still, in 1997, this was viewed as a bold ruling. Today’s Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs seem less impressed. They insist they alone have full and complete jurisdiction over most of what their nation claims are its lands — no matter what the top court says.

They also insist they have the right to physically block construction of a natural gas pipeline running through these lands, regardless of the fact that it has been approved by both the B.C. government and most elected Wet’suwet’en band councils.

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It is this pipeline that is at the heart of the current crisis.

As I write this, the federal government has come up with a Hail Mary. Theoretically at least, the RCMP will continue to enforce an injunction against those who would block the B.C. pipeline. But as long as no one interferes with pipeline construction, it will base its officers outside Wet’suwet’en territory.

In the old days of Indigenous politics, this might have been enough to defuse such a crisis. Now I’m not so sure.

Thomas Walkom is a Toronto-based freelance contributing columnist for the Star. Reach him via email: is a Toronto-based freelance contributing columnist for the Star. Reach him via email: walkomtom@gmail.com

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