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magazine / apr08
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April 2008 issue |
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FEATURE
No reservations (page 3)
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| Click map to enlarge |
Thousands of years ago, Baird’s seafaring Coast Salish
ancestors occupied the Fraser Valley, the Greater Vancouver
area and the Gulf Islands. The current reserve is located on
the site of what used to be a permanent winter village, where the Tsawwassen hosted First Nations visitors in
longhouses built from western cedar. Fish, especially sturgeon
and salmon, were abundant, and birds flocked by the
millions to Tsawwassen’s front yard.
Today, the cedar has all but vanished and the fish are
disappearing rapidly. The Tsawwassen themselves almost met
the same fate. Once numbering more than 1,000 people,
90 percent of the population succumbed to introduced diseases
during the second half of the 19th century. A minuscule
dot on the map is all the traditional territory that remains
in their undisputed possession.
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'This treaty,
in addressing old wrongs,
is writing into history,
I believe, a new wrong,’
Delta North MLA
Guy Gentner
told the B.C. Legislature.
'The province’s willingness
to barter away farmland
is the death knell
for more to be lost.’ |
At a public meeting on July 30, 1999, a year before I started,
Baird summarized the results of a recent community survey.
More than 50 percent of Tsawwassen residents had not
graduated from high school. The unemployment rate was
36 percent, and 40 families depended on meagre social
assistance of $1,000 per month or less. Of the employed,
more than half worked off the reserve and therefore paid tax.
The average annual income was less than $25,000. Like other
aboriginal people in British Columbia today, life expectancy
was far below the provincial average, rates of disease and
suicide were as much as five times higher and alcohol and drug
use was a persistent and debilitating problem. By comparison,
people living next door in Delta were, for the most part,
employed, healthy, well housed and prosperous.
“Our spirit is low,” Baird told government negotiators at
the meeting. “How can the Tsawwassen First Nation find
a future that represents the lifestyle enjoyed by the rest of
British Columbians and Canadians?”
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| Click map to enlarge |
Baird’s vision for a treaty included three principal elements:
land for housing, community facilities and economic ventures;
self-government; and, finally, cash. Without more money,
Baird feared the quality of life in her community would never
improve. “The current situation the Tsawwassen people
face is intolerable,” she said. “As chief, I feel enormous pressure
to deliver some relief immediately. One hundred and
fifty years is long enough.”
She had hoped to sign a preliminary agreement by the end
of 2000, but it was March 2004 before negotiators reached
that goal. There was little disagreement between the parties
on the principles Baird had outlined, but there were massive
gaps between what the Tsawwassen were asking for in
substance and what the two governments could deliver.
Baird proposed, for example, that the treaty include
1,172 hectares of crown land — representing less than one
percent of the territory to which the Tsawwassen claimed
aboriginal title — far in excess of what the two governments
had in mind. The same was true of the cash. The governments
offered $10 million, a quarter of what Baird and her
financial advisers had asked for. As for governance, the
Tsawwassen wanted to ensure their powers would have
constitutional protection: an abhorrent idea to the provincial
government in power at the time.
In the end — nearly five years later — the Tsawwassen
came down on land, the governments went up on cash and the
province caved on constitutional protection of selfgovernment.
At the signing of the treaty in December 2006,
Jim Prentice, then Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs
Canada, acknowledged in front of the Tsawwassen
community that the sun had finally set on his role in their
lives: “This treaty will provide you with the tools and authority
to take control of your own future.”
| Comments on this article | Leave a comment | Tax Exeption does not, and has never, defined First Nation status in any way shape or form. Culture and ethnicity are neither reinforced nor proven by such a trivial and useless thing. While it is difficult for some to believe, it wasn't a hard decision to give up 'tax free status' and instead take back the right to determine independently who is an who is not Tsawwassen, develop lands apropriately and safely, create and establish governing policies... the list is too long for this space. To be out from under the Indian Act and be considered fully human is a long-held dream that is finally being realized.
Who is going to read this? I would like the Dubia's of the world to do so, so we can approach this from a global perspective as opposed to another version of urban sprawl. I have coined the term Greener Gateway to describe a healthy approach. Any takers?
This group reneging their tax rights is a strong step in the right direction. Like some writer wrote re. the resources on tribal lands: "they teach us how to dig them up and carry them out." This move is a step toward independence.
It is like an adolescent leaving home for the first time. It may be painful and they may stumble, but when they get it right, they will rock.
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