Race, Ethnicity, Indigenous Peoples and Politics

Session: L7(a) - Self-Determination, Land & Treaty Politics

Date: May 31, 2017 | Time: 10:30am to 12:00pm | Location: VIC-110 (Victoria Building)| iOS / Outlook

Chair/Président: Matt James (University of Victoria)

Discussant/Commentateur - 1: Matt James (University of Victoria)

Discussant/Commentateur - 2: Gerald Kernerman (York University)

Participants & Authors/Auteurs:

Matthew Mitchell (University of Saskatchewan) : The Far North Act in Ontario: A ‘Sons of the Soil’ Conflict in the Making?
Abstract: In 2010, the Government of Ontario passed the controversial Far North Act. Though varied in its objectives, the Act essentially provides a framework for community based land use planning. While the Act’s stated objective is to sustainably develop natural resources in the province’s northern regions while recognizing Aboriginal and Treaty rights, the legislation has been heavily critiqued and vocally opposed by many First Nations. Although protests, blockades, and outbreaks of violence have historically been relatively rare in Ontario (and elsewhere in Canada), the development of the Far North Act raises the question: could this legislation enhance prospects for improved cooperation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians or will it engender more conflict? While the paper builds on existing literature on Indigenous politics in Canada and natural resource governance, it also adopts a new conceptual and theoretical approach. Drawing upon previous field work in the Province of Ontario and the emerging scholarship on ‘sons of the soil’ (SoS) conflict, the paper attempts to theorize the mechanisms that give rise to Indigenous and non-Indigenous conflicts. As these conflicts fundamentally revolve around contested rights and access to land claimed to be the ancestral homes of Indigenous groups, a SoS framework provides an invaluable conceptual approach as it can help identify the varied factors and pathways that can cause both the escalation and non-escalation of Indigenous and non-Indigenous conflict over territory, land, and natural resources.

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Rauna Kuokkanen (University of Toronto) : Implementing Indigenous Self-Determination: Self-Administration, Rematriation or Independence?
Abstract: It has been suggested that an internal dimension of self-determination – i.e., self-government – entails a range of constitutional arrangements between Indigenous peoples and states. In my paper, I argue that while true in many cases, the implementation of Indigenous self-determination is not limited to constitutional arrangements with states and more importantly, in order to make Indigenous self-determination a reality, our theories and analyses should not be limited to thinking within constitutional frameworks. This is not a universal call for Indigenous independence. Rather, it is a call for examining and taking into account what exists and what is being articulated on the fringes, outside and beyond state constitutions. International law and the formal political discourse of Indigenous self-determination shaped by it have effectively put blinders on many of us which I argue prevent us seeing the full picture. In order to grasp and understand the full spectrum of Indigenous self-determination and prospects of implementing it, we need to dare to look beyond the constitutional frameworks. This is also necessary because, regardless the region or the model, the implementation process has stagnated on the ground. While varied, one reason for stagnation is confining the potential of self-determination frameworks into existing structures without seriously contemplating visions and prospects outside the mold. Drawing on my fieldwork in Canada, Greenland and Sápmi in 2011-14, this paper illustrates how implementing self-determination looks radically different for different Indigenous peoples and how some Indigenous peoples are envisioning self-determination beyond states’ constitutional frameworks.

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Ryan Bowie (York University) : The Politics of Resurgence and Reconciliation: Land Use Planning in the Homelands of the Omushkegowuk Cree
Abstract: This paper will examine the conflicts between Ontario’s approach to land use planning in the Far North of Ontario, and that of the Mushkegowuk Council. Under the Far North Act (2010), Ontario has pursued community-based land use planning with First Nations in the north that reconciles Aboriginal and treaty rights with provincial land use priorities. Mushkegowuk Council embarked on its own Regional Land Use Planning Initiative in 2008, which was to interact with provincial planning, but from the position of a united Omushkegowuk nation. The approach taken by Mushkegowuk Council, premised in part on revitalizing their governance traditions and prefacing Omushkegowuk values, was reflective of the growing Indigenous resurgence movement. However, as Ontario dominated much of the process for land use planning, fully operationalizing the Council’s vision proved to be an insurmountable task. These conflicts in approaches demonstrate challenges for the politics of resurgence in the face of a determined reconciliation/assimilation agenda, and on an uneven playing field.

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Michael McCrossan (University of New Brunswick - Saint John) : Judicial Reasoning, Treaty Rights, and Settler-Colonial Practices of Exclusion
Abstract: This paper will examine the reasoning of Canadian Supreme Court justices in the area of Aboriginal treaty rights over the course of the last two decades. While an extensive literature has examined the logics and forms of reasoning embedded within the written texts of Supreme Court decisions concerning Aboriginal and treaty rights, insufficient attention has been given to the hearing transcripts and orally expressed concerns of members of the Supreme Court, particularly in relation to treaty rights. This paper will provide an additional perspective on the relations of power inscribed within the legal field by not only engaging with the internal logics contained within treaty rights decisions, but also by further contextualizing the decisions and comparing them to the transcripts of their respective hearings. However, the focus of this paper is not simply upon the discourses espoused by judges, but also the broad constellation of positions and discursive relations existing at the time of each hearing. Ultimately, this paper aims to draw attention to the legal structures, rationalities, and relations of power that continue to obfuscate and exclude Indigenous rights. By uncovering culturally specific understandings embedded within judicial and legal practices, this research aims to contribute to both the literature surrounding Indigenous constitutional politics and also to future legal strategies and movements towards decolonization in Canada.

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