The new arbitration process for certain native claims against the government of Canada might well serve to break up a logjam that has led to plenty of frustration. But the proposal is no panacea.
Contrary to many news reports, first of all, the new tribunal announced this week will not deal with many "Indian land claims" in the common sense of the term. The new arbitration unit will be restricted to "specific claims," that is, disputes about the way existing treaties are working.
Some such cases might involve land issues, but settlements under the new process will never involve awards of land title. A whole other "comprehensive claims" branch of the Indian Affairs department deals with land claims in that common sense of the term.
How well are those comprehensive claim cases going? Well, here's the state of play in Prince Edward Island, for example: "The Mi'kmaq Confederacy ... has agreed to participate in tripartite discussions" (with Ottawa and P.E.I.) "to establish a formal negotiation process," says a recent federal summary (www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ps/clm/gbn/gbn_e.pdf). These things move slowly.
Still, the step announced by Prime Minister Stephen Harper this week is an advance. Since 1973, the government says, 1,279 specific claims have been made to Ottawa, and 790 of these remain outstanding. Average time a claim is outstanding: 13 years. Average value of settled claims:
$6.5 million. Median claim amount: $3 million. Something had to give.
The new arbitration process will kick in after three years of negotiation, or sooner if both sides agree. It covers only disputes up to $150 million and decisions would not be binding on provincial governments. Even three years seems like a long time to settle
a $3-million dispute, but the improvement promises to be significant. And Harper's government will put another
$2.5 billion over 10 years into the pot. That is not enough, some native leaders said before the ink was dry on the announcement.
For that matter, it's not crystal clear that the Conservative government will be able to get the legislation for this new process passed through Parliament. Inviting the Assembly of First Nations to take part in drafting the law could limit the opposition's capacity for knee-jerk resistance, but could also open the way to other disputes. The New Democrats are already saying they will demand natives judges take part.
Another alarm bell: however long this announcement has been in the planning, it was made less than three weeks before a Canada-wide native day of protest planned for June 29, and so has an overtone of appeasement about it.
This new process may serve admirably to reduce friction and improve fairness in administration of some agreements between First Nations and other Canadians. But the bigger issues that bedevil so many of Canada's native people, starting with the intractable problem of bad governance on reserves, persists and still festers.