By Grant Warkentin
The Strathcona Regional District is considering forcing community groups to consult with First Nations before they can be approved for financial aid.
That could mean volunteers and non-profits looking for a few hundred dollars for a community project will have to agree to commit time and resources to consult with First Nations, and possibly commit to doing a public land acknowledgement, before they get funding approved.
Last week at the First Nations Relations Committee’s public meeting, directors discussed a report from the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) about the district’s “First Nations Engagement and Acknowledgement Policy.”
It’s intended to “establish clear expectations for First Nations engagement for proponents seeking SRD support including grant applications, funding requests and board resolutions for externally led projects,” says the April 9 report from CAO Dave Leitch.
How that would work remains unclear.
“Let’s say the board gives an organization a grant to do something. Maybe in whatever they’re doing there could be a requirement for them to consult. So you wouldn’t want to alleviate that, because if there’s a duty, there’s a duty,” Leitch said during a discussion about the potential implications of the requirement.
Whose duty is it?
The “duty to consult” is the responsibility of the Crown, rooted in Section 35 of the 1982 federal Constitution Act.
According to the Centre for Constitutional Studies, “Only the Crown has a duty to consult with Aboriginal peoples. The Crown can rely on regulatory agencies such as the National Energy Board to fulfill its duty, but only ‘procedural aspects’ of consultation can be delegated to private parties.”
The Crown is represented by the federal government, and can also be represented by provincial governments. Municipal governments also take on Crown responsibilities where appropriate.
In 2019 BC became the only jurisdiction in the world to fully endorse a UN declaration about Indigenous rights, embedding its principles into law via DRIPA (Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act). Since then “Crown” roles previously filled by government representatives have been taken on more and more by private citizens, particularly the perceived need to do public land acknowledgements.
The public will get used to it, said Liz Carter, the regional district’s First Nations liaison.
“It’s a learning curve,” she said. “It’s not going to be tomorrow that they’re all going to learn this, but it’s something that people will do eventually on their own.”
Area C (Quadra Island) Director Robin Mawhinney raised some concerns about making it a requirement for grant-seekers to consult First Nations.
“I think we really need to have some clear guidance around that in the policy,” she said. “I think that the non-profit and volunteer groups that are doing great work in our communities, which we often have the opportunity to support with small grants in aid, to add another level of requirement for them to do First Nations engagement on something, that maybe the Nation doesn’t really have capacity to respond to… it adds potentially an unintended consequence.”
The committee discussed the possibility of setting a threshold for when the downloaded “duty to consult” would kick in for non-profits and individuals looking for permission or funding from the regional district. For example, they suggested that perhaps a grand opening ceremony for a new building would require consultation, an Indigenous blessing ceremony, and a land acknowledgement, while a grant application to feed stray cats on Quadra Island would not.
Backcountry access likely impacted
Others were enthusiastic about potential consultation requirements for private individuals. Earlier in the meeting, the committee discussed a new series of maps created and published for the regional district showing all the First Nations in the region, including their territorial boundaries and significant sites.
“It’s a great resource for people who are active in the backcountry,” said Zeballos Director Julie Colborne. “You’re wondering where you can go and what you can do… you can actually be super respectful and connect with those nations before you’re on their traditional territories to ask what is appropriate and what’s not, so that’s a great resource to have for people that are camping and looking to do that.”
Carter said staff will try and make requirements and proposed thresholds as clear as possible in a future draft of the engagement policy, to be presented to the entire SRD board at a future meeting.
The First Nations Relations Committee is comprised of directors from Quadra Island, Cortes Island, Tahsis, and Zeballos, and is chaired by Matthew Jack, director from the Ka:’yu:’k’t’h’/Che:k’tles7et’h’ First Nations.
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