Working With Shawn Atleo

"We are not opposed to development, but we must be involved at the outset.  First Nation rights and responsibilities demand that we are full partners in discussions about exploration, ownership, participation in production, and long-term sustainability of our environment, our communities and our futures."  National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations

There was Shawn Atleo, brimming with righteous confidence, addressing the Canadian Club of Toronto.  Again.  Reading them the riot act.  Literally.  For riots is what they can anticipate should they forget for one moment that First Nations peoples were, ahem, here first - back in the day.  But that day, to them, is everpresent and as current as today.

Canada, Mr. Atleo said, faces "an aboriginal tsunami", which can be averted only if and when the "newcomers" (that's everyone outside the First Nations communities) acknowledge their undying debt to the firsters, which are the aboriginal peoples of Canada.  Cooperation with First Nations is the primary step to ensuring a happy collaboration between industry and warrior tribes.

"Currently, First Nations are often the last to know about major resource development.  This relegates our communities to few options, usually resulting in confrontation.  So we end up with protests and legal battles that frustrate opportunities for everyone and deepen tensions today and into the future", he explained eloquently.

(The Taliban in Afghanistan collect 'protection' money from Afghan farmers whom they force to grow poppy crops for their opium derivatives.  Just a little diversion, a stray thought.)

Economic partnerships is what Mr. Atleo stresses.  This constitutes what he terms a 'cornerstone of true reconciliation.  "We can do things the hard way or the harder way."  The population growth rate among aboriginal people is a whopping 25%, while the general population stands at a miserable 6%.  Get the picture?

"Almost every resource development activity currently operating or planned is occurring within 200 kilometres of a First Nations' community and right in the middle of our traditional territories", said Chief Atleo.  "Canada's economic fundamentals require greater economic participation of our quickly growing population."

Lands claimed as traditional territory give First Nations the right to claim partnership with any kind of development or resource extraction.  And it imposes upon industry and the greater public within Canada an unavoidable obligation to honour the need to share and share alike with Canada's First Peoples. 

In fact, there is no territory in the country that hasn't a prior claim on it.

This is a historical moment in time.  The historically dispossessed dictating to the colonialist descendants just how the reality of the situation is to be assessed.