Poilievre's First Nations consultation pledge garners mixed reviews, call for 'more substance'
Legal and policy experts looking for details on Tory leader’s proposed policy
Pierre Poilievre's proposed First Nations resource revenue sharing model could be a step in the right direction for a Conservative Party that has sometimes seemed hostile to Indigenous people, but the devil will be in the details as leaders look for results, some observers say.
On Tuesday in Vancouver, the opposition leader kicked off what he pledged would be countrywide consultations on his new policy proposal, through which he said First Nations could obtain more revenue from development on their lands. It's receiving mixed reviews.
"What a great idea for the 1990s," said Sara Mainville, a partner at JFK Law in Toronto and former chief of Couchiching First Nation in Ontario.
"That may have been welcomed in the 1990s when we were slowly learning what consultation and accommodation looked like."
But since then, she said, thinking around First Nations self-determination has evolved, encouraged by watershed Supreme Court of Canada decisions and the endorsement of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).
First Nations increasingly demand governments respect not just UNDRIP, but the principle that resource projects on their traditional territory require free, prior and informed consent to go ahead, Mainville said.
"Resource revenue sharing, government to government, is always part of the recipe to reconciliation," she said — but it's not the only part.
"Having an underlying charge and cheque sent to the nation is not going to cut it" without addressing self-determination, she added.
'The land needs to go back'
Kate Kempton, a lawyer with law firm Woodward & Company, is often retained by First Nations battling resource extraction firms. She called the policy proposal too vague to judge.
"It sounds good, but it's also filled with impressive-sounding things that either aren't correct or are designed to impress and lack substance," she said.
"Some of the soundbites sound catchy and attractive, but I don't think we're going to understand what he's talking about until we get more substance."
There are already hundreds of agreements in place across the country that provide for revenue sharing, while taxes and royalties predominantly flow to provincial governments rather than Ottawa, Kempton said.
On the other hand, she added, if Poilievre means Crown governments should hand over parts of their natural resource tax base to First Nations, "then that does sound like the right thing to do."
WATCH | Pierre Poilievre on resource revenue sharing with First Nations:
Kempton said Poilievre's fiery rhetoric about the Indian Act's racist oppression and its bloated, incompetent bureaucracy may hit some of the right notes, but she warned of red herrings and rabbit holes distracting from the bigger questions about land and governance.
"The land needs to go back," she said, adding that her clients often want decision-making power over their territories equal to the power wielded by the federal and provincial governments.
"There is where the rubber hits the road," she said.
"That's where the next generation of legal development and political development in Canada is going to go."
Mixed responses
CBC News contacted Poilievre's team seeking clarification on the proposed policy but received no response.
John Desjarlais, board chair of the Indigenous Resource Network, which advocates on behalf of Indigenous communities who support resource development, was "cautiously optimistic" about the consultations. He was pleased Poilievre struck a less paternalistic tone.
Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, a political organization that advocates on behalf of many chiefs in the province, wasn't pleased, and called the announcement "electioneering" and "way off base."
"We need government and all political parties to move away from the colonial frontier notions of 'resource extraction' to responsible, sustainable management of resource development," he said in a written statement.
The statement noted Canada and B.C. both passed UNDRIP legislation — which the federal Tories voted against in 2021, fearing the consent principle "could be interpreted as a de facto veto right" to stop projects.
Mainville felt Poilievre's tone and pledge to seek First Nations-led solutions could signal a positive shift.
"Conservatives have always seemed to be very adversarial to Indigenous people," she said.
"Trying to include Indigenous peoples, even if it's just focused on economic benefit sharing, I think it's a new day for the Conservative Party."
But she also pointed to a steep hill Poilievre must climb. Assembly of First Nations delegates booed the Conservative leader when shown a prepared video statement from him during their annual gathering in Ottawa last month.
His political opponents criticized him earlier this month for delivering a speech to a Winnipeg-based think-tank known for downplaying the harm residential schools had on Indigenous children.
In 2008, Poilievre sparked controversy, and later apologized after questioning the value of residential school compensation on the same day prime minister Stephen Harper apologized for the system.
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