Matthew Wildcat with the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Native Studies joins Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins to discuss the potential impact of an Alberta separation referendum on Indigenous peoples. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. Michael Higgins: What does the separatist movement represent to Indigenous peoples? Matthew Wildcat: One of the most interesting things about the separatist movement is they haven’t really said a lot about Indigenous peoples. There’s been a few news articles with Aboriginal People’s Television Network. Jeffrey Rath [with the Alberta Prosperity Project] tends to be a bit more savvy on these questions. He believes treaty rights will stay around, Indigenous people’s rights and title will continue to be respected in a separate Alberta. But other leaders within the separatist movement believe Indigenous peoples will receive equal rights to others, which is a coded way of saying there will be no distinct rights First Nations people will have anymore. On the question of the status of reserves, they tend to say something along the lines of reserves will become municipalities in some sort of way. Overall the separatist movement for the most part appears to not believe Indigenous peoples will have a distinct status within the independent Alberta. MH: How does that conversation resonate with Indigenous leadership? MW: It’s offensive and alarming, frankly. The position being put forward by Chief Sunshine within this latest lawsuit is that what the treaties are is a foundation for how we share the land together. This is something Indigenous peoples have been saying with remarkable consistency and clarity for the last 150 years. What the treaties are is an agreement through which Indigenous peoples and newcomers were able to create a joint society together. We share the land and we figured out how to live with each other and ensure mutual prosperity and flourishing. This idea that all of a sudden Alberta would separate, and Indigenous peoples wouldn’t be equal partners within the shared society that the treaties are the foundation of is alarming. It’s quite disturbing too. This is kind of the overwhelming response from First Nations across the province. MH: What does Indigenous leadership make of the Alberta government’s handling of legislation this fall paving the way for this petition to go ahead? MW: I’m less familiar with how this question of treaty rights and Indigenous people’s opposition to Alberta separating factored into the passage of this latest bill. From my understanding it, it didn’t factor in at all. The Alberta government has been listening but not in a really substantive, deep, deep sort of way. In May you had the Alberta government put in a bill: ‘Nothing in this bill should abrogate or derogate from any Aboriginal or treaty rights.’ So there has been some listening all the way along. But I think the Chiefs now are really starting to pinpoint their message, which is to say that the United Conservative Party is a party which supports or at least enables the Alberta separatist movement. Even kind of more clearly, the UCP is a separatist party. If the UCP doesn’t want to be known as a separatist party, they’re going to have to take much more substantive steps in order to go and talk to and listen to First Nations leadership. In particular, to develop their own understanding of what treaty means. Indigenous peoples have been very clear, the treaty is the foundation through which we share the land together. With the UCP and the Alberta government, it’s not clear how they understand treaty as a legal and political document. MH: How different of a conversation does this become if it’s the Forever Canadian question that goes to a referendum? Does that shift the dialogue at all? MW: It does partially. I’ve been writing and speaking about this issue, and part of the analysis I’ve provided is that we’re really dealing with this question as a legal question. Is separation legal? What are the legal mechanisms through which the separatist movement believes it will happen? In response you’ve seen multiple First Nations lawsuits, but also the Forever Canada petition. So people are really honed in focusing on this from a legal standpoint. But if we go back to the Quebec referendums in the 80s and early 90s, afterwards there was a Supreme Court ruling, the Quebec Secession Reference. The supreme court judgment was really clear. What it said about the potential for referendums on separation is that these are ultimately political questions. Referendums can’t be binding. What referendums do is they indicate the popular will of a set of people. It creates an impetus or an obligation on the part of political leaders to then go and negotiate what that referendum means. Within that secession reference, they say if there was a positive referendum, political leaders would then have to negotiate and figure out what that means. In the case of Brexit, the Brexit referendum wasn’t a binding referendum for Britain to leave the EU. But it does create an obligation for political leaders to take it seriously. MH: Even if the separation question goes to a referendum and is rejected, where does that leave Alberta’s relationship with Indigenous peoples? MW: It leaves it in a difficult place. This is partially also what I’ve been saying, is we need to start treating this as a political issue that requires negotiation as much as a legal question. What are the procedures and mechanisms through which we get a yes or no vote? With the Alberta separatist movement, they really haven’t said very much about Indigenous peoples, but what they have said is that they are uncertain if Indigenous peoples should enjoy a distinct legal and political standing within the country. Ultimately, this harkens back to the 1969 White Paper, which was released by the elder Trudeau Government of the time. What the White Paper sought to do is eliminate all legal and political distinctions that Indigenous peoples have in the country. This was done under an ideology that everyone should be equal before the law, which is a core part of our democracy. But then when you look at it from the standpoint of the history of prior societies living here, holding sovereignty, and then you have new societies coming in and people are having to figure out how these societies interact and have a relationship with each other. The idea Indigenous peoples will lose all sorts of legal and political standings is offensive to our understanding of self, and also the history of this country and what this country is founded on.
