The editorial, "Veto Power" (May 20) relayed from the appropriately named newspaper, the Times-Colonist, is wrongheaded in its expectation that a UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples should be attempting to conciliate between First Nations' opposite to mega-resource projects and their proponents.
But a more serious error is the analysis of the legal duties of government to consult versus obtaining mutual consent. Noting that the Special Rapporteur recommended that major projects should have "free, prior and informed consent of the indigenous people concerned", the editorial continues authoritatively: "Yet the Supreme Court has ruled there is no such proviso. Consultation is definitely mandated, but further than that the court has not gone." Whoever says this has obviously never read the landmark Delgamuukw decision from 1997.
There, in the relevant passage (section 168) , the majority opinion reads: "The nature and scope of the duty of consultation will vary with the circumstances...In most cases, it will be significantly deeper than mere consultation. Some cases may even require the full consent of an aboriginal nation, particularly when provinces enact hunting and fishing regulations in relation to aboriginal lands."
The devil, of course, is always in the details of each individual project under consideration. But the fact is that the Supreme Court justices anticipated that much more than just consulting is going to frequently be needed. In the years since, of course, provincial and federal resource managers have tried very hard to turn the minimum expectation of consultation into the maximum. But your editorialist is simply dead wrong in proclaiming that the Supreme Court ruled against requirements as demanding as mutual consent and went no further than consultation. It is vital that the non-Native and, of that matter, Native population of BC is aware of this.
Norman Dale
Prince George
