BC Land claim ruling: Canada's Keystone Cop stumbles

http://www.opednews.com/articles/BC-Land-claim-ruling-Cana-by-Eric-Walberg-Bitumen_Canada-us-Integration_Economic_Forest-140702-522.html



BC Land claim ruling: Canada's Keystone Cop stumbles
By Eric Walberg
OpEdNews Op Eds 7/2/2014 at 12:51:35

On June 16, Prime Minister Stephen Harper officially approved Enbridge's Northern Gateway pipeline project to the Pacific coast to export tar sands oil, just days before Canada's Supreme Court wrapped up its deliberations on the Tsilhqot'in Nation land claim. Coincidence? Or attempted arm twisting?

The government insists that the pipeline project is of vital national import and is environmentally sound (read: overriding any native sovereignty complaints). The hope was that the Supreme Court justices would soft-pedal native claims and leave room for the government to use its majority to push through its tar sands agenda before the next federal election, leaving a fait accompli.

If that was the idea, it backfired royally. Last week's Supreme Court of Canada decision granting title to 1,700 square kilometres of land in British Columbia to the Xeni Gwet'in (one of six communities which together constitute the Tsilhqot'in Nation) surprised both sides with the principled stand of the justices.

The decision is the culmination of over a century of conflict over the land in question. It definitively rejects the legal argument terra nullius (empty land) which has been used to justify seizure of supposedly uninhabited lands in the absence of treaties, leaving natives with 'postage stamp' reserves. The lie that the Xeni Gwet'in were not inhabiting land which they had lived on for hundreds of years was exposed, setting a precedent for all future negotiations. Moreover, even where there are no treaties (yet), the government(s--federal, provincial, municipal) will have to deal with the natives living on any disputed lands as equals.