Journal: News & Comment

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Thoughts on the B.C. native treaty referendum

Today our household received our ballots for the B.C. Treaty Negotiations Referendum. I'm among those (I hope the majority of British Columbians) who think the whole referendum process is unnecessary, divisive, confrontational, probably illegal, and likely to be ineffective regardless of the results -- in other words, a waste of time. It is also another demonstration of how I fundamentally disagree with many of the key positions of the province's current government.

So far the best analysis of the referendum questions I've seen is from Chris Corrigan, who has worked both with governments and with native negotiators in the current treaty process (which the referendum has interrupted). He writes:

I feel strongly that the referendum process, if allowed to continue and dictate the terms of engagement in stark, black and white terms, will simply serve to drive First Nations into court for long and costly battles where the stakes are high and public input is not allowed. Ironically this experiment in democracy could result in a number of court decisions applied across the province in a most undemocratic way.

Legal experts appear to believe that the referendum is either:

• so unclear that a vote either way (but especially No) yields no clear impression of what people want -- especially since those with opposite views on several of the issues could each vote No, but for different reasons.
  
  -- or --
  
  
• constitutionally indefensible, so that votes contradicting previously established court rulings and the 20-year-old Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms will simply not apply.

Here is a detailed analysis of the questions as originally framed, and of the apparent motivations behind the process.

I have not yet determined how I will use my ballot -- some opposing groups counsel spoiling the ballot so that it is counted, but rejected, while others advise simply voting No to each question.

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