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Another Referendum

© J. M. Bridgeman

Early in 2002, British Columbia residents will be asked to vote again. This time, it will be on a REFERENDUM about treaty negotiations with the province's First Nations. Three things about this are unusual. 1. Referenda are not an oft-used device in Canadian history. 2. BC of all the provinces is unusual in that it still has no formalized agreement with the First Nations, whose homelands are now occupied by outsiders. 3. It is unusual for a provincial government to be involved as treaties have traditionally been made nation to nation, with chiefs signing for their people and the federal representatives signing for the Crown.

When we think of referenda, we think of the votes in Quebec about Separating from Canada (two votes in the last twenty years) and the plebiscite during World War II by which Prime Minister King asked the people to release him from his promise not to conscript. In both examples, the referendum was used to pit a majority against a minority. The Quebec voters during the war had been promised they wouldn't be forced to fight "for England." King won the election and then got the people to release him from the promise. The majority in Canada, although not in Quebec, favoured conscription.

In the Separatism referenda, the Parti Quebecois campaigns to attempt to convince a majority of Quebec voters to permit the provincial government to negotiate a withdrawal from Confederation. The votes have been close but not yet a majority.

It seems that, in Canadian history, referenda are only proposed when the party proposing them is fairly sure it will get what it wants from the vote.

So why would a BC government want a referendum on treaty negotiations? What does it want or expect the people to say or do? Why does the First Nations summit of chiefs oppose the referendum and plan to boycott the hearing process? Who will win? Who will lose?

I fear that this government is asking for a mandate to reject the treaty process and to deny yet again a just settlement of outstanding issues. This is the only province where treaties were not finalized with Canada before settlers moved in to the land. The First Nations have waited. They have tried to negotiate. They have even tried petitioning the Crown directly in London. Yet, with the ever-changing faces of federal and now provincial negotiators, BC First Nations have finalized only one treaty in 150 years, the recent Nisga'a Treaty in northern BC.

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