Threats of tariffs and economically coerced annexation are being rebuffed by Indigenous leaders, who are calling for special consideration for the rights and needs of Indigenous Peoples as Canada feels its way through the trade war.
Cindy Woodhouse, the Assembly of First Nations National Chief, said the tariffs and threats from Trump are “unacceptable,” but added that Canada “will not defeat Trump’s colonialism with more colonialism in our country.”
She gave her remarks while celebrating a dedicated building for Indigenous leaders and governments in the parliamentary precinct.
At a press conference on Tuesday, Indigenous leaders signed the agreement that would hand over 100 Wellington Street in Ottawa. That building was at one time the American embassy, a coincidence not lost on Natan Obed, President of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami.
“The history of that particular footprint being the U.S. Embassy is an interesting juxtaposition to where we are today,” Obed told reporters.
Collaboration between Canada and the U.S. was at an all time high through the cold war, with much of that taking place in the Canadian Arctic. The Arctic was highly militarized and Inuit were forcibly relocated to remote regions across the North to claim sovereignty over those lands.
Now Washington and Ottawa are locked in a trade war that is anything but collaborative. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump enforced 25 per cent tariffs on Canada, and Canada responded immediately with an initial $30 billion in counter-tariffs.
Veldon Coburn, the faculty chair at McGill’s Indigenous Relations Initiative, said threats from the U.S. are a threat to Indigenous sovereignty within Canada. Indigenous nations across Canada have signed treaties and agreements with the Crown, which would be nullified if another colonizer took power.
“None of us have ever entered into an agreement with the Republic of the United States,” he said. “Our agreements are with the Crown. We've been around for over 450 years, and we're not looking to get into any relationship with another foreign government.”
Unlike in Canada, Indigenous rights are not constitutionally protected in the United States, which still lags in enshrining the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into law, Coburn said. Indigenous nations in Canada have “made considerably greater strides in terms of recognition of rights territorial interests,” he added.
The tariffs also threaten Indigenous Peoples’ food security, said Victoria Pruden, President of the Metis National Council. Already, 58 per cent of Métis families can’t meet the current cost of living, and 45 per cent are food insecure. For Inuit living in the North, where cost of living is exponentially higher, about 70 per cent are food insecure, Obed said.
Both leaders made it clear that tariffs will have a disproportionate impact on lower-income Indigenous families. “We will all be feeling the effects and Indigenous people even more so,” Pruden said.
Coburn agrees, and he thinks that discussion between provinces, territories and First Nations should make room for easing regulations around harvesting. The hope is that easing sustenance harvesting rules may be needed at a time where more Indigenous families are at a greater risk of food insecurity.
But as provincial and federal governments rush to secure the Canadian economy against threats from the south, the Indigenous leaders expressed concern that those measures could mean sidestepping Indigenous rights in the name of industrial development in Canada. After winning a third majority mandate from the Ontario electorate under the banner of Ford’s “Captain Canada” populism, Queen’s Park may become more aggressive in developing a critical minerals supply chain. During a campaign stop in Sault St. Marie, Ontario Premier Doug Ford dared mining opponents, including First Nations, to take the province to court.
In response, the Nishnawebe Aski Nation clapped back at Ford, calling for "sovereignty over shortcuts.”
“These are not ‘Ontario’s minerals’; they exist within our territories, and any attempt to dictate their development without our full and meaningful involvement is an overreach of provincial authority and represents a complete failure to understand and honour the relationship between the government and First Nations in Ontario,” Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler said in the press release.
Tensions over rights to resources between Indigenous Nations and the Crown may now be emphasized at a time where Canada has to find its trade war footing.
“You still have to abide by the Constitution and the law here, you're not going to steamroll through,” Coburn said.
Matteo Cimellaro / Canada’s National Observer / Local Journalism Initiative
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