Chris Selley on the utter, abject defeat of the Canadian and British Columbian governments in their “negotiations” with the hereditary leadership of the Wet’suwet’en:
“We’re not understanding what is the rush here,” elected chief Maureen Luggi told CBC — a sentiment Naziel echoed. “We sat here for 30 years already, waiting and talking about it,” Naziel said. “We can wait another year or two. It’s not going to hurt anything.”
Indeed, from the average Wet’suwet’en member’s point of view, there is no hurry at all. The logical thing would be to fix the governance structure, heal the wounds that need healing, and then undertake these monumental negotiations.
But for the governments involved, this wasn’t about offering the Wet’suwet’en a better future. It was about putting out a fire: A group of Mohawks thousands of kilometres away in eastern Ontario had blockaded CN’s main line in solidarity with the hereditary chiefs; and the Ontario Provincial Police, armed with an injunction demanding the blockade end, refused to lift a finger.
Something had to give. Somebody had to get screwed, and it was the rank-and-file Wet’suwet’en. For no good reason whatsoever, the hereditary chiefs now hold all the keys to their future. It’s an appalling and appallingly predictable result.
“I don’t see why the government gave them this, because this has got nothing to do with what the protests across Canada started from,” chief Dan George of Ts’il Kaz Koh First Nation told CBC. “Those issues are not resolved. They can set up roadblocks again and do it again, and that’s what I’m worried about.”
If negotiations don’t go well, that might well prove to be a prescient remark. But for now, the hereditary chiefs’ victory is total: They have every reason to stay the course. The message to other groups, however, is clear: If you want to advance your cause, make friends with the Ontario Mohawks. They pretty much run the country.
Screencap from a TV report on Mohawk Warriors attempting to set a freight car on fire along the Canadian National mainline through Tyendinaga near Belleville, Ontario in February, 2020.
