Path Forward – Discussion With Minister Rankin and Miles Richardson
How can Indigenous peoples and the BC provincial government move forward in advancing reconciliation, particularly considering the 2019 legislation, the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act? The topic was discussed at IPSS 2023 by MLA Murray Rankin, Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation and Miles Richardson, former President of the Haida Nation, and current Director of the National Consortium for Indigenous Economic Development, based at the University of Victoria.
BC MLA Murray Rankin was not yet Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation when the Province of British Columbia passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA), but he says “it was a real opportunity that was handed to me when I was asked to be the minister to try to make this meaningful and not just let it be another feel-good announcement or event.”
“It was, of course, just a bill. Got a lot of fanfare. But it really matters how it's going to be implemented. And so, the things that we are doing in consultation and cooperation with Indigenous peoples to put meat on the bones of those lofty words is really where the action is.”
He outlines that one of the first steps the government has committed to is aligning BC laws with the declaration – though that also involves prioritizing those to tackle first from the thousands of laws that currently exist.
The government has also implemented an action plan that serves as a roadmap for reconciliation. That plan contains 89 concrete actions that the government will report progress on annually.
“The law requires us to bring in an action plan, a five-year set of commitments that every single ministry in the government has made to Indigenous peoples.
“Every year we have to be held accountable for how we're doing … So, there's no way this bill is just going to be one of those bills that sound good on paper and mean nothing. And there's no way that the action plan is just going to be another government document that gathers dust.”
The third component, he says, involves working with First Nations to harness consent-based decision making or joint decision making.
“And we recognize there needs to be funding available if we want the 200 or so First Nations in BC to engage meaningfully.”
Miles Richardson, former President of the Haida Nation, and current Director of the National Consortium for Indigenous Economic Development, says he doesn’t believe that true reconciliation is possible without doing away with the federal Indian Act. However, he does see engagement and consent as fundamental to any path forward.
“UNDRIP (UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) is a set of standards, adopted by this global club of nation states called the United Nations, accepting a standard for relations with Indigenous people,” he says. “What is that standard? It's recognizing the story of each people in their place and adopting a standard for legitimate decision making. It's called consent. I don't know why there's ever even a debate about what consent means. It's plain and simple.”
He emphasizes that a key part in the process of achieving consent is that First Nations recognize the authority they have over themselves, and act accordingly through strong self-governance.
“In order to engage…we have to have defined our decision-making process and produce legitimate, culturally appropriate decisions that have achieved the consent of our people. That's where we need to get.
“There is such a need for capacity building, for administrative, for nationhood, capacity building. Think of each of your Nations. Whose job is it to define your citizenship, your membership? If he [Rankin] and his government do it, it's going to be totally wrong.
“After all these years of colonialism, it's going to take some effort, it's going to take some resources, it's going to take leadership amongst our people to get there. And we'd best get on with it. But we’ve got to step it up.”
Rankin agrees governance is key: “In First Nations engagement, it's all about governance, governance, and governance. It's sometimes quite dramatic how you'll go to a part of the province and right next to a very prosperous, thriving First Nation will be one that isn't, yet the resource base is the same. The culture seems to be the same, but there's a difference in history of governance. And I know that the work, that bringing governance to the fore and making that a priority, is going to make a huge difference ultimately in the prosperity of a lot of people in British Columbia.”
Both also agree on the value of building relationships based on trust.
“Although we've had the courts give us the roadmap with all of the cases, the Haida case being one of the most important ones … at the end of the day, it's about relationships,” says Rankin. “It's about being able to find trust where you can work together and come up with agreements that make sense for both sides. I mean, that's business, but it's also very fundamental to economic reconciliation.
“You've got to sit down and really do the hard work of getting to know the people at a human level. And that's how business sometimes has to be done because there's a lot of distrust, there's a lack of respect, there's a lot of racism, frankly, that we need to call it what it is. And so, breaking that down with human relationships and getting to know people, I think is absolutely the right thing to do. And it's the only lasting thing that will do. So, we won't be in court when we break clause 12.1, sub-B of the contract because no one will ever look at the contract again. That's the kind of trust we need to establish.”
“I think from an Indigenous perspective, and that's the real world in these situations, it's about relationships,” says Richardson. “The currency for those relationships is trust, as the minister says. And that's hard won, that begins by respecting each other.”
Richardson notes that he and Rankin have had a long relationship. “We've disagreed on probably as much as we've agreed on. But one thing I always knew is that this man was worthy of respect. That he had earned that trust. And that he didn't always agree with me.”
Richardson has long been familiar with working through disagreements, including as Chief Commissioner of BC’s Treaty Commission from 1998 to 2004. “There was a lot of rancour in this province about Indigenous people being treated on a government-to-government basis, let alone a Nation-to-Nation basis, and recognizing who we are. And all of this was happening in the public and the media, you know, loggers and ranchers and fishermen down on Indians.”
He says that the Treaty Commission instituted community-to-community forums, held in different parts of the province. “We'd call a public meeting, and we'd have advisory committees. We'd go in the back room with these same people who were raising all this fuss about Indians in the media. I couldn't wait to get in there and talk with those people. We tried to establish a foundation of respect and trust for the conversation. And I never left one of those rooms, I'm happy to say, without a handshake, without building respect that we're all in this together.”
Rankin sees, moving forward, there is tremendous opportunity for all peoples in British Columbia. “I want this to be a place where we really try to begin the process of reversing no less than colonialism. I really think that we have that opportunity … I want to be able to look back on this period as one of disruption in the best possible way. I want to move things. I think British Columbia is ready to move things in an entirely different direction. And this is not a partisan statement. I think we have the mandate from the people from all parts of this province to just get on with it.”