While summer rolled to an end, a truly significant ruling on Aboriginal title happened in Canada when the BC Supreme Court recognized the Constitutionally protected Aboriginal title of the Haida Nation to all of its territory. This declaration was built on previous court cases, co-management agreements and the ground breaking recognition protocol signed last year. Since 2003, and really since the Delgamuukw decision in 1997 defined the concept of Aboriginal title as a form of title within Canadian law, the province of BC and the Haida Nation have been preparing for this day. There is no First Nation in BC with a more secure grasp on its traditional and historic territory than the Haida Nation. It was only a matter of time.
When we talk about “reconciliation” in Canada we are, technically and most significantly I think, talking about the reconciliation of two different sets of laws. The Court in Delgamuukw implored the government of Canada to figure out how to reconcile Canadian law with Indigenous law. Reconciliation means this: how is power shared between two legal frameworks that may have different objectives, and different methods of governing. In 1851 when the Crown stopped making treaties in what later became BC, it inadvertently ensured that Aboriginal title remained unextinguished. Aboriginal title refers to the rights in land of First Nations that existed before contact with European law. In Delgamuukw the Court basically said that the Crown can’t just show up somewhere, plant a flag, and declare thousands of years of Indigenous rights to be extinguished. In other words, the idea of terra nulls, that the land was empty before Europeans arrived, is not a legal concept in Canadian law. The land was full. And the obligation on the colonial powers of Britain and Canada, acting in the interests of the Crown, was set out in the Royal Proclamation of 1763. That obligated colonial authorities to negotiate with the owners of these lands before doing anything else in Indigenous territories. After 1851, Canada just stopped doing that here in BC, and the consequence is that every action taken subsequently by the Crown is in doubt as to its legality under Canada’s own law.
Now it’s important to remember that it is First Nations who have been saying, for the past 175 years, that there is a need to negotiate land rights. The intention all along has been to create agreements that would be of mutual benefit to First Nations and settlers to these lands. In legal agreements and negotiations, First Nations have never said that existing private property is in doubt or that settlers should go home. It is First Nations that have led the way in inviting relationships that are sustainable and mutually beneficial.
Because Canada just stopped making agreements in BC, First Nations here retained all of their rights and title intact. Traditional and historic Indigenous land uses have continued, despite Canadian government actions which forced First Nations off their lands, created a cultural genocide, and, in the case of the 1862 smallpox epidemic, leaned into actual physical genocide as canoes full of infected people were towed up the coast from Victoria all the way to the Nisga’a and Haida territory, leaving death and destruction in their wake.
First Nations have been true to their position of land ownership since the very beginning. They are the rightful owners of their territories and they have desired mutually beneficial relationships with the Crown. In 1910 at Spences Bridge, a number of Interior chiefs made a declaration that led with an invitation to create treaties.
For all this time in British Columbia, colonial governments have just ignored these requests, trampled rights and title, ignored existing treaties and applied Canadian law as if there was no legally recognized set of governments and people already on this land. In 1973, the Nisga’a finally gained recognition of their existing rights and title, nearly 60 years after they first demanded it. Although it was a split Supreme Court of Canada that wrote the decision, the case led to a negotiation of rights and title that lasted another 25 years and culminated in the signing of the Nisga’a Final Agreement.
The treaty process in BC has churned along since 1992 and meanwhile, First Nations have also been active in the courts with a series of decisions that confirmed the existence of Aboriginal as a concept (Delgamuukw) and then found that it actually existed on the land (Tsilhqot’in). From the moment that Delgamuukw was settled it was clear that it would only be a matter of time before the Haida pushed the envelope on this.
September 30 is coming up and in Canada that is a day set aside for the commemoration of Truth and Reconciliation. Lots of folks will be wearing orange shirts and learning about residential schools or participating in other public activities. I will be on Haida Gwaii that day, for the first time in my life, working with a co-managment board who jointly steward the wildlife in parts of the Northwest Territories. That is a body that is actively engaged in reconciliation of laws, of knowledge, of ways of relating to land and animals.
In my mind, no court ruling is needed to tell me where I will be. I will be in what has always been Haida territory, visiting an island archipelago that has been governed sea stewarded from time immemorial by the Haida people. Canada is a slow learner with respect to Indigenous rights. From the very beginning First Nations have seen the opportunity to build something together with the settlers that were arriving in their lands and the governments that were exercising authority. Through centuries of being ignored, disposed, killed, re-educated and denied the means to argue for rights and title. First Nations have continued to ask Canada to be its best self, to be in active mutual relationship and see what we can do together. It sometimes takes court cases to hold Canada and Canadians to account by the terms of our own laws. I’m good with that too.
If you do nothing else on September 30, or any other day for that matter, do yourself a favour and follow some of the history of the invitation that First Nations have consistently made to Canada. Understand that, despite the protestations of some of Canada’s political “leaders” who court short-term gain from stoking racism and outrage and misinformation about land and rights issues. Remember that he work of reconciliation is fundamentally about how we will permanently live together here in ongoing mutually beneficial partnership. Canada has always been afforded the chance to do the right thing, the beautiful thing and the moral and just thing. At any time we can seize that chance. Let’s do it now.
Today Dave Snowden has published a significant post outlining his team’s work and thinking about safety: “we must stop trying to write better rules and start building better processes for rapid decision-making in each unique context.” Taking a complexity view on safety is essential. Organizational life, when it separates accountability from decision making by downloading simplistic accountabilities to front line workers while constricting their ability to respond appropriately, is full of structurally dangerous situations. Dave’s encouragement to look at the substrate for action is exactly right.
Last month Ted Gioia published a post wondering if we hadn’t reached the top of a stock bubble. Just leaving this here in case I want to come back to it.
At Game of the People, one of my favourite football blogs, guest writer Laura Joseph gives us a run down of the current bubble in football and why football economics is a little different from the bubble Gioia writes about.
A couple of films to look out for from Dana Solomon. The first Blood Lines deals with themes of belonging and family in a Metis setting and stars Solomon in the lead role. I love that the film includes Michif dialogue. The second is Solomon’s full directorial debut, Niimi (She Dances) is about an Indigenous ballerina who recovers her sense of self and love of her art after a traumatic episode. Both seem resonant with the themes Michelle Porter explores in the book I’m currently reading, A Grandmother Begins the Story.
Graham Greene died yesterday. Greene was a remarkable and iconic Oneida/Canadian actor. He is one of the most recognizable Indigenous actors in our country and a cultural treasure. He became instantly famous for his role in Dances With Wolves for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. The first film I remember seeing him in was the excellent comedy Powwow Highway and maybe my favourite was his role as Arthur in the little-known 1991 Canadian thriller-horror Clearcut.
Clearcut was truly a film of its time, and captured the frustration of the struggle to protect Indigenous rights and territories from rapacious resource companies. All over Canada at the time, from the woods of New Brunswick, to the Pines in Oka, to Temagami, to Clayquot Sound, this issue defined a moment in Indigenous-Crown relations that changed everything. The film captures and distills the main characters in that moment in history into a plot where everything is, well, pretty clear cut. Greene plays an Indigenous environmental activist who has lost his patience with logging companies that are clear cutting in his territory. He kidnaps a company CEO and subjects him to the same kind of treatment that trees are subjected to, including a gruesome scene where he peels the skin from the leg of his victim. His performance left a deep impression on me and I’ve been an admirer of his work ever since.
In 2007 he made his Stratford festival debut as Shylock in Merchant of Venice and I always thought it was fascinating that he had played two roles, 25 years apart, in which, literally, a pound of flesh was involved.
From an article that came through the UN Development Program: a group of development workers spent some time studying Pasifika philosophy at Pasifika Communities University which underlies their approach to human development in the region. Here were some of the lessons they learned:
1. Relationality, not transactionality — Pasifika philosophies emphasize relationships over transactions. In global policymaking, this presents us an opportunity to move toward genuine reciprocity, whether between nations, communities, or sectors. In the Pacific, time is not measured in moments but in seasons and relationships.
2. Nature as kin, not resource — Pacific cultures often see the ocean, land, and skies as family. In the face of climate breakdown, this worldview offers a profound shift: protecting ecosystems is not simply environmental policy, but an act of kinship and responsibility to our Vanua*. It aligns with the principles of deep ecology and the principle of integration, which recognise the intrinsic value of all life and call for a holistic relationship with the natural world, one where human wellbeing is inseparable from the wellbeing of the planet, and our consciousness embraces every dimension of life.
3. Progress as continuity, not growth — In many Pasifika contexts, progress is measured not just by growth, but by cycles of regeneration. This stands in stark contrast to the relentless growth-at-all-costs mindset driving much of the global economy. Pasifika philosophies teach us that the beauty of Vakatabu (restraint) is not merely about the end results, but about the self-discovery in the waiting.
4. Consensus and Collective Stewardship — Decision-making in the Pacific often flows from principles such as the Fijian Veivakamareqeti (sustainability), which literally means to treasure or to keep and protect as something beloved. This care is held as a collective responsibility, a shared duty to safeguard what sustains us. Governance rooted in dialogue and consensus may move more slowly than top-down directives, but it works at the speed of trust, anchoring decisions in relationships, nurtures legitimacy, and builds long-term stability — qualities the world urgently needs in this era of polarisation.
5. Leading with Loloma (love) — In Pasifika philosophies, leadership is not a title to be worn as an ornament, but an act of service to the land and its people. True leadership is guided by loloma — a deep, relational love — anchored in connection to land, community, and spirit. Although love is rarely part of mainstream development discourse, overlooking it risks creating interventions without guardianship, autonomy, respect, and intergenerational connection.
6. Honouring Many Truths — Recognising that different perspectives can coexist without cancelling each other out. Pasifika philosophies teach us that mutual contradiction is not a weakness, but a space where diverse truths can live side by side. In this space, respect deepens, creativity flourishes, and collective wisdom grows, reminding us that value lies not in uniformity, but in the richness of many voices.
I resonate strongly with these lessons. These are core practices of dialogue work in human community and especially important values to practice and embed in work done in socially and environmentally threatened communities. The recovery of Indigenous worldviews, philosophies and approaches to land and community is essential in places where communities and land are in vulnerable states. Managerialism and exploitative capitalism sounds the death knell for these communities, both in local work, ecological sustainability and in the ways in which place like small Pacific islands bear the brunt of climate change. The voices that come from the Pacific are voices that plead for the world to change the way it think about life itself.
I live on a Pacific Island myself, within Skwxwu7mesh territory which lies beneath the imposition of Canadian law, regulations and the ways of life that have historically been at odds with the Indigenous worldview of this part of the world and the health of the ecosystems in the land and the seas around here. The recovery of the health of the inlet in which I live, Átl’ka7tsem, parallels the recovery of the strength and jurisdiction of the Squamish Nation, as prophetically documented in the book The Whale In The Door by Pauline Le Bel and Tiná7 Cht Ti Temíxw, a collection of writing from Squamish Nation members about the history and worldview of the Skwxwu7mesh uxwumixw.
In the UNDP report Upolu Lum? Vaai is quoted and I had a read through some of his work yesterday. For more of his philosophy, here are a couple of recent pieces. In Climate Change in Pasifika Relational Itulagi he writes
“This chapter argues for an ‘unburial’ of this neglected dimension [Pasifika philosophy, ethics and spirituality] which not only holds the key to constructive and sustainable solutions to the climate crisis, it also holds the key to a so-called ‘corrective balance’ of the whole human and ecological system, a kind of balance that activates self-healing and regenerative growth.”
In “We Are Therefore We Live” Pacific Eco-Relational Spirituality and Changing the Climate Change Story he explores these ideas more deeply an in the context of Christian theology as well.
From my friend Kavana Tree Bressen comes this story of 120 Indigenous youth who kayaked down the Klamath River. It sounds impressive on its own merits, but it is amazing becasue these were the first people ever to do so. Until whitewater kayaks were invented, the river wasn’t suited to long journeys. And those boats weren’t invented until after that river had been blocked, initially in 1903, with four hydro-electric dams that destroyed salmon runs and radically disrupted the lives of the Nations who depended upon them. This is an amazing story.
Rick Scott has died. Scott was a legendary BC folk music and children’s music performer and provided the soundtrack to my kids lives when they were young. The Wild Bunnies of Kitsilano was on repeat in our house. His work with Pied Pumpkin was legendary.
A scathing critique of a neo-liberal criticism of a classically liberal university, the European University Institute at Crooked Timber. Far from just a spat between two political points of view in the stratosphere of reason, I think this particular conversation captures where we are right now in democratic states. These two paragraphs in particular stood out to me because in the absence of true conversations and commitments to social welfare and democracy, this is where the state of play is in the world in terms of the practice of state-level justice, equality and social services:
Liberalism involves a bundle of commitments: to individual freedom, minority rights, toleration, rule of law, private property, civil liberties, academic freedom, constitutionalism, human equality and the promotion of opportunity. Liberals tend to view these commitments as mutually reinforcing rather than dimensions on which tradeoffs are possible.
Neoliberals, like The Economist, tend to put the economic freedom bits first and assume that the other dimensions will take care of themselves. Populists are opposed to pretty much everything in that list other than those economic dimensions. As the latter rise in power, the former seem more and more willing to let their social and political commitments fade into the background.
If this is where the conversation is right now, I feel it’s important to join that movement on liberalism while it is still backed by institutions – troublesome as they may be – because they still have the ability to influence policy and keep space open for participation against the rise of populism, fascism and the rapacious demand of the market privatizing everything. Join it and push it to a place of leveraging state and institutional resources to alleviate poverty, and meet basic human needs in a spectacular and generational fashion. I’d be interested on your thoughts on this one.