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Geoff Olynyk's avatar

I’ve said it for the last five months — Trump and the threat he represents to Canada is the EASY challenge for Carney and the Federal Government compared to Reconciliation or whatever we want to call the question of the Canada-Indigenous relationship.

The current situation with the jurisprudence around the Treaties and S.35 of the Constitution, let alone the UNDRIP Act which is only starting to make its way into legal decisions, in my opinion has effectively ended what we grew up considering the country of Canada, as in a sovereign Crown that (with its federalist counterparts in the Provinces) makes decisions in its borders and has absolute sovereignty. This is no longer the case — the country as it stands now is de-facto co-sovereign with First Nations.

To me, we either come to a productive version of co-sovereignty — a new Grand Bargain, Indigenous Voice in Parliament, whatever you want to call it — and move forward, or the country is cooked. We aren’t going to get any investment and standard of living will decline and we are ripe for a genuine economic takeover by the US or other powers, starting with Alberta leaving Confederation.

For those saying we should go hard at this and repeal UNDRIP, change the Constitution to remove S.35, and rip up the Treaties (basically accomplish by force of conquering what was attempted by Treaty 150 years ago) — do you understand that violence on our shores is not unthinkable? Sure, there are 40 million Settler Canadians and 1 million Indigenous. Nobody disputes that ultimately might makes right in the world. But how far are you willing to take this? Israel is conquering Gaza, too; nobody disputes the military superiority there.

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bmc9689's avatar

The only way to proceed with national infrastructure projects is to use a war measures style piece of legislation mandating energy corridors and projects. No private capital will enter Canada with the present environment of judicial obstruction on demand. Carney is going to have to repeal UNDRIP and make the hard call.

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