First Nations social contracts: How to contain an aboriginal rebellion

The new religionof economic development mines, pipelines, power projects and private property is being promoted by Bob Rae, Jim Prentice, and even former prime minister Brian Mulroneyas the only realistic alternative for First Nations.

Last monthRae, acting as a negotiator for nine Ontario First Nations, joined Premier Kathleen Wynne to celebrate the signing of a framework agreement that would open up the province'sfar north to a mineral development bonanza.

• Ring of Fire a hot topic in Ontario election

The Ring of Fire, now re-branded as Wawangajing,is located in one of the largest intact wetlands on the planet, 500 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay in the James Bay Lowlands.

The Ring of Fire apparently holds a treasure chest of chromite, nickel and other minerals. If we are to believe the Chamber of Commerce, it has the potential to drive the Ontario economy for decades.

The chamber estimates that within the first 32 years of operation, the Ring of Fire could generate more than $25 billion in economic activity across a number of sectors.

'Big idea' of a First Nationsocial contract

Under the new Ring of Fire social contract,the government's job is to help build the all-season roads, string powerand broadband lines, train First Nation workersand share a portion of mining revenues with the First Nations. Public investment would be on the order of $2 billion.

The corporation's job is to pay decent wages, buy from First Nation suppliers and take care of the environment with First Nation monitors.

The Ontario government invests in a new economy for First Nations, subsidizes the project costs for corporations and helps the federal government contain expenditures on First Nationhealth, housing and education.

Its a virtuous circle. First Nation sovereignty is never mentioned.

The "big idea"of a First Nations social contract has the power of the Canadian elites great and the good behind it.One of the biggest advocates of a new social contract for First Nations is Raes free-trade adversary,Mulroney.

In a recent speech, the former prime ministerurged the federal government to increase efforts to obtain agreements with First Nations in order to proceed with greater certainty towardthe goal of continental resource integration and energy independence.

The roots of the new social contract go back to a series of First Nation legal victories in the 2000s.The courts have made First Nationconsultation a necessary requirement for any major resource development in Canada.First Nations have leveraged the delays created by the legal requirement and the uncertainty around the meaning of "consultation" into so-called impact and benefit agreements with resource corporations and the sharing of revenues with provinces.

The more sophisticated sectors of the Canadian political and business elite have recognized that a new social contract with First Nations is essential to developing the oilsands, building pipelines, ports, LNG plants anddams, and opening up new mines.

Big business needs a new First Nationsocial contract to stabilize the business environment. Governments need First Nations to develop their own sources of revenue to fund their growing social expenditures on housing, education and health care.

Social contract as containment strategy

On the surface, these strategies seem progressive in the sense that they are focused on the redistribution of wealth though revenue sharing, but they are really a containment strategy akin to the transition from wildcat strikes to national labour legislation in the 1930s.

It isall designed to blunt the more radical demands of indigenous sovereignty movementsfor real decision making and control of natural resources on their lands.- David PeerlaandShiriPasternak

Just as the the right to strike was contained within the right to labour peacein collective bargaining, the demands ofFirst Nation for sovereignty, and all the land rights and decision-making power that gowith sovereignty,have been contained in the new social contract.

The enlightened Canadian elites, fearing indigenous resistancemost famously represented in the Idle No More movementare creating a First Nation social contract reform agenda that includes resource revenue sharing, project equity andan elaborate consultation process.

It isall designed to blunt the more radical demands of indigenous sovereignty movementsfor real decision-making and control of natural resources on their lands.

The new First Nation social contract will now be doubly vulnerable to both the limits of the government budgets and the cyclical ebb and flow of markets for commodities.-DavidPeerlaandShiriPasternak

Taking a page out of the new corporate collaboration agenda that saw environmentalists make peace with forest companies, the new First Nation social contract embraces those aims most consistent with the free market and forecloses development paths that threaten the way the world currently works.

But as environmentalists discovered, there is a difference between a deal and success.

The new First Nation social contract will now be doubly vulnerable to both the limits of the government budgets and the cyclical ebb and flow of markets for commodities.

Mines have a limited lifetime. Oil runs out. An economic crisis limits government expenditures, no matter howwell-intentioned.

The First Nation social contract was a solution designed to be capable of winning support in the Canadian corporate elite. Whether it will win support with the grassroots members of First Nation communities is an open question.

David Peerla is the author of No Means No: The Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug and the Fight for Resource Sovereignty.Shiri Pasternak is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Columbia University in New York City.