British Columbia aboriginal treaty referendum, 2002
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The BC Treaty Referendum was a province-wide referendum on First Nations treaty rights in British Columbia, Canada. In the spring of 2002 the
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Gordon Campbell and the British Columbia Liberal Party government sent out ballots to registered voters in the province. 35.84% of ballots (763,480) were received by Elections BC by the deadline of May 15. Over 80 per cent of those ballots indicated agreement with all eight principles. Between 55,000 and 60,000 votes on each question were rejected.


Questions posed

The referendum proposed eight principles that voters were asked to either support or oppose: 1. Private property should not be expropriated for treaty settlements. (Yes/No) 2. The terms and conditions of leases and licences should be respected; fair compensation for unavoidable disruption of commercial interests should be ensured. (Yes/No) 3. Hunting, fishing and recreational opportunities on Crown land should be ensured for all British Columbians. (Yes/No) 4. Parks and protected areas should be maintained for the use and benefit of all British Columbians. (Yes/No) 5. Province-wide standards of resource management and environmental protection should continue to apply. (Yes/No) 6. Aboriginal self-government should have the characteristics of local government, with powers delegated from Canada and British Columbia. (Yes/No) 7. Treaties should include mechanisms for harmonizing land use planning between Aboriginal governments and neighbouring local governments. (Yes/No) 8. The existing tax exemptions for Aboriginal people should be phased out. (Yes/No) Voters were also told that, for each principle, a Yes vote would compel the provincial government to adopt the principle in treaty negotiations, while a No vote would mean that the government was not bound to adopt the principle when taking part in treaty negotiations.


Outcome

Critics claimed that the phrasing of the referendum ballot was flawed. For example, the first principle, being phrased in the negative, may have confused some voters about which answer meant support. The fourth was written in such a positive way that a Yes response was virtually guaranteed. The eighth may have been misleading, since the tax-exemption for Status Indians is provided by the federal ''
Indian Act The ''Indian Act'' (, long name ''An Act to amend and consolidate the laws respecting Indians'') is a Canadian act of Parliament that concerns registered Indians, their bands, and the system of Indian reserves. First passed in 1876 and still ...
'', and cannot be altered by provincial governments. The impact of the referendum on treaty negotiations was also unclear, since the government did not indicate what level of support for each principle would be enough to make it binding, or whether any of the principles might still be taken into account by the government even if they had been rejected by some or most voters. The government called the referendum "an experiment in direct democracy," but a representative for the polling firm
Angus Reid Angus Reid (born September 23, 1976, in Richmond, British Columbia) is a former offensive lineman who played in the Canadian Football League. Reid went to Simon Fraser University and played for the Simon Fraser Clan. He began his career with the M ...
called it "one of the most amateurish, one-sided attempts to gauge the public will that I have seen in my professional career." Critics called for a
boycott A boycott is an act of nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organization, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for moral, social, political, or environmental reasons. The purpose of a boycott is to inflict som ...
of the referendum and First Nations groups collected as many ballots as possible so that they might be destroyed publicly. The boycott was backed by the Anglican Church, the United Church, the Presbytery of New Westminster, the
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, the Canadian Muslim Federation, the
BC Federation of Labour The British Columbia Federation of Labour (BCFED), often shortened to the BC Federation of Labour, is a central organization for organized labour in British Columbia, Canada. It was founded in 1910 and claims to have a membership of 500,000, wi ...
, the Council of Senior Citizens and the
David Suzuki Foundation The David Suzuki Foundation is a science-based non-profit environmental organization headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with offices in Montreal and Toronto. It was established as a federally registered Canadian charity on Jan ...
. 35.84% of ballots (763,480) were received by Elections BC by the deadline of May 15. Over 80 per cent of those ballots indicated agreement with all eight principles. Between 55,000 and 60,000 votes on each question were rejected.


See also

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Status of British Columbian First Nation Treaties The lack of treaties between the First Nations of British Columbia (BC) and the Canadian Crown, is a long-standing problem that has become a major issue in recent years. In 1763, the British Crown declared that only it could acquire land from Fi ...


References

{{Canadian Aboriginal case law Referendums in British Columbia 2002 referendums First Nations history in British Columbia 2002 elections in Canada Aboriginal title in Canada 2002 in British Columbia