Douglas L. Bland - Time Bomb: Canada and the First Nations

Copyright Douglas L. Bland, 2014

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Editor: Dominic Farrell

Design: Courtney Horner

Cover Design: Laura Boyle

Cover Image: Makarova Olga

Epub Design: Carmen Giraudy

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Bland, Douglas L., author

Time bomb : Canada and the First Nations / Douglas L.

Bland ; foreword by Bonnie Butlin.

(Point of view)

Includes bibliographical references.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-4597-2787-8 (pbk.)

1. Native peoples--Canada--Government relations.

2. Ethnic conflict--Canada--Forecasting. I. Title.

II. Series: Point of view (Dundurn Press)

E78.C2B55 2014 305.897'071 C2014-906625-2

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and Livres Canada Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

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This book is dedicated to Dr. Cori Schroder, my wife and com panion, for her patience and assistance in driving this project to completion and also for her many insightful explanations of the re alities of life on-reserve gained from those years of her profession life spent living among the First Nations people in Northern Ontario.

I n this much-needed examination, Douglas Blands Time Bomb brings a new perspective of the increasingly fractionalized relationship between First Nations and non-Aboriginal Canadians. Time Bomb explores the historic development of this relationship and its current manifestation as a First Nations society within a larger Canadian society, within the context of current global and policy trends. The current relationship is no longer sustainable, in particular for the First Nations, who have experienced demonstrable social and economic disadvantage relative to the non-Aboriginal population. The First Nations and the Canadian government have reached an impasse, however, on how to transform the relationship, with First Nations calling for recognition of their inherent right to self-government, while the government is unwilling to cede sovereignty to First Nations. The impasse is such that even solutions, such as the proposed 2014 act on Aboriginal education, have themselves generated new grievances. Reliance on political willingness to consult with First Nations and on the Supreme Court of Canada have largely proven to be ineffective in moving the relationship between First Nations and non-Aboriginal Canadians forward from dialogue towards a truly integrated and productive relationship.

Not only is this fractionalized relationship worsening, but emerging economic trends and policies beyond the relationship itself, such as the current Canadian push for increased natural resource extraction and trade, are converging and may act as catalysts to generate a tipping point within the relationship. Jurisdictional control of the land remains largely undetermined and at issue. Canadas transportation and energy infrastructure the backbone of the countrys natural resources trade overlays or borders on many of these Aboriginal and disputed lands. With Canadian natural resource development, extraction, and trade representing 25 percent of Canadian GDP, the security of transportation and energy infrastructure is critical. Canadas transportation and energy infrastructure has considerable vulnerabilities: it covers vast distances, has limited redundancy and multiple choke-points, and is susceptible to cascading effects should disruptions be sustained or widespread. Its vulnerability and the resulting risk to the Canadian economy is significant, and sustained disruption would have catastrophic effects within a matter of weeks.