Canadians are such a mild-mannered people that, if you bump into us, we will likely apologize. Not for ‘being in your way’ per se but simply because civility obliges us to. Indeed, we value courteous social relations to the point where we might not ‘say what needs to be said’ if it’s likely to cause even a smidgen of tension. You may call us conflict-avoidant. I prefer to say ‘Peace-Loving’ — but I recognize that ‘being polite’ might not be the ‘winning’ attitude when worldviews collide. Therefore, when our nation gets embroiled in any conflict, it shocks us to our very core.
You probably don’t yet know this, but the Great White North is in the midst of a significant conflict. Tranquil, as always, for Canadians rarely explode in anger. But we have a new word in our vocabulary: ‘mobocracy’. That is when a mob blocks access to an important piece of infrastructure (ie. parliament buildings, rail tracks) and gets power that way. The mob need not even be that big, a few dozen suffice— especially when they are card-carrying ‘First Nations’ members.
The hard facts of this case: TransCanada Corp. wants to build a pipeline from the landlocked oil fields of Alberta to the coast of British Columbia. It goes through sheer nature which is, by way of Treaty, ‘native land’. The Corp. has reached a settlement with all the native bands on its path; giving away $millions and jobs as compensation. Some members of one such band — the Wet’suwet’en — claim to be the ‘hereditary leaders’ of the band (currently not in power). The ‘hereditary chiefdom’ claims that it historically did not sign the treaty which partitioned the land in the first place, nor did they now agree to the compensation package (nor the trespassing of the Corp. and police authority on their land). They filed a claim for their ‘legal’ recognition under the law, which went all the way to the Supreme Court.
No one disputes that the land on which the pipeline would be laid is native-land. As with all ‘energy-related’ questions, you might imagine that this debate is ‘Environment’ versus ‘Capitalism’ — and on some level, it is about what type of future ‘we’ want to build. But in this case, the ‘we’ is not ‘Canadians’ as a people. It is the ‘we’ of ‘Wet’suwet’en’. And in their anger, First Nations are actually claiming that the ‘rule of law’ and ‘democracy’ are and have always been imperialist attempts to quell their culture.
This pipeline has been in development for years! For the last 5 years, Alberta has suffered from a glut of shale oil in the Mighty US of A — which limits the available pipeline capacity for ‘Western Canadian Select’ to flow south. Not only Alberta, but the whole of Canada, has been rudely awakened to what it means to be a ‘resource economy’ — especially when you don’t control access to your downstream markets. Moreover, we are perfectly aware of the danger of using railways to transport inflammable commodities, as 47 people perished in a derailment/explosion in a small Quebec town in 2013 (Lac-Megantic).
We — Canadians — know that there are no good options here. We — humanity — are addicted to oil and haven’t yet found what could be the ‘methadone’ to our current addiction. The whole situation is unfortunate, to say the least. But try going ‘off-petroleum’ cold-turkey and you’ll find yourself having to hunt on foot for your food… Which is exactly what the Wet’suwet’en’s wants to do (unencumbered with the ‘lifeline’ of Western capitalism going through their land).
I think that the First Nations finally recognized that in their defiance, they have very very little to lose. For a few, they might temporarily be deprived of personal freedom — but no revolution has ever occurred without sending a few individuals to prison. What is really interesting here is that the question has shifted to: “Who’s Law governs the land? Native or Canadian?” The hereditary chiefs claim that, since they didn’t sign any treaty, the land is still sovereign, even from Canada and its Royal Canadian Mounted Police. In other words, Canadian law doesn’t apply to them. First Nations are even repudiating democracy, as a system of governance that we — Canadians — impose onto them. Suddenly, they claim that it is ‘colonialism’ to expect them to abide by the rule of law (ie. court decisions) or to uphold decisions reached through democratic processes (ie. the Corp.’s compensation package to all the bands’ elected chiefs). For them;
Almost overnight, we are finding ourselves witnessing a perfect clash of worldviews. Native’s understanding of land stewardship under traditional rules VS Canadian jurisprudence and our carefully-balanced institutions, all relying on the ‘rule-of-law’. I am part of the first wave of ‘collateral damage’ — I lost my passenger train to the University. Indeed, all Via Rail traffic (coast to coast, sorry Peter) and all freight traffic on the CN rails (CN being one of two freight transporters in Canada) are cancelled until further notice. Just because a few dozen people are standing next to the tracks and threatening to drive a truck in front of moving trains. This rail blockade, which first erupted in my backward by the Mohawk of Tyendenega, is quickly spreading elsewhere in Canada… Interestingly, the threat suffices to grind the whole network to a halt, and the police can’t quite arrest people who are not ‘technically’ trespassing.
Mobocracy 1 / Due-process 0
Meanwhile, the prime minister is finally back from visiting foreign dignitaries to muster support for a Canadian (non-permanent) seat at the UN security council. Until last weekend, he stayed with his planned agenda because there is really not much he can do. He politically cannot order the police to move-in! After all, we are not in a dictatorship! Making the issues even more thorny, his last offence in the ‘book of public opinion’ is to have interfered with the Crown Attorney for a more lenient penalty for SNC-Lavalin (which plead guilty to bribery in Libya). Therefore, to appear to be interfering with legal proceedings is the very last thing he wants to do now (especially now as the leader of a minority government).
Prime Minister Trudeau must feel that his hands are tried — and I agree that they are. So he is doing the impossible: trying to ‘appear to do something’ while distancing himself as much as possible from the issue. Which might be ‘of provincial jurisdiction’ anyway! Here, let’s just say that Doug Ford, the Premier of Ontario, is not known for the finesse of his policies…
As for the media, I haven’t seen any honest attempt to expose how precariously complicated the situation actually is. The message is: “The trains are blocked; authorities are urging parties to come to a peaceful resolution.” But this is dynamite! It’s not only a disagreement — it’s the break down of communication between two different ways of ‘seeing the world’. We no longer have an “accepted criteria of objective validity common to both parties” (Mannheim, Karl; Ideology and Utopia (1936)). The ‘Law of the Land’ used to be the accepted norm on which all actions and institutions could find a toe-hold — or at least a way to disagree with civility. But now, as First Nations are refusing to abide by provincial and federal laws, they are demonstrating that there is a fundamental weakness in any socially-constructed reality: that our finally-tuned institutions work when individuals agree to endorse them.
First Nations are emboldened because they know that they are political dynamite. The last time Canada had a such a blockade was the Oka Crisis (1991) and it still scars public opinion. This rail blockade is interfering with my studies, so I’m mildly annoyed. But stepping back and looking at the bigger picture, I’m quite in awe of the Natives. I’ve been reading a bit of Marxist theory these days so I’ll even say that, to their credit; “They might have just reached class consciousness!” They have nothing to lose. They have the moral high-ground (ie. environmental protection) and even a legal opportunity to ask: “Who’s law is to prevail?”.
Stay tuned — I predict this situation will not get resolved any time soon!