I think that fear, lack of trust and pernicious financial interest in preserving the status quo at times exist across Canada. I think that, when you reflect on what these communities are doing, they're taking themselves out of the Indian Act, but on whose conditions and on whose framework?
I think too often Canada has come into these negotiations in a position of power and not in a position of equals. That usually comes with terms, conditions and legal clauses that basically ask communities to take a leap of faith and impose on their people, at times, a framework they wouldn't have if they had had the choice. With communities that want to get out of the Indian Act, there are at times unacceptable conditions not obvious to the political leadership. Choosing the devil you don't know has political consequences on communities once they decide to do that, no matter what the condition.
Too often, with our rigid frameworks, our negotiation style and the power dynamics, we're forcing communities to choose the devil they know, which is the racist document, the Indian Act. That's not right.
We're still far too slow. It's true that the James Bay convention, which is called a modern treaty, does have some very old colonialist terms in it. If you were to do it today, you would probably want to change some of those terms, including some of the cede, surrender and release language, yet it did take only a few years to negotiate, because you had the goodwill of the Government of Quebec and the Government of Canada. I wish they had that same goodwill today with respect to a negotiation with three Innu communities in Quebec, the Petapan treaty, which has taken 40 years to negotiate.
In the last couple years there have been structural changes to the way we're negotiating. We're still not there, but I think there is a lot of flexibility within the teams in getting that muscle memory within the public service as well as the financial instruments and the range of tools available to negotiate, not simply within the structures silo, which is Crown-Indigenous Relations Canada, but across departments and with other provinces.
I think, across Canada, the province doing it best is British Columbia, because we have a protocol that ingrained in the muscle memory of the people at the negotiation table a process and a protocol to get to modern treaties. These folks are blazing the trail for that particular neck of the woods. It's to their credit. I wouldn't say we're there yet, and we're not going to brag about it, but this has been a real change in attitude in the government.