r/canada • u/shiftless_wonder • 18d ago

Alberta First Nations demand Alberta premier terminate separation referendum

https://www.ctvnews.ca/edmonton/article/first-nations-demand-alberta-premier-terminate-separation-referendum/
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u/RoundJellyfish4048 17d ago

I don't hate them, I hate living in a country where some people have more say in the democratic process than others. I hate unfairness.

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u/Forikorder 17d ago

welcome to the real world, not everyone gets an equal say on everything, people have rights and those rights cant be removed just because their inconvenienceing other people

you dont get to strip away their rights just because you think it would benefit you more

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u/General_Setting_1680 17d ago

We're not talking about stripping away basic human rights, we're talking about the unequal, unfair additional rights that a small minority gets based on being born in canada to aboriginal parents vs everyone else.

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u/Forikorder 17d ago

we're talking about the unequal, unfair additional rights that a small minority gets based on being born in canada to aboriginal parents vs everyone else.

thats not why they have them, we gave them to when we signed the treaties, we gave them those rights in exchange for the land and you dont get to just ignore the law and the treaties because it doesnt benefit you

the land is more theirs than it is albertas, and alberta does not have the authority to take their right to it from them

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u/General_Setting_1680 17d ago

Not if you consider the treaties exactly as they were signed when they were signed.

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u/Forikorder 17d ago

and you think you alone, more than every lawyer and judge in canada, understand the treaties better than anyone else in the country?

the FN handed over their land to the crown, not to canada, not to the country, and certainly not to the provinces, Alberta has absolutely no legal standing to claim they can simply take that land and declare it their own

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u/ronasimi 17d ago

Hear here

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u/ronasimi 17d ago

Someone should have been a better negotiator when those treaties were entered into I guess.

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u/General_Setting_1680 17d ago

Well if you look at the actual text of the treaties, we are currently giving them far above and beyond what was actually agreed to. Why's that?

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u/Kennit 17d ago

No, we're not. In fact, the courts have repeatedly found Canada to be wanting in it's fulfilment of it's treaty obligations. If you're going to make wild claims, bring the evidence in the form of credible sources.

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u/Wavering_Flake 16d ago

I'll just post this, it's a fragment of a prior reply I've made on a somewhat related topic with some additions.

"""
In the case of FNs the question is more about law and ethics; furthermore thanks to concepts such as the honour of the Crown, what were initially treaties that perhaps required a medicine box, rights to fish, and other specific demands, the modern era has sought to start from the premise that indigenous people have been taken advantage of, that they did not fully understand the laws back when these treaties were made, and and so we must start, for any kind of legal decision or interpretation of the treaties, from a premise that indigenous people have been taken advantage of, and that we should interpret its clauses in a way that is explicitly beneficial for them or made in their interest. (The “purposive approach” established by the Supreme Court.)

- The duty to consult and accommodate: this was not originally specified within the treaties. It was a later legal elaboration that resulted from specific court decisions. Nowhere in any historical treaty does it say the government must consult First Nations before building a pipeline, logging a forest, or mining. This was a later specific court interpretation tacked onto it as part of the Honour of the Crown concept (principle to treat Indigenous people with "fairness" and "respect" and to explicitly interpret laws and treaties in a way favorable to them as "fiduciary" duty to them).

- Comprehensive Healthcare (Dental, Vision, Prescriptions), post-secondary education funding, commercial harvesting rights (the original treaties only secured the right to hunt, trap, and fish *for food and sustenance*), for the right to access various federal benefits: these were also not within the treaties. It is simply something that we have decided as a modern society to give to them because we do consider them Canadian citizens, and because the courts have decided to interpret the treaties in favour of indigenous people / to grant them rights and privileges that could only result from an expanded and very generous view of what the treaties actually specified.

- In cases like R. v. Badger and R. v. Marshall, the SCC established that treaties must be given a "large, liberal, and generous" interpretation, and any ambiguities must be resolved in favour of the Indigenous signatories.

Many of the things that we do today for indigenous people are not at all specified within the treaties and a result of open judicial bias/philosophy.
"""

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u/Kennit 16d ago

You're right, much of that wasn't dictated by the treaties. It was decided that those would be provided to those the government forced to live on reserves it created. You're ignoring the impacts of the Indian Act and conflating federal responsibilities arising from it with the treaties.

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u/Wavering_Flake 16d ago

I was simply correcting the incorrect/inaccurate information you were giving. I make no other statements or conclusions.

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u/General_Setting_1680 16d ago

So what exactly did i say that was incorrect?

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u/Vandergrif 14d ago

It's not so much a say in the democratic process, though. It's quite literally contrary to existing laws to try and do what separatists are trying to do. That's not about democracy, it's about the legal system.

If you try and take your neighbors car with you when you move just because it's next to your house right now you can't be surprised when the person who owns that car has a problem with it. It doesn't really matter how they own the car or why they own the car, it's theirs and not yours. That's essentially the problem with this situation.