Na tliaj, kapmnt wjit Nopa Sko'sia tel-nmitoq ketlogo Mi'kmaq ku'knmnew koqqwaja'taqn pma'tunew l'nui-mtmo'taqn:

Na tliaj, Pra'vnfs wjit Nopa Sko'sia aq Mi'kmaq teli nmitu'tij kitk nuta'new wiki'tinew wantaqo'tiktuk aq wla'matutiktuk ta'n teli-wsua'tasikip Kisaknutmaqn tluen weja'tekemk ne'sn aq ne'sn;

Na tliaj, Pra'fns wjit Nopa Sko'sia teli nmitoql msit Kisaknutmaqnn ta'n wtuisunmual nas-wi'kmi'tipnn Eleke'wit aq Mi'kmaq me'klu'ltn;

Na tliaj, Pra'fns wjit Nopa Sko'sia aq Mi'kmaq tel-nmitu'tij kitk wantaqo'timuow aq wla'matutimuow wjian ta'n teli kjijitu'kw wetapeksulti'kw ta'n koqoey teli-kpmite'tmu'kw aq ta'n teli pilu'qamiksulti'kw;

Na tliaj, Kapmnt wjit Nopa Sko'sia aq Mi'kmaq pewatmi'tij ktmoqjenasin wskwijinu'k msit ula Nopa Sko'sia naji wli-nenatultinew;

Na nike', kinu, John Savage, Pri'miir wjit Nopa Sko'sia, aq Ben Sylliboy, Kji-Saqmawwjit Mi'kmaq, telapukueykw ula tepknuset Wikewiku's tl-nenuksin Tepknuset wjit Mi'kmaq Wetapeksutiwow.

John Savage, Premier of Nova Scotia

Ben Sylliboy, Kji-Saqmaw wjit Mi'kmaq

Whereas the Government of Nova Scotia recognizes that the Mi'kmaq have the inherent right to self-government within Canada;

Whereas the Province of Nova Scotia and the Mi'kmaq Nation recognize their mutual need to live in peace and friendship in accordance with the spirit of their treaty and nation-to-nation relationship;

Whereas the Government of Nova Scotia recognizes all Treaties which were signed in good faith between the Crown and the Mi'kmaq;

Whereas the Province of Nova Scotia and the Mi'kmaq Nation recognize that their mutual peace and friendship requires the public awareness of the history, values and the diversity of cultures;

Whereas the Government of Nova Scotia and the Mi'kmaq Nation wish to promote public awareness for all citizens of Nova Scotia;

Now Therefore, we, John Savage, Premier of Nova Scotia, and Ben Sylliboy, Grand Chief of Mi'kmaq, do hereby proclaim the month of October as Mi'kmaq History Month.

In Witness Whereof we have hereunto set our hands in peace and friendship and caused our seals to be affixed at Halifax on this first day of October, 1993.

John Savage, Premier of Nova Scotia

Ben Sylliboy, Grand Chief of Mi'kmaq

As ridiculous as it may sound, one thing seems certain to me: that it is my responsibility to emphasize again and again - 1. the treaty origin of all genuine Mi'kmaq politics, 2. to stress the significance of our cultural values and standards in all spheres of Mi'kmaq life, including economics, and 3. to explain that if we don't try, within ourselves, to discover or rediscover or cultivate our knowledge and heritage things will turn out very badly for our children, our peoples, and our nation.

As the Hereditary Chiefs of Gitksan and Wet'suwe'ten nations in Delgamuukw have shown us, we must believe in our teachings, our beliefs, and our culture. As the traditional leaders in Australia - in Mabo and Wik - have shown, we must believe in our culture. Both peoples have proved to the highest courts in their land that Aboriginal title is a property in the land itself, and is a constitutional right. Both peoples have shown that the federal government was wrong in their characterization of Aboriginal title. The unanimous Supreme Court of Canada [decision] has said as long as we maintain our relation to the land, our pre-existing Aboriginal title and right continues. Both cases prove our ancestors' order and culture were right. Our land claims are just. And the federal government and its strategy of denial of our Aboriginal rights was wrong.

Constitutional reform in 1982 told the courts and governments to respect our Aboriginal and treaty rights. Aboriginal title and rights are part of the core of 'Indianness' at the heart of s.91(24) paragraph 181. The federal government responded that our rights were an empty box, since our Aboriginal and treaty rights were extinguished prior to 1982. A unanimous Supreme Court in Simon rejected this theory of our treaty rights. Now after 15 years of litigation the court has shown that our Aboriginal rights were not extinguished. The Court rejected the provincial Crown's notion that Aboriginal title was extinguished by the blanket assertion of Crown sovereignty, that Aboriginal title was extinguished by the establishment of Indian reserves, and that Aboriginal title was extinguished by the creation of land grants by the Provinces to immigrants.

Unlike British Columbia, our Aboriginal title was reserved for us in our treaties. By this court's declaration, our Aboriginal title is a right to land. Our Aboriginal title is a property right. It is our national right and it cannot be used in a way that destroys our relationship to the land. The federal government has a fiduciary obligation to our Aboriginal lands outside of the Indian reserves. Its duty is to "safeguard our interest in our land" from provincial interference. The Supreme Court has said that, first, Aboriginal title encompasses the right to exclusive use and occupation of land; second, Aboriginal title encompasses the right to choose to what uses land can be put, subject to the ultimate limit that those uses cannot destroy the ability of the land to sustain future generations; and third, the lands held pursuant to Aboriginal title have an inescapable economic component, paragraph 166. If either the federal or provincial government infringes on our Aboriginal title or right or our treaties, they must pay fair compensation.

This ruling has broad consequences for federal land claims assumptions and policy as well as provincial jurisdiction. All existing Crown theory of extinguishment of Aboriginal title and policies must not be changed to accord with the guidelines established by the Court. Aboriginal title is no longer vaguely defined - the Court has clearly defined it. Aboriginal title has never been extinguished by provincial law. The federal government has jurisdiction over unceded lands outside Indian reserves in the provinces. The rule of law requires our federal and provincial governments apply these principles in all areas of executive decision making, policy, and practice.

Failure by Canada to safeguard our Aboriginal title may result in a breach of fiduciary obligation. The Supreme Court of Canada found such a breach when the Department failed to correct an error on becoming aware of it. The Crown must prevent harm to Aboriginal title. It must live up to treaty obligations.

Our constitutional escape from total domination by the federal government in our national affairs is limited by the continuation of the Indian Act regime. The Indian Act regime has turned out to be far more serious than anyone could have predicted. Yet, we are faced with an enormous and dazzling explosion of every imaginable corruption as the Indian Act regime fights back. We are faced with a culmination of a wide range of questionable behaviour subtly encouraged to serve the daily operation of the of the totalitarian Indian Act system. The Indian Act band government regime imposed a certain administrative order that created these corruptions in band government (and in doing so, "legitimized" them, in a sense). Regardless of constitutional reform, this administrative order and its questionable values have not been changed. It still exists and informs the core of band government.

Our vision of a return to our national treaty order that would limit rather than exploit these corruptions, an order based on freely accepted responsibility to and for the whole of the Mi'kmaq nation, has not yet been built. Nor could it have been, for such an order takes years to develop and cultivate consensus. Thus we are witnesses to a bizarre state of affairs; band government that is not based on our cultural values and which behaves like the Department of Indian Affairs. Criminality has grown rapidly. Suicides and hopelessness are growing rapidly. Resignation to welfare remains our daily life. But there are other, more serious and dangerous symptoms: an unrestrained, unheeding struggle for purely particular interests, unadulterated, new, and unprecedented varieties of robbery from the people. These symptoms systematically mobilize the worst qualities in band government - like selfishness, envy, and hatred. They witness a prevailing lack of understanding of the needs of the youth and the generations of the future. Mi'kmaq are becoming more and more disgusted with all this, and their disgust is understandably directed against band governments they, themselves, elected. Their disgust is not directed at the federal government or provincial governments, the source of our systemic oppression and dominion.

And yet, if a handful of friends and I were able to bang our heads against the wall for years by speaking the truth about the Indian Act regime while surrounded by an ocean of apathy, there is no reason why I shouldn't go on banging my head against the wall by speaking ad nauseam, despite the condescending smiles about treaty responsibility and culture in the face of our present corruption. There is no reason to think that this struggle is a lost cause. The only lost cause is one we give up on before we enter the struggle.

Time and time again I have been persuaded that a huge potential of goodwill is slumbering within our nation, within our communities. It's just that it's incoherent, suppressed, confused, crippled, and perplexed - as though it does not know what to rely on, where to begin, where or how to find meaningful outlets. In such a state of affairs, our leaders have a duty to awaken this slumbering potential, to offer it direction and ease its passage, to encourage it and give it room or simply hope. Those who find themselves in politics, therefore, bear a heightened responsibility to seek out the best in our treaties, our heritage, and our culture, and to develop and strengthen it.

By the way, even the politicians who often anger me with their shortsightedness and their greed are not, for the most part, evil minded. They are, rather, inexperienced, easily manipulated [by] Indian Affairs' suggestive policy and trends and money. Often they are simply caught up, unwillingly, in the swirl of not enough money and bad administration. They find themselves unable to extricate themselves because they are afraid of the fiscal risks this would entail.

Some say I'm a naive dreamer who is always trying to combine the incompatible: Aboriginal and treaty rights and Indian Act policies and schemes. I know this song well; I've heard it sung all my life. Yet we have restored the Aboriginal and treaty rights to the Constitution of Canada. We have transformed some of our oppression by legal means. We have proved in the Supreme Court of Canada that our treaty rights exist, proved that our Aboriginal rights exist. These dreams have turned out to be possible. Moreover, our ancestor's visions turned out to be the only way to do it. Not only that, but it was the only way that made sense of who we are.

Neither I nor anyone else will ever win this struggle of our treaty rights once and for all. At the very most, we can win a battle or two, and even that is not certain. Yet, I still think it makes sense to wage this struggle persistently. It has been waged for centuries, and it will continue to be waged, we hope, for centuries to come. This must be done on principle - because it is the right thing to do. It is an eternal, never-ending struggle waged not just by good people (among whom I count myself, more or less) against evil people, by honourable people against dishonourable people, by people who think about the world and eternity against people who think only of themselves and the moment. It takes place inside everyone. It is what makes a person a person, and life, life.

So anyone who claims that I am a dreamer who expects to transform hell into heaven is wrong. I have few illusions. But I feel a responsibility to work towards the things I consider good and right. I don't know whether I'll be able to change certain things for the better, or at all. Both outcomes are possible. There is only one thing I will not concede; that it might be meaningless to strive in a good cause.

Recent events have confirmed that the Indian Act regime was wrong. The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples Report and the Minister of Indian Affairs have agreed that the historical policies of the Indian Act regime were based on false understandings. These false understandings allowed the federal government to dispossess us of our traditional territory protected by treaties, to ignore our Aboriginal and treaty rights that protected our wealth, to ignore our tradition of governance and impose an alien system that they could control, to assert racial and cultural superiority, suppression of our language and culture and attempting to change our children in residential schools and provincial education system. This effort was accomplished through manipulation of power and public opinion. It was not accomplished by the rule of law.

The new policy language of the federal government is reconciliation and partnership. The federal government says that they want to find ways in which Indians can participate fully in the economic, political, cultural, and social life of Canada in a manner that preserves and enhances the collective identities of Aboriginal communities, and allows them to evolve and flourish in the future. The mistakes of the past, they say, will not be repeated. They say, this time, their words will be supported by concrete action. Fine thoughts, but not supported by the Department's actions.

Their concrete action, however, reveals that the Department has not healed themselves. We can never forget that the Department of Indian Affairs created the false assumptions of colonization and racism, ... created genocide policies over our treaty rights. They continue to impose these false assumptions over Mi'kmaq. They choose not to fully implement our treaties. They refuse to pay fair compensation for the interference with our Mi'kmaq title. More surprising, after constitutional reform and loss in the courts, the Department still says those things - still continues the old assumptions and failed colonization.

The Department needs healing. They need to begin with the false assumptions and fictions they bring to our discussion. They need to understand the terror and effect of their policy, their assumptions, past mistakes and injustices, and violation of treaty federalism on our people. However, they are more concerned with our healing the victims than with curing their disease. This is another manifestation of their assumed superiority. They do not need healing. As I have said many times to the Department, "You can't be the cure if you're the disease."

The Department's policy environment is still contaminated by these false assumptions. No reconciliation, healing, or renewal can begin if the Canadian governments are still committed to the colonial regime and its false understandings. Our hard won experiences, our painful struggles, our long history of humiliating misunderstanding about our treaties, heritage and capacities, the tension and strains created by the Canadian governments cruel indifference to our rights, and the Canadian government's mean spirit in carrying out treaty obligations will not allow us to cooperate with a colonial system or with its artificial structure and pervasive racism.

The Canadian government's response to the RCAP Report and Recommendations affirm that they have not learned the lessons of history and colonization. They still deny our human dignity, and still deny us our constitutional rights - our inherent economic, political, social, and cultural rights - that create an existence worthy of human dignity. Also, the recent near hysteria of the Canadian and provincial government to our assertion of constitutional rights to fish, hunt, and use Crown land and their Canadian discourse of racism illustrate that the false assumptions continue in the bureaucratic mind. These reactions continue the implied policy of Canada - that Canada is created for the economic advantage of the immigrants.

Even though the courts have refused to allow Aboriginal peoples to use their constitutional rights for most commercial purposes, every constitutional gain is viewed as a loss to English and French Canadians. These courts' decisions are not seen as valid activities seeking to renew the existing treaty federalism, and supporting strong communities, peoples, and economies but as the court handing out legal privileges based on race.

Canadian leaders and political parties continue to refuse to give our constitutional rights equality under the rule of law. Instead, they use equality as a sledge hammer to erase our constitutional rights. They define equality as identical to their visions of individualism without regard to our nationhood. This is not the rule of law, it is oppressive action. Canadian leaders, governments, and political parties are exhibiting the pathology of colonization. These behaviours and policies are inconsistent with the constitutional rights of Aboriginal peoples of Canada and cannot be justified in the new constitutional order.

Faced with the continuing ambivalence and indifference of Canadian governments to our constitutional rights, we will continue to resist. Justice requires the fulfillment of the spirit and intent of the treaties as well as the principles of interpretation as defined by the Supreme Court of Canada. Justice requires the fulfillment of our protected Mi'kmaw tenure, title, and rights, as defined by the Supreme Court of Canada in Delgamuukw. The rule of law requires compliance with the constitution, not oppositional policies resistance. Mi'kmaq should not be complicit with any constitutional inconsistency of the Canadian governments or other policy processes. We must assert our constitutional rights, our Aboriginal and treaty rights, against inconsistent government policy. Reconciliation is not indifference or ambivalence. Such attitudes are not the establishment of proper principles. The substance and practice of reconciliation is the ability to have respectful debates on how to implement our policies and issues.

Canadian government and its citizens must realize it is hopeless to try to persuade Mi'kmaq to relinquish their constitutional rights, our heritage, or our identities. We must maintain fidelity with our constitutional rights. We must not be complicit with the false assumptions and the pathology of colonization exhibited by the current Canadian government and political parties.

As Grand Captain, not only will I remain faithful to that notion of our ancestors' vision of a treaty order, but I also will attempt to bring it to at least partial fruition. I must repeat certain things aloud over and over again. I don't like repeating myself, but in this case it's unavoidable. In my many public utterances, I feel I must emphasize and explain repeatedly the treaty dimensions of all Mi'kmaq life, and point out that this dimension is, in fact, hidden in everything we do and everything we are. It is also the source of the rights of Canadians in our lands.

Mi'kmaq need to hear that it makes sense to behave decently or to help others, to place cultural interests above their own desires, to respect the elementary rules of human coexistence explained in our treaties. Mi'kmaq youths want to hear that decency and courage to be Mi'kmaw make sense, that something must be risked in the struggle against dirty tricks. They want to know they are not alone, forgotten, written off.

My message is simple. As long as we maintain our relationship to the land, we have an Aboriginal title. As long as we maintain our relations with the treaties, we remain a nation. As long as we accept the Indian Act, we will remain slaves in our land. The courts have clearly articulated what our constitutional rights are in Canada, what the government must recognize and not ignore. The federal government is resisting implementing the rule of law, as they always have. They will continue the toxic relations corrupted by injustice, from which we all must heal - both the Department and our leaders. The real work of restoring nation, our land, and our people, is ahead of us. I urge the Mi'kmaw families and youth to help make this critical shift to our pre-existing Aboriginal and treaty rights. We must live up to our teachings and legacies.

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