30-year 'temporary' exemption to human rights law has benefited some band leaders
Canadian aboriginal leaders have for decades flown all over the globe eagerly denouncing this country's human rights record against them.
What none has ever mentioned (at least none that I know of) is that aboriginal governments are themselves exempt from Canada's most fundamental human rights laws.
The very rights violations they accuse non-native governments of, their own governments are unaccountable for.
Thanks to a "temporary" clause in the 1977 Canada Human Rights Act (CHRA), charges of bigotry, discrimination and harassment of the kind frequently levelled against non-aboriginal society cannot be brought against native councils and organizations.
After three decades of being shielded against the provisions of the CHRA, it is past time aboriginal governments were brought under the act's mandate.
Equality cuts both ways.
Abe Lincoln once said that "he who would be no slave must consent to have no slave." It works the same for aboriginals and human rights. The very rights aboriginals insist they be granted they must themselves be prepared to grant their own people -- and be held accountable when they do not.
The CHRA was initially suspended on reserves and among native bureaucrats so they could ready themselves to abide by it. Federally regulated businesses were given very little time to adjust, even though the act eventually imposed on them billions of dollars of costs in making their services accessible to the disabled and equalizing their pay scales between predominately male and female jobs.
In pushing forward their bill to bring natives under the CHRA, the Tories have offered aboriginal leaders 18 months to get ready to comply. The leaders in turn have demanded three years, pointing out that is how much time the provinces were initially given.
But it should be remembered, aboriginal governments have already had 30 years to get ready. Giving them 33 is not likely to improve their implementation.
Also, at the same time as native organizations are complaining that Ottawa refuses to ratify the United Nations declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples, they themselves are working with the three federal opposition parties to block the Tory human rights bill.
Why the duality?
I can only guess it is because the UN declaration is a one-way street that works in their favour, whereas bringing them under the provisions of the CHRA would place obligations on those same leaders that they vehemently do not want.
They are all in favour of rights agitation when they stand to benefit from it, such as when it is their demands for equality, land claims and funding.
But they want nothing to do with having to protect women's rights on reserves or individual property rights.
Leaders and the non-aboriginal politicians who are supporting them have offered three arguments against passing the Tory bill at this time -- all of them specious: The legislation threatens native notions of "collective" rights because the CHRA is too focused on individual rights, it was drafted without sufficient consultation of aboriginal people and most native governments have too little money to cope with the complaints that could be brought against them.
To the extent that natives practise "collective" rights, those rights are protected by the Charter.
Since the Charter supersedes the CHRA, there can be little fear the Supreme Court will adjudicate in favour of the individualistic CHRA if called to decide between it and the aboriginal-rights clause of Charter.
The charge that the bill was drafted without sufficient consultation with those who will be affected by it is similarly facile.
The government has heard scores of native objections, it merely disagrees with most of them and has decided to press on regardless.
People frequently do that. They confuse being heeded with being consulted.
Unless the consulter ends up adopting their recommendations, they convince themselves they have not been consulted. Or that the consultation process was flawed. Or that there were poor communications.
Not necessarily. The government knows native leaders' objections, it just believes those objections are stall tactics designed to maintain leaders' power over native populations.
Finally, there is the claim that aboriginal governments are too poor to implement the CHRA without a lot more money from Ottawa.
First and foremost, this claim is getting tiresome. It is native leaders' response to every problem: Give us more money.
At present, Ottawa spends about $5,800 for every non-native man, woman and child, and nearly $20,000 for every native one.
Sure, people with greater needs are going to warrant greater spending. But if $20,000 per capita is not enough, how much will be? $40,000? $50,000?
Because of aboriginals' so-called collectivist approach to governance, individuals are forbidden from owning property on reserves, most federal monies are paid to the band rather than to individuals (so the chief and council get to decide who gets paid and how much), too many women who have married non-natives are denied their rights by their own bands and there is little accountability among far too many leaders.
Maybe the collectivist approach then -- and not non-native culture -- is responsible for aboriginal plight.
And any change to federal law that weakens the collectivist mindset is helpful.
lgunter@shaw.ca
The three opposition parties have formed a united front to block the Conservative government's quest to pass a law that would make the Indian Act subject to the federal human rights code.
