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FEATURE

arly next year, the Supreme Court of
British Columbia will be hearing what
F case on IS expected to be the most decisive
inthis lan land claims yet to come to trial
a Pr ovince. At issue is whether or not, in
in this th litle to land continues to exist
ah vince or whether, as the Crown is
is sg thas been extinguished by the estab-
bit ae Me reserve system. The Supreme
. see ae ruled that the land claim of
Bain el suwet’en Tribal Council and
ite a the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal
Othe sam feares Island will be determined
il also % time and that evidence in one case
he ee ssible in the other.
clairn Se intimately involved with the
Claim wp ee and particularly with the
: We will be before the court, is
nulth Tribot the co-chair of the Nuu-chah-
comm, ea Council. And as he notes in his
Swreme S elow, whatever the ruling by the
i aS OUurt Justice, the long fight by var-
Meopnitin bands and tribal councils for
ious 4 of their Just land claims and for
COntinye €foliations to resolve them will
isfay, ae either assisted by the ruling if it
ew, ick or hindered if it is not. The inter-
"0S condy, appears here in abridged form,
Griffin ted May 8 by Tribune editor Sean

T .
Paige” could you generally outline your
Coy AS at is of the tribal council, on a
| te j Sic questions. First of all, on set-
Shoug » 2 land claims: how you feel they
bye One, by negotiation, legislation or
liye 4 eg And how do you discuss the
long claims J Parties that would be affected by

18a atts: First of all, I think settlements
| Were | T Word — for us, anyway. What
| "Won d ng for is an agreement on how
| Met give Coexist. We don’t feel that we can
} Ste is 50 UP our title to the land because a
| ary chiens that’s lodged in our hered-
"ligion €lships and it forms part of our

Cup a of our culture. So in order to
j < a title we would have to abandon
B bon And I don’t think our people
Wewous to do that. So what we say is that
With 9 like to formalize our relationship
J Woy "n-Indian people about how we
kno “ontinue to exist in what is now
ton ig 48 the country of Canada. Our posi-

ae through negotiations, there
Bag,

4 Setting aside of certain tracts of
Ou abo Certain rights which derive from
j Oy in en! position which take us not
in €land but into the sea. We also see
Of thi. “8s enshrined in the constitution
‘ Msition pontry which would protect our
j You Subie nus We have learned that when
tion ‘ your existence to just mere legis-
A be yee Mat that legislation can sometimes
/ Te damaging.
j Sled So in effect, legislation and court
q mae nately can’t be the answer, the
| Watts. be settled by negotiations?
!
f
j
}
y
f

1 We're €'re talking about negotiations,

king about enshrining it in the

‘Onstiutee of this country which is the

Nery ae The other thing that we feel is

Vem portant is our right to. self-
t

heey

|

€nt, and we feel that we have the
Tigh

; t
yg oVer : to that government. Just a

hundred years ago, our com-
f Nd We ie self-governing communities
rope Si On’t know of any paper that our
boy, peed which gave up our right to
"Pht to ranelves. We feel that we have the
Tour ity to that, In fact, the majority
y Canadeae ke the position that we are
Canadian Citizens. We never agreed to
vite that Citizens, We never signed any-
* take thee we are Canadian citizens. So
Pople B € Position that we are colonized
Men, a through this coexistence agree-
) r°ble = 1S a very good chance that our
fo this Co; luld agree to take out citizenship.

‘ pt if we saw that the Canadian
1 i, tibune. poe ating us properly.
74 * Based on certain rights and equal-

weigh pa" right. That we would have
Place in this country rather than

so occupy now.
Mt wo, 7, -58ues relating to third parties
“tye i be affected by.any land claims
4 also be part of as you call it a

Nuu-chah-nulth tribal council co-chair George Watts.

Native land claims:
the long campaign
for negotiations

coexistence agreement, that it is all subject to
negotiation?

Watts: In regard to third parties there are
two parts that you have to look at. One is
the individual, and we believe strongly that
we would not infringe on an individual's
present rights, a non-Indian individual’s
present rights. Although it has been done to

us we don’t feel that that is the remedy to :

create harm on somebody else. The other
part about third party interests is, of course,
the interest that corporations have in the
province of British Columbia. We are cer-
tainly not prepared to guarantee that those
rights would be absolutely granted. We
think that a lot of those rights were given to
corporations to the detriment of Indian
people. In fact, we have found through our
research, that, in many cases, rights were
given to corporations in order to make sure
that Indian people were harmed and to try
and persuade them to leave their settlements
to move into urban areas.

Tribune: Part of establishing a coexistence
agreement would also presumably be to allow
the development of land and the establish-
ment of an economic base.

Watts: In order to understand where we
want to go, you have to understand where
we were and where we are today. Where we
were before, we were  self-governining,
independent people, self-reliant people. But
today, we live in a state of welfare. We are

almost controlled totally by government
and government programs and that’s not
where we want to be. Where we want to go,
we want to be independent communities
with the ability for every one of our people
to at least attempt to reach their own poten-
tial, with the resources under our control to
create the environment for people to reach
their potential.

Tribune: One of the things that I think that
troubles a lot of people is the court case that’s
coming up in the fall which will determine
whether or not land claims have been legally
extinguished or not. One of the problems is
that, because of the general inclination of the
courts not to favor major issues like this and
the conservative tenor of the times too, there
is a likelihood there could be an unfavorable
decision which could set back the movement
for some time. It seems to me that what you
have to rely on to a far greater extent is
building public support and building public
coalitions which will finally force the issue of
negotiations which both the federal and the
provincial governments.

Watts: I believe that the case is going to
be heard Jan. 11, 1987 in Smithers but we
are appealing that. We are going to the
Appeal Court of B.C. to appeal that on the
basis that justice can’t be served, that you
must have the right to your own trial. For
instance, the statement from the court is

that evidence will be common and will apply .

in both cases. They may feel that that’s right
but for us it can’t be right because we can’t
afford to have people up in Smithers listen-
ing to the evidence.

Our tribal group takes the position that
you don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
The court route, first of all, was the last step
before violence and it really was forced
upon us. We attempted to proceed through
the public process especially on Meares
Island. And we were tricked. We partici-
pated for years at great expense to our peo-
ple in a public process and then turned
around when MacMillan Bloedel went
straight to the provincial government with
their plans for Meares Island and it was
accepted and the whole public process was
pushed aside. So you look at that and you
begin to understand quickly why we dre in
court. If we weren’t, then I think it would
have come down to some sort of violence on
Meares Island. So we don’t believe for a
minute that the court route is the entire
route. What we are saying to the Canadian
people is that you have been going around
the world and telling the other people that
Canada is a great place, and that Canada
occupies a position of being able to mediate
and is known around the world because of
its good record in regard to justice and
human rights and what not. We’re saying to
Canada: well, now we'll find out if the proof
is in the pudding. Are your laws really pro-
tective and do they serve justice to all Cana-
dian citizens? But at the same time, we are
asking the courts to examine new territory,
to walk on new ground. So, of course, there
is always a risk involved in that.

I don’t want to get in a position of saying
what the courts are going to decide but we
know that the law relating to aboriginal
rights is very thin in this country. But at the
same time you can’t always be comfortable
with the status quo and I think that Cana-
da’s future in the international field is going
to be tested in regards to these cases. Now I
would be a fool to say that I was going to
live or die with the Meares Island case and I
think that my people would never be happy
if I said that. I agree with you that, win or
lose, the issue is still going to be on the table.
If we win, negotiations have to happen. If
we lose, that unacceptable economic situa-
tion in our communities is still going to
continue and we are going to have to nego-
tiate our way out of it or else younger people
from our villages are going to fight their way
out of it.

Tribune: But there does seem to be a grow-
ing coalescence of groups around the land
claims issue, for example, the trade union
movement and a number of others on the left
that have been quite outspoken in support of
that position.

Watts: Well, the support has been there in
resolutions, although I’m a bit disturbed
that the support isn’t there when it comes
down to the crunch. I guess what I’m get-
ting at is that the labor movement are going
to have to realize that it is going to have to
take a deep understanding in order for that
support to sustain itself. I prefer that you
embark on a education process that really
brings people to the understanding where
you can get down to negotiations rather
than just fly-by-night speeches that just give
them a slight feeling for what we’re talking
about. But I would agree that more and
more Canadian people are starting to
understand what our position is. And I
would say that more and more Canadian
people support us in our position that we
have got to have a different way of life for
our people.

Tribune: Jt also seems that until you build
some support and get coalitions that finally
convince the government that they have
numbers that not a lot happens. There is the
need to try and build that kind of support.

Watts: There is an acceptance of that. It is
just that I have been working on coalitions
since 1973, but I have found through expe-
rience that there is no sense in building a
coalition unless it is a strong coalition and
people are committed to change. I think our
strongest coalition has been from the
church leaders, not the church membership
but the church leaders. People like Bishop

see LAND page 5

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MAY 14, 1986 e 3

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