Canada Indigenous Trapped in the Colonial Present

Neither Britain nor Canada nor the settlers of British Columbia themselves have ever honourably addressed the peoples whose lands and resources form British Columbia. The indigenous nations in what is now called British Columbia have never joined Canada but had citizenship imposed on them. The province of BC has never fulfilled Canada’s constitutional requirements of purchasing lands from the indigenous owners before settling.

Why do the people of BC seek the dissolution of some thirty distinct indigenous nations? Why do they cry, “One law for all Canadians,” in answer to indigenous efforts to exercise their right of self-determination?

BC’s economy is 80% derived from extraction of natural resources from lands and waters that have never been ceded, sold or surrendered to them by their indigenous owners.  What’s more: recognition of this fact has given rise to what is called “the uncertainty principle” currently impeding foreign investment, as judicious investors fear doing business with governments or others whose claims to ownership may ultimately be proved illegitimate.

The ongoing colonization of British Columbia relies on the settler population’s indifference to the indigenous peoples’ plights and rights. The Colonial Present documents the colonizer’s manufacture of a new mythology to dehumanize the native peoples and strip them of their rightful place. The interests of resource industries have dominated accounts of indigenous peoples throughout the mainstream media, the academic presses and the courts. They have substantially corrupted and impoverished the non-native understanding of indigenous peoples on whose homelands they live and work, and to which they seem to feel entitled. On the strength of these standardized lies, new British Columbians coming from all over the world comply with the destruction of distinct nations with lands, languages, cultures and peoples.

The indigenous nations and individuals have suffered excruciating losses. But the highest expression of official BC aspirations for reconciliation is only that they should release title to their homelands, accept a small financial, land and program funding settlement, and submit to the British Columbia Treaty Commission agenda reducing them, in legal terms, to incorporated associations exercising management capacities barely distinguishable from those of BC municipalities, while by fee simple title, their lands and rich resources are ceded to the Queen.

This book is an exploration of how such a stunning string of events has happened, and British Columbians’ continuing attempts to rationalize them.

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Available in the US from Clarity Press,amazon.com, Baker & Taylor, Barnes & Noble, Ingram and online booksellers

Available from Distributors in the USA, the UK/Europe, Middle East, Malaysia/Singapore

ABOUT THE COLONIAL PRESENT:

“Kerry Coast lays bare the putrid sophistries through which the Canadian state purports to legitimate its genocidal expropriation of the indigenous homelands comprising what is officially known as “British Columbia.” This is history as it should be done.”
– Ward Churchill, author and activist

“A timely, thorough, and readable exposé of the persistence of colonialism in British Columbia, the genocidal policies of Canadian settler society, and their ongoing effects on First Nations peoples.  The Colonial Present integrates historical context and contemporary political and cultural dynamics into its compelling assessment of urgent questions affecting indigenous land, natural resources and sovereignty.  This fascinating study provides a template not only for understanding but transforming colonial realities throughout North America.”
Natsu Taylor Saito, Professor of International Law, Georgia State University, author of Meeting the Enemy: American Exceptionalism and International Law
Hear Kerry Coast on rabble.ca

Hear Kerry Coast on rabble.ca

Kerry Coast at the Meeting of the
UN Expert Mechanism on the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples
(EMRIP), July 2013
Kerry Coast at the Meeting of the
UN Expert Mechanism on the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples
(EMRIP), July 2013

KERRY COAST is a journalist, dramatist and activist in unceded indigenous territories on the Pacific Coast, now called British Columbia, Canada. Publisher of The St’at’imc Runner newspaper for five years and The BC Treaty Negotiating Times for three years, she has a thorough working analysis of how indigenous peoples are still being faced with assimilation or criminalization in modern-day BC and Canada. Coast’s proudest accomplishments include performing with the Ucwalmicw Players over five seasons, working with Literacy Matters Lillooet to promote the double mandate of literacy aims in English and Ucwalmicwts, and working in the movement to protect wild salmon. Coast has lived her life in the lands of the Squamish, Líl’wat, St’át’imc, Secwepemc and Sto:lo.

Coast has served as representative of the International Human Rights Association of American Minorities at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, in New York, from 2011-2013, and at the July 2013 meeting of EMRIP.

Kerry Coast (third right) at the Meeting with UN Special Rapporteur on
Indigenous Peoples, James Anaya (center), in Vancouver, BC October 10, 2013.