Article content continued

The humanitarian situation within many Indigenous communities remains Canada’s signature human-rights disgrace — and will remain so until Indigenous leaders and federal politicians co-operate to find an alternative path for people trapped in remote areas with no prospect of self-sufficiency. Yet to revisit RCAP is to understand that much progress has been made. Central to the RCAP vision was the idea of “Aboriginal peoples” as respected “partners in the Canadian enterprise.” This included “the primary objective” of giving Indigenous groups “more control over their own affairs by reducing unilateral interventions by non-Aboriginal society and regaining a relationship of mutual recognition and respect for differences.”

Putting these ideas into reality over the past three decades has been difficult, because there still remains no clear-cut way of reconciling Indigenous land claims with Canadian sovereignty — especially in areas of Canada (B.C. most notably) that aren’t governed by treaties. But thanks to the laborious, expensive and often frustrating efforts of Indigenous bands, activists, lawyers, judges, politicians and, yes, even CEOs, we have ended up with a process whereby First Nations are owed a duty of consultation before projects are constructed on their traditional lands.

Photo by Kevin Light/Reuters

In this regard, the 670-kilometre Coastal GasLink Pipeline from northeastern B.C. to Kitimat arguably presents a case study in the RCAP vision. The consultations began in the early 2010s, and resulted in agreements with all 20 elected First Nations bands along the path of the pipeline — including the Wet’suwet’en. It also includes about $1 billion in contracts awarded to local businesses. There were more than 100 in-person meetings with the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs — including those who do not formally represent their local constituents, but whose complaints have become the central moral focus of the current nationwide protests and barricades.