Robin Skies: How will we justify the existence of this 'stolen' country?
Our governments claim to fight for our sovereignty abroad, while eroding it from within.
If Canada continues down its current path, how will the country be able to justify its own existence over the course of the next decade?
On the 20th of February, the Canadian federal government participated in another act of self-immolation, hidden within a fisheries announcement.
Ottawa decided not only to “share” responsibility for fisheries, marine management, and emergency preparedness on British Columbia’s southern coast with the Musqueam Indian Band, but also to acknowledge its rights and title to more than half of the country’s largest metropolitan area.
That means that the City of Vancouver and many of her suburbs are now in uncertain territory. Jurisdictional lines are being blurred, practical outcomes are entirely unknown, and land rights, including fee simple title, are now in question.
This is a huge problem for a country that is currently asserting on the world stage that it should not become America’s 51st state.
By attempting to hand off rights and title, as well as responsibility for fisheries, marine management, and emergency preparedness, to another, separate nation, Ottawa is essentially saying that it is not in charge.
Anyone who has been paying attention will know that this course of action is not new. Governments, provincial and federal, have been shouting for years that this land is not actually ours, and that it is “stolen” or “unceded”.
Every time an elected government does something like this, it is arguing for its own jurisdictional submission. It is an argument that will leave Canadians looking elsewhere for representation, leadership, and answers.
Here is the problem: the nations to which the government of Canada is submitting itself are closed societies that Canadians have no economic, political, or cultural right to access.
We cannot vote for the leadership of the Musqueam Indian Band. We cannot hold it responsible. We have no right to share our concerns with its leaders.
We are not able to walk up to the Musqueam band office and protest future decisions that will inevitably affect our lives because we are not Musqueam.
Liberal democracy is going out the window as we slowly devolve into fiefdoms managed by large clans or families, with serfs, in effect, living on the land with no constitutional say in how it should be managed.
Democratic rights are now being ripped away from all, and afforded to some. The division is based entirely on the “ancestral rights” of some people, whatever that means and for whatever historical or moral reasons they can bring to the table.
Furthermore, instability is being created where it need not exist. There are dozens of other First Nations in the Vancouver area who feel that they have a claim to this land.
Why should the Musqueam have supremacy over the vast majority of Vancouver? Why not the Squamish or Tsleil-Waututh? Have they not been here long enough? Do their nations not matter, or have they simply failed to compete for favour with a government that is looking to abdicate responsibility?
You can guarantee that there will be years of court challenges to see who gets the rights to waterways, fishing, or perhaps even the ability to affect private property.
If there is no clear indication of who the land belongs to, how will companies or corporations know who to do business with? Why would they even bother?
An unstable market is a market that is unpredictable, and a market that is unpredictable is not one that investors will jump into.
Canadians often wonder why things keep getting worse, and the current course of Aboriginal title will be one reason.
There is a deep inner corruption affecting Canada as a nation. Too often, it seems to care very little for its own existence, with a government willing to undermine the nation for short-term gains.
Somewhere along the way, either for self-enrichment or perhaps through cowardice, many in our institutions have decided that fighting for the existence of Canada is too hard. Instead, we must hand over parcels of our country in the name of “justice”.
There is no justice in slowly eroding nearly 160 years of peace, order and good governance for the reward of managed decline in its place.
The Canadians who screech about Donald Trump or the 51st state but refuse to acknowledge this massive problem need to “look inside” themselves, to paraphrase Prime Minister Mark Carney.
It turns out that the very real threat to Canadian sovereignty is calling from inside the house.
Politicians who will make backroom deals behind closed doors in exchange for favour, money, or peace of mind are killing a once magnificent nation. Without a change of course, that nation will live only in the collective memories of a generation far past its prime.
The Canadian government is undermining sovereignty and stability in real time. The vast majority of Canadians are unable to see what is coming next. Even worse, many actively participate in that self-immolation because they simply do not care.
Shall we trade peace, order and good governance for apathy, uncertainty, and self-destruction?
Robin Skies is a political commentator and social media influencer from Vancouver. He can be found at @iamrobinskies on all social media or at www.iamrobinskies.com.
"Why should the Musqueam have supremacy over the vast majority of Vancouver? Why not the Squamish or Tsleil-Waututh? Have they not been here long enough? Do their nations not matter, or have they simply failed to compete for favour with a government that is looking to abdicate responsibility?"
Canadians wonder aloud what happened to their Country, but never stop to consider if we may have done it to ourselves. We are our own worst enemy. We are the G7 leader in unforced errors.
It is almost as if house flipping, money-laundering, rent-seeking, and virtue signalling were insufficient commercial and cultural nourishment for a successful capitalist economy.
"Omnia habuimus et dedimus"
These are self-inflicted wounds. At the moment when Canada needs to be strong, our province and country finds itself emasculated by its own governments.