But in the absence of a new deadline, and of clean drinking water, the Liberals had something else to offer First Nations this week: a “bill to implement (the) UN Indigenous rights declaration,” as a CBC headline put it; more accurately, as the CBC reporter put it, legislation that will begin the process of bringing Canadian law into alignment with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP),” and to quote the bill itself, a law compelling the justice minister “to prepare and implement an action plan to achieve the objectives of the (UNDRIP).”
A plan! For action! What could go wrong?
“The legislation is a significant step forward on the shared path to reconciliation for Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples alike,” Lametti averred.
We shall see. The declaration, and Ottawa’s historic aversion to signing off on it, has certainly played a key symbolic role in the national discussion over reconciliation. (The Conservatives endorsed it as an “aspirational” document in 2010; the Liberals embraced it whole-hog in 2016.) But in terms of practical benefits — clean water, education, jobs, cultural protections, fishing and hunting rights, etc. — it doesn’t have a lot to offer. Some interpret UNDRIP as offering First Nations an absolute veto over resource projects, but it’s far from certain courts would agree. Mostly, the declaration simply affirms rights that are already well-established in Canadian law.
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