NationTalk – On the day celebrating Alberta’s entry into Confederation 115 years ago, Premier Jason Kenny acknowledged that “Alberta’s history of human habitation dates back more than 10,000 years when the first Indigenous people migrated to Alberta to find a land rich in bounty. Albertans have celebrated years of growth and economic prosperity despite the litany of challenges ranging from the Spanish flu to the Depression to two world wars etc. etc. etc. “Yet, as Albertans have always done – from the protracted fight to wrestle ownership of our own natural resources from the federal government in 1930 to our responsible civic response to slowing the spread of COVID today – we will once again emerge stronger. “This is why I’m proud that our government has officially declared September 1st as Alberta Day to celebrate our great province and all that makes us, as our provincial motto says, strong and free.”

The irony of acknowledging Indigenous “land rich in bounty” with his subsequent statement of “wrestling ownership of our own natural resources” from the federal government” provides a glaring insight into the fundamental – and so far intractable – issue impacting Indigenous relations in Canada: a failure by all levels of government to acknowledge and accept Aboriginal Rights and Title even after the Supreme Court of Canada declared that Aboriginal title exists in law through the Tsilqot’in Nation decision in June 2014 and Delgamuukw in 1997. Jason Kenny basically confirmed with his statement that any Aboriginal claim for an economic benefit from the “land rich in bounty” is irrelevant since the provincial government “owns” the natural resources (Doctrine of Discovery and terra nullius). If the 115 years of growth and economic prosperity fuelled by natural resources were for all Albertans why are Indigenous people who originally “owned” those very same natural resources in the first place, the most impoverished.