Ochapowace Nation chief takes aim at Sask. First Act

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Ochapowace Nation Chief Okimaw Iskwew Margaret Bear has issued another call to the Saskatchewan government to reconsider recent action to assert control over natural resources in the province.

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Bear spoke, as an invited guest, at a recent news conference with the Sask. NDP opposing the continued sale and lease of Crown land without due consultation with First Nations.

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She critiqued what many Indigenous leaders feel is a continued failure in duty to consult processes, and took aim at the Saskatchewan First Act.

“The Saskatchewan First Act completely ignores our inherent treaty and constitutional rights to the lands, resources and waters in this province,” said Bear, to a room full of gathered guests and media.

Introduced this fall, the Sask. First Act asserts the province’s exclusive constitutional jurisdiction over natural resources, as outlined under Section 92A of the Canadian Constitution, to protect economic growth from federal intrusion. The act passed a second reading at the end of November.

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Bear described the act as “aggressive,” and said that if it passes, it will grant the province further control to skirt consultation duty and erode Indigenous voices on land and resource issues.

“What I hear are empty words, spoken with a forked tongue, saying one thing and doing another,” Bear said. “Saying one thing, and doing another, with total disregard to the reconciliation process.”

Responding on Tuesday, Minister of Justice Bronwyn Eyre repeated that the province doesn’t feel the act skirts acknowledging or infringes upon inherent treaty rights, as they are already enshrined in the Constitution.

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“The Sask First Act does not carve out anything new, in that regard,” Eyre said, in an interview. “It asserts what is already there, in the division of powers.”

Earlier in December, Eyre had clarified that Indigenous stakeholders were not consulted during the preparation of the act, for the same reason.

She reiterated that the act is based on jurisdictional claims that stem from the 1930 Natural Resource Transfer Agreement involving provincial and federal governments, which is controversial to some.

“We have always maintained that this transfer was unlawful, and it was done without the consent of or even consultation with our people,” Bear said.

“We shared only the top six inches of the ground, or to the depth of a plow, for agricultural purposes,” she added. “Our elders, they used their thumb (to measure).”

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Eyre said that the claim of provincial jurisdiction in the act is not the provincial government’s words, but the “language of the Constitution, which protects treaty rights.”

She added that to dispute the division of powers, as laid out currently, would be “way beyond one province to address.”

“That would be a very substantial, substantive Constitutional amendment issue,” she said.

Bear gave a firm call to Premier Scott Moe and the province to repeal the act, and instead pursue negotiations with Indigenous people, “as the rights holders of the land, resources and waters of this province.”

Her words echo a similar call made in December by the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, challenging that if the province didn’t squash the Sask. First Act, FSIN would pursue legal action and potential blockades.

Eyre said a challenge by FSIN “would be certainly regrettable, in light of what we really mean to bring about with this act, which is the protection of our economy for everyone.”

— with files from Jeremy Simes

lkurz@postmedia.com

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