The Toquaht First Nations village of Macoah is just a short drive from the tourism hot spot of Ucluelet, but few of the Toquaht people live along its 16 kilometres of pristine oceanfront, mostly because there are no jobs on their land to support the community.
That will soon change.
The Toquaht are planning for the day when they, too, will have tourists visiting their community. They are in the process of building campgrounds for visitors and have plans to expand their marina and erect a longhouse for their own people to gather and celebrate.
After breaking free of the constraints of the 137-year-old Indian Act, the Toquaht people of Toquaht Bay, Mayne Bay and western Barkley Sound have joined a select group of aboriginal people in British Columbia who have successfully negotiated a treaty with the provincial and federal government.
More than 20 years since the BC Treaty Commission began only two First Nations — Tsawwassen and Maa-nulth First Nations (which includes the Toquaht, Huu-aye-aht, Kyuquot/Checleseht, Uchucklesaht and Ucluelet people) — were able to finalize their treaties.
Tsawwassen led the way when its treaty was completed in 2009 and the Maa-nulth First Nation in 2011. Two others — Yale near Hope and Tla’amin (Sliammon) near Powell River are at the final stage, in Ottawa waiting for enabling legislation to pass through Parliament.
The Nisga’a people in northern B.C. settled their land claim in 2000 outside the current treaty process.
The Treaty Commission and the six-stage treaty process was established Sept., 21, 1992, and from its inception to March 2011 has cost taxpayers $39 million — 60 per cent of those costs borne by the federal government and 40 per cent by B.C.
While there are still 49 treaty negotiating tables open — 29 are active — they represent only two-thirds of the First Nations in B.C. The others have opted not to participate in the process at all.
A big stumbling block is the federal government not having a fisheries mandate on the table — which is a huge issue in B.C., said Treaty Commissioner Sophie Pierre.
“It’s really ridiculous. If you don’t have a mandate for fish how can you say you are negotiating in good faith,” said Pierre. “At one point they (the federal negotiators) did have a mandate on fish and that’s why we were able to complete the Tsawwassen and Maa-nulth treaties.”
Despite this seemingly insurmountable stumbling block, as well as complaints the treaty process is just another make-work program for aboriginal people, Pierre is confident the system is working.
That’s why Pierre opted to accept another term as treaty commissioner.
“We have a good process that has been developed,” she said. “It’s workable and can see results. It just needs commitment to make treaties happen. We’ve got a lot of tables moving forwards.”
She said the two agreements waiting to be signed-off in Ottawa — one possibly as early as this month — were able to include agreements about fish before the federal government took it off the table. She explained the government wanted to conduct further studies. But, she added, the time has come for the federal government to stop doing more and more studies and simply provide the fish mandate once again to federal treaty negotiators.
“It (the fish) can’t continue to be ignored,” she said.
Other stumbling blocks, she said, include own-source revenue, taxation and status of land which are proving to be a “major disincentive to get into economic development.”
Using the example of the federal government providing a program for providing clean water, she explained own-source revenue would mean the First Nation community under the treaty terms would be responsible for immediately providing their own clean water program themselves before they were equipped to do so.
“They’ll never be in a position to be self-sustaining,” she said, if forced to accept own-source revenue immediately.
“It’s a philosophical stumbling block. I know we can do it. We need to figure out a way to include it. We just need to put our minds to the solutions.”
As for taxation breaks, she said instead of having the First Nation lose their tax exemptions after a certain time period post-treaty, she suggested a better solution is to say once the standard of living on the reserve has reached the same in the region. This would prevent a community from being penalized before they’ve become self-sufficient, she said.
The Maa-nulth Treaty, for instance, allows a 12-year exemption for income and property taxes and an eight-year exemption for all transaction taxes (PST and GST).
The Tsawwassen is an example of a community that is now in the process of working hard to become self-sufficient. Anyone driving to the Tsawwassen ferry terminal can see the native land leading there is the site of new construction that will result in a major residential and commercial area. A major regional mall is being built along the highway and already two residential show homes are open in the community.
The estimated total value of the Tsawwassen treaty is $120 million — of that $66.7 million for land, $16 million in cash, $2.7 million in salmon allocation and $34.6 million for implementation funding and a fiscal financing arrangement. The land included 724 hectares plus 207 removed from the Agricultural Land Reserve and returned to the Tsawwassen First Nation.
For the Maa-Nulth First Nations, the treaty settlement was for 24,550 hectares of land, including former reserves, an estimated $1.2 million in annual resource revenue sharing payments and $96.7 million in capital transfers over 10 years.