In almost every opinion poll that I have read in the past
ten years, somewhere between 40% and 45% of Canadians would do away with the monarchy (https://poll.forumresearch.com/post/2774/
monarchy-august-2017/). When Queen Elizabeth dies I suspect that there will be
even less reason for Canadians to want any connection to the British throne. The
role the queen has is purely ceremonial and irrelevant. In Canada, there is little
acceptance that because one's grandparents or great-great-grandparents were in
charge - that one should automatically have the same power. Canadians would never accept any political
interference from someone who had hereditary power - even when it might be
useful. Even the British do not tolerate interference -else surely they would
demand that the Queen stop the Brexit fiasco.
The above paragraph might provide a somewhat clumsy entry
into a discussion about Prince Harry's decision to separate himself and his
wife from the traditional royal family's roles. It is just as useful entry into
my confusion about some Canadians' overwhelming support for the voices of hereditary
Indigenous leaders over elected band officers.
The issue has once again become an important issue as Costal
GasLink's building of a pipeline for natural gas is being disrupted over who
has the right to grant permission. GasLink believes it did everything right by
getting approval from all 20 of the Band Councils along the proposed route.
However, the 13 hereditary leaders within the five clans that comprise the
Wet’suwet’en nation, through which part of the proposed pipeline route lies, were not consulted and everyone from the UN to
university students are up in arms.
I understand that the present system of elected band
councils is offensive to many Indigenous communities. It is an imposed system
that lacks any historical or cultural ties to those communities. Because
elections are held every two years - members of councils, in the words of one
of my drivers from somewhere around Merritt B.C., "are always running for
re-election". It is an absurd and inefficient system for running a community.
While not every Indigenous community would agree - something needs to change. The
issue becomes even more complex as many of the communities have
responsibilities for supporting their members even when they do not live within
the traditional lands.
It is tempting to suggest that all of the hereditary leaders
and the elected leaders should gather in one room and let them decide who gets
to decide what. Because quite frankly, I don't care. I should have absolutely
no say in that decision. Those individuals know what their community needs and
they should decide what mechanism needs to be in place so that effective
decisions can be made. But someone does need to clarify who decides what and
when. Unfortunately, because different communities have different traditions, in
all likelihood, no consensus would ever be reached and we would continue to
have a patchwork of rules and agreements.
In the interim, companies such as Costal GasLink are forced
to negotiate with a number of different political entities including the highly
politicalized traditional leadership - all of whom have different agendas and
different allegiances. I wonder if in
the foreseeable future if any activity that comes close to touching some First
Nation community will ever be solved to everyone's satisfaction. I wonder if
any of the protesters have bothered to understand the differences between
traditional leadership and elected. I seriously doubt if any of them in their
personal lives would accept an individual who inherited a position of power the
right to control any part of their life.
Furthermore, I would be a lot more comfortable with the dialogue
as to who gets to decide what if I was sure that those non-involved people, the
students, the UN, and various environmentalists were really on the side of the
Indigenous communities and/or their hereditary leaders. My cynical side wonders
if those who are protesting would support anyone who was opposed to natural
resource development.