Indigenous Bar Association – The IBA raises the following points to point out the flawed logic of Premier Pallister’s opinion piece:

• Canadian courts have and continue to cite the UN Declaration to inform domestic law. Over 70 Canadian cases have considered the UN Declaration and its application. It is a longstanding legal principle that Canadian courts will use conventions, declarations, and treaties supported or adopted by Canada internationally as an interpretative aid when defining and enforcing domestic laws
• Governments as well as industry have frequently recognized that projects grounded on the support of Indigenous Peoples are the pathway to advancing reconciliation and securing the economic certainty that Premier Pallister seems so worried about
  • in 2015 the World Bank adopted standards that incorporate Free Prior and Informed Consent (“FPIC”) for funding decisions of projects impacts Indigenous Peoples;
  • since 2013 the International Council on Mining and Metals has explicitly encouraged approaches grounded on the principle of FPIC;
  • in 2007, the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada has acknowledged that FPIC may be a necessary requirement in some circumstances
• None of these organizations or industries seem to have suffered the “devastating loses…cancelled investments [or] immeasurable damage” that Premier Pallister fears
• All levels of Canadian courts have clearly—and repeatedly—stated that consultation is based on the fact that Indigenous Peoples owned, occupied, and utilized the lands that make up what is now Canada prior to Europeans coming to this country. Any title that Canada—or indeed Manitoba—asserts is premised on this fact of underlying Indigenous rights.
• Canada is not adopting the UN Declaration legislation blindly or without thought and deliberation; it is doing so grounded on decades of careful deliberation, rigorous academic study and debate both internationally and domestically, and moreover, in partnership with Indigenous Peoples. Our societies evolve and extend legal protections for everyone, no longer just for a select few. So too must the law evolve — a point that Premier Pallister opinion overlooks.
• The provinces and territories have made similar arguments to Premier Pallister’s when the duty to consult was confirmed in law in the landmark Supreme Court of Canada decisions in Haida Nation, Taku River Tlingit, andMikisew Cree.
  • Canada’s highest court responded that the government’s arguments and fears—similar to those espoused by Premier Pallister regarding regulatory standstills, decision paralysis, and economic uncertainty “do not withstand scrutiny” (para 31 of Haida). That was in 2004. The sky did not fall nor did the economy crumble or reconciliation erode when the duty to consult became law. Nor will it now.
• Arguing that human rights should not be extended to peoples who have actively been suppressed from exercising such rights for so long by the government is deplorable. A provincial leader using the rights of Indigenous peoples as an attack against the federal government is even more reprehensible.
  http://nationtalk.ca/story/indigenous-bar-association-challenges-premiers-understanding-of-law