Seeking Honour and Respect in the Implementation of Land Claims
The Land Claims Agreements Coalition (“LCAC”) is a coalition of Canada’s comprehensive land claim organizations and governments. The Coalition’s primary mission is to ensure that comprehensive land claims and associated self-government agreements are respected, honoured and fully implemented in order to achieve their objectives. Sadly, for the past 30 years this has not been the case. Many independent reviewers, including the Auditor General and the UN Special Rapporteur, have concluded that the Government of Canada is not meeting its obligations under these agreements, and that consequently the land claims are failing to achieve their fundamental socio-economic development objectives.
In order to try to address these challenges, LCAC was mandated by its members to engage the Government of Canada in the development of an urgently-needed new national policy on land claims implementation. The envisioned policy would clarify the relationships between claims stakeholders, provide approaches for meaningful implementation, guide implementation negotiations, and offer a framework for monitoring and evaluating the impacts of these agreements. Sadly, the effort to engage the Government of Canada in a meaningful policy development process has failed. Frustration among Aboriginal land claim signatories is rising, evidenced in one case by the launch of a major lawsuit against the Government of Canada.
In the spring of 2007, the Gordon Foundation recognized the need for a national land claims implementation policy, and supported the LCAC in its efforts to develop one. Since that time, LCAC members from across Canada have met, discussed, analyzed and debated various frameworks and aspects of the proposed policy. This is a ground-breaking process: never before have all of the First Nation, Inuit and Metis land claim signatories come together in this way to take steps to address common issues. The result to date has been general agreement on a policy framework and basic principles, and progress on development of the first and second drafts of this document.
The draft policy will now be circulated to the leadership of LCAC member groups for their internal review and legal analysis. Also ahead is planning around the release and use of the policy, particularly given the current generally adverse government climate. It is hoped that LCAC will build on the strengths of its members to navigate through these challenges and conclude the project with a policy that has the approval and support of all Agreements organizations and governments in Canada.
Chapter 8 of the November, 2003 Auditor General's report (released in February, 2004) examines Indian and Northern Affairs Canada's management of and accountability for the transfer of responsibilities to the Yukon Government and for the implementation of land claim agreements with the Inuit in Nunavut and the Gwich'in in the Northwest Territorites.