NEWS RELEASE October 2, 2013 Aboriginal Affairs Department’s “Poisonous Atmosphere” Symptomatic of Ottawa’s Failing Relationship with First Nations
(Coast Salish Territories / Vancouver, October 2, 2013) Earlier this week, APTN exposed an entrenched bureaucratic environment at the Specific Claims Branch (SCB) in which “bullied and intimidated” staff reported needless and arbitrary delays in the settlement of specific claims. While Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt characterises SCB’s seeming dysfunction as “internal human resource management issues,” First Nations recognise it as an operational mandate intended to bypass meaningful negotiations of specific claims. “Canada is reporting that the huge backlog of claims has been addressed. It has not. 86% of claims are now rejected outright or their files are arbitrarily closed. This has simply shifted the backlog to other, under resourced parts of the process – those that reside outside the reporting responsibilities of the Branch,” says Chief Maureen Chapman, Chair of the BC Specific Claims Working Group. “These claims are no longer negotiated, as promised, but bureaucratically removed from the Specific Claims Branch’s inventory so that the Aboriginal Affairs Department can publicly report it has addressed the backlog.” Specific Claims deal with Canada’s failure to fulfil historical lawful obligations to protect reserve lands and assets. Canada widely uses a practice of partially accepting small, often non-substantive portions of claims and demanding full releases on rejected portions of the claim. Instead of addressing the backlog, this practice is creating large numbers of new claims that must be researched and developed because First Nations must split off interrelated issues into separate claims based on artificially separated allegations. In some instances, single claims that could be fairly negotiated now must be split into 10 or more new claims to be developed and submitted separately. Recently, the Specific Claims Branch announced dramatic cuts to research funding so these split claims may not receive the funding they require to meet Canada’s imposed minimum standards for claims submission. Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, President of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, stated "Canada’s approach is abusive, counter-productive and significantly more costly to the Canadian public than negotiating specific claims in good faith. Canada cannot address specific claims merely by crossing them off a list. The only way these long outstanding legal obligations and liabilities can be addressed is by Canada resolving them through open dialogue and negotiation. We remind the Government of Canada that the Oka Crisis, Gustafson Lake standoff and Six Nations' Haldimand Tract/Caledonia dispute resulted from unresolved specific claims." Media inquiries: Grand Chief Stewart Phillip (250) 490-5314 UBCIC is a NGO in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. This release is online at: http://www.ubcic.bc.ca/News_Releases/UBCICNews10021301.html#axzz2gaQXX1L3<http://www.ubcic.bc.ca/News_Releases/UBCICNews10021301.html%23axzz2gaQXX1L3>
