Doing the Right Thing
So you think, but there are times when appearing to reach logical conclusions in a misguided attempt to right wrongs only serves to confuse issues and in the end truly empowers no one.
Such appears to be the case when the Province of British Columbia determined it would overturn centuries of neglect and disempowerment to allow a handful of aboriginals their traditional hunting and fishing and logging rights. In the process neglecting the universality of rights accruing to all without discrimination.
Of course the federal government in Canada has long recognized our debt to Canadian aboriginals and enshrined special permissions for various tribes to continue their traditional hunting and fishing and logging at times when non-aboriginals were forbidden to engage in these practises for the simple reason that first-nations people have special entitlements accruing to them as both a practical matter of survival and as a recognition that lands once their own were wrenched away by European settlers.
The same reasoning lies behind special Indian legislation which cedes authority to band councils, which authorizes First Nations to escape taxation levies, which obligates the federal government to hand over billions of dollars yearly to Indian Affairs to dole out to various agencies involved in the support of aboriginal needs.
In the particular instance of B.C.'s commercial fishing policies, select bands like the Musqueam and Tsawassen have been given exclusive access to salmon fishing for food and ceremonial purposes as well as priority access to salmon for commercial purposes at peak salmon-runs. Department of Fisheries personnel only permit the opening of the fisheries to all others once indications are that native fishers have received their prior considerations.
The emphasis is on fish-use for personal purposes: food and ceremonial uses. Yet it appears that roughly 90% of the salmon caught for those purposes ends up illegally on the market for commercial profit. In attempting to right a dreadful historical wrong, bending the rules to benefit a few to the detriment of many, another segment of the population is penalized.
British Columbia's commercial fisheries is held hostage to a race-based policy based on a perception of upholding native rights.
This decades-long and since expanded-upon illogicality has bred contempt for the Fisheries, and resentment from commercial fishers who have attempted to have the courts strike down this 1990s-era government policy. Even aboriginals who aren't members of the two entitled groups are out of the picture, along with their non-aboriginal counterparts, resulting in a race-based disparity for opportunities among fishers.
Why this becomes truly ridiculous is that in British Columbia historically the fisheries have represented a multicultural industry. A large proportion of the commercial fishers are represented by Canadians of Japanese, Vietnamese and European background; only the remaining 40% are of aboriginal origin.
Government has succeeded in overturning the traditional balance, disinheriting the 60% of their traditional livelihoods while franchising a much smaller proportion of the aboriginal 40%.
While Canadians are assured of equality of opportunities under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, this situation has resulted in the very unhelpful condition of observing what is considered by the lawmakers as a "higher social purpose". That purpose being to promote a sense of dignity and self-respect among native Canadians.
At a steep cost to other native Canadians as well as non-natives. Some logic, some outcome.
The problem is of course compounded by the fact that in the early 1900s Japanese fishermen were discriminated against by government policies that denied equal and needed fishing access to this community. That same community was horrendously discriminated against, their human rights violated when during the Second World War, they were stripped of their material assets and sent away to be incarcerated for the duration.
It's clear that it isn't terribly wise heads who are arriving at these hindsight-ameliorating conditions for some, in the process implementing hardships upon others who, in fact, had nothing whatever to do with the plight that aboriginal Canadians found themselves in as a result of European immigration to the land they inhabited.
Such appears to be the case when the Province of British Columbia determined it would overturn centuries of neglect and disempowerment to allow a handful of aboriginals their traditional hunting and fishing and logging rights. In the process neglecting the universality of rights accruing to all without discrimination.
Of course the federal government in Canada has long recognized our debt to Canadian aboriginals and enshrined special permissions for various tribes to continue their traditional hunting and fishing and logging at times when non-aboriginals were forbidden to engage in these practises for the simple reason that first-nations people have special entitlements accruing to them as both a practical matter of survival and as a recognition that lands once their own were wrenched away by European settlers.
The same reasoning lies behind special Indian legislation which cedes authority to band councils, which authorizes First Nations to escape taxation levies, which obligates the federal government to hand over billions of dollars yearly to Indian Affairs to dole out to various agencies involved in the support of aboriginal needs.
In the particular instance of B.C.'s commercial fishing policies, select bands like the Musqueam and Tsawassen have been given exclusive access to salmon fishing for food and ceremonial purposes as well as priority access to salmon for commercial purposes at peak salmon-runs. Department of Fisheries personnel only permit the opening of the fisheries to all others once indications are that native fishers have received their prior considerations.
The emphasis is on fish-use for personal purposes: food and ceremonial uses. Yet it appears that roughly 90% of the salmon caught for those purposes ends up illegally on the market for commercial profit. In attempting to right a dreadful historical wrong, bending the rules to benefit a few to the detriment of many, another segment of the population is penalized.
British Columbia's commercial fisheries is held hostage to a race-based policy based on a perception of upholding native rights.
This decades-long and since expanded-upon illogicality has bred contempt for the Fisheries, and resentment from commercial fishers who have attempted to have the courts strike down this 1990s-era government policy. Even aboriginals who aren't members of the two entitled groups are out of the picture, along with their non-aboriginal counterparts, resulting in a race-based disparity for opportunities among fishers.
Why this becomes truly ridiculous is that in British Columbia historically the fisheries have represented a multicultural industry. A large proportion of the commercial fishers are represented by Canadians of Japanese, Vietnamese and European background; only the remaining 40% are of aboriginal origin.
Government has succeeded in overturning the traditional balance, disinheriting the 60% of their traditional livelihoods while franchising a much smaller proportion of the aboriginal 40%.
While Canadians are assured of equality of opportunities under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, this situation has resulted in the very unhelpful condition of observing what is considered by the lawmakers as a "higher social purpose". That purpose being to promote a sense of dignity and self-respect among native Canadians.
At a steep cost to other native Canadians as well as non-natives. Some logic, some outcome.
The problem is of course compounded by the fact that in the early 1900s Japanese fishermen were discriminated against by government policies that denied equal and needed fishing access to this community. That same community was horrendously discriminated against, their human rights violated when during the Second World War, they were stripped of their material assets and sent away to be incarcerated for the duration.
It's clear that it isn't terribly wise heads who are arriving at these hindsight-ameliorating conditions for some, in the process implementing hardships upon others who, in fact, had nothing whatever to do with the plight that aboriginal Canadians found themselves in as a result of European immigration to the land they inhabited.
Labels: Canada, Justice, Politics of Convenience
posted by Pieface | 4:12 PM
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