First Nations from across Treaty 6 territory have been marking this month’s 150th anniversary of the signing of the 1876 agreement with the Crown. But for some, the discussion around the upcoming referendum on Alberta independence is casting a shadow over the celebrations.
Included in Alberta’s fall referendum is a question asking people if the province should remain a part of Canada or begin the process of holding a binding referendum on separation. The outcome of that question is top of mind for many First Nations people who say it puts their treaty rights and other entitlements at risk.
“When it comes to this whole separatist regime … we’re going to be discussing amongst [First Nations] how we can get our people to vote, to rock the vote,” says Grand Chief Joey Pete of the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations, a body representing the nations in Alberta.
“Our ancestors knew these things were going to happen, that’s why they signed a treaty.”
Pete says the treaty has nothing to do with Alberta, and that the province merely serves as a representative of the Crown when it comes to the signed agreement.
Pete says when his ancestors signed the treaty, they did not cede and surrender the land, but rather agreed to share it with settlers.
The treaty also guarantees other rights to First Nations, including health, education and the right to hunt and live off the land — rights they still hold today.
“Canada has the legal … fiduciary obligation to First Nations around acting in [their] best interests,” said Janice Makokis, an assistant professor in the faculty of law at the University of Windsor who is from Saddle Lake Cree Nation.
“Leaving Alberta would directly impact that … because our education funding, as well as funding … related to health, is directly tied to the federal government.”
Last year, the separatist group Stay Free Alberta launched a citizen initiative petition, which asked if Alberta should cease to be a part of Canada and become an independent state.
Alberta separation threatening 150 years of Treaty 6
The Alberta government opted to pose its own referendum question on the issue, rather than using the one Stay Free Alberta had been advocating for or another question on the matter that had been proposed by a group behind a pro-Confederation petition.
For months, First Nations have been battling the province in court, arguing the province failed to fulfil its duty to consult with them when it approved Stay Free Alberta’s petition application, and that the question itself threatens their treaty rights.
“We’re ready and we will stand tall,” Pete said. “We’ll continue to fight against the provincial government because what they do isn’t … our laws.”
A judge quashed the approval of the petition. The province has appealed the judge’s decision, saying it didn’t trigger the duty to consult and that the judge failed to give weight to the democratic purpose of the petition process. Premier Danielle Smith previously called the judge’s decision “anti-democratic.”
The Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations held a week of events leading up to the treaty’s Aug. 23 anniversary.
Pete says the fact Alberta’s UCP government didn’t send representatives reveals what he believes is a “hidden message,” and that “there’s no path to reconciliation.”
Alberta Indigenous Relations Minister Rajan Sawhney’s office said in a statement that she was away but committed to maintaining strong relationships.
Treaty 6 was first signed at Fort Carlton in what is now Saskatchewan on Aug. 23, 1876. It covers a stretch of land across central Alberta and Saskatchewan, with Marcel Colomb First Nation and Mathias Colomb First Nation — both in Manitoba — later signing onto the treaty.
Dwayne Donald, a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair and professor of education at the University of Alberta, says the treaty played an integral role in terms of how Alberta became part of Canada.
“People need to understand that it was part of the British legal tradition to make treaties — actually a requirement — once Rupert’s Land was transferred to Canada,” he says.
When the Dominion of Canada finalized its acquisition of Rupert’s Land in 1870 from the Hudson’s Bay Company, the numbered treaties soon followed.
Donald says Treaty 6 itself should be seen as more than just an agreement between nations, but as a living covenant.
“My goal as an educator is to expand that treaty understanding so that people understand that it includes the sun, it includes the river, it includes the wind and the Earth.”
With a handful of separatist groups in Alberta, ideas have emerged on how relations between First Nations and an independent Alberta could look like.
The Alberta Prosperity Project has given few details, but says an independent Alberta would actually give more economic freedom to First Nations.
Lawyer Keith Wilson with the separatist third-party advertiser Let Alberta Decide, says “the treaties will carry on” if secession happens, and First Nations would have a seat at the table in deciding what an independent Alberta could look like.
He says in an independent Alberta, First Nations would maintain their right to education, health and to live off the land.
“The only way that change could occur to their rights is if they ask for that,” Wilson says, adding that options would be available for individual First Nations to sign a modern treaty with an independent Alberta.
“I wouldn’t entertain that notion,” Chief Vernon Watchmaker of Kehewin Cree Nation says, adding that because his community has fostered a 150-year relationship with the Crown, it would not be advantageous for the nation to sever that tie.
“Right now, we’re not in support of creating division, we’re in support of creating unity.”
Makokis cautions that the treaties can’t be overridden.
“They are international treaties made between nations,” she says.
“There are spiritual sacred elements of the treaty that we entered … that would prohibit us from breaking the treaty.”
Wilson says First Nations could choose to stay with Canada, meaning stretches of reserve land would not transfer to an independent Alberta.
Donald spends a lot of time walking in Edmonton’s North Saskatchewan River valley, teaching people the often forgotten history of the land north of the University of Alberta campus.
“Edmontonians know this river as the North Saskatchewan,” he says as he stands along the banks of the river.
“More properly, it’s known as kisiskāciwani-sīpiy, a river that flows at a swift walking pace.”
The Cree name hints at the history of the region, which was once home to Donald’s ancestors from the Papaschase First Nation.
Originally the community settled south of the river. But federal officials later decided they needed to make room for a growing Edmonton, which in terms of population is now the largest city in Treaty 6 and also the home of Alberta’s provincial government.
Donald says it is not lost on him that Edmonton’s First Nations history is not mentioned in discussions around separatism.
“In the United States, they call it manifest destiny, which is this idea that this land was God-given to certain people to use in a certain way,” he says. “We are following that trajectory.
“What we see with this separation movement is … the desire to ignore sovereignty, … a desire to ignore that people have been living, well, for example, in this river valley for thousands of years.”
