Another thoughtful piece, and yes, seats in representative proportion to population seems an ethical offer, one I'd support. I expect some FN might focus on lost opportunities to extract rent through self-serving friction for, even outright destroying, nation building projects.
One request:
"It tells the anxious settler base what it wants to hear without offering Indigenous communities or non-Indigenous communities anything structurally different..."
I'm not sure who you mean by "settler base"... new immigrants? internal migrants? I'm not a settler, and reject the label outright. I was born in Canada, my chosen label is Canadian, and I'm the only one who labels me. Calling me, and the people I know, "settlers" or "colonials" ends the conversation. I will turn away because it's not appropriate or respectful.
Glad the core argument is landing, and I appreciate the support.
On the rent extraction point: I'd gently push back. The framing assumes that First Nations opposition to resource projects is primarily self-serving friction rather than legitimate governance. Some of it may be. Some settler municipal councils engage in self-serving friction too. The proposal here is precisely to move those disputes into accountable political institutions where they can be argued, negotiated, and resolved rather than managed permanently in legal limbo. Representation is the answer to that problem, not evidence of it.
On settler: I understand the friction, and I want to be clear about how I'm using the word. It's descriptive, not accusatory. People whose families came to this land after it was already occupied by distinct nations are settlers in the same way that people whose ancestors were here before are Indigenous. That's a historical description, not a moral verdict. I'm not calling anyone a bad person. I'm naming a relationship that actually existed and that the rest of the argument depends on being honest about. The left has loaded the word with blame and some Indigenous activists have weaponized it. That's not what's happening here. If the word has been used against you unfairly elsewhere, I understand why it lands hard. But I'd also ask: if encountering a word you dislike is enough to close your mind to the argument being made, how is that different from the identitarian left and their approved vocabulary lists? Shutting down at language you've decided is offensive is the same move regardless of which side of the political spectrum makes it. I'm not going to stop using accurate language because others have misused it.
If you refer to Canadians who were born in this country as settlers, colonialists... especially now, in the current environment, your audience will shrink. I won't put up with it because it's disrespectful to label people in any way they do not choose for themselves.
Regarding "labels": I completely agree that there is not way to minimize a collection of individuals to a single, overarching cultural outlook. This is like saying that everyone who belongs to the "White, Anglo-Saxon, WASP tradition" - whatever the heck that is, agree completely - for argument - everything that Mr. Mark Carney says. I sure don't.
The term "settler" is used in this article in a way that is divisive, IMO. All individuals, regardless of who they are, are settlers. First Nations were arbitrarily said to be here first. Why? By who? What gives them the right to tell us what to think?
The article was worded in such an academically sure way it doesn't leave space for others to express or have differing opinions or beliefs. I'm unsure why it's necessary to not identify perceived bias?
Thanks Scott. This is the kind of engagement I hoped the piece would draw, so let me take your points honestly.
On labels, we actually agree. You can't reduce any group of people to a single outlook, and I wouldn't try to. But that's just the thing: settler, the way I use it, isn't a claim about anyone's outlook at all. It says nothing about what you believe, who you vote for, or what tradition you carry. It names a historical relationship to this land and to the Crown. My own family falls under it too. Nothing more than that.
Which goes to your stronger point. I am not drawing a line back to the first human footprints on this continent, and if I were, you'd be right to call it arbitrary. That isn't the line. When the Crown arrived, there were organized nations already here, governing this land, and the Crown made agreements with them. The Royal Proclamation of 1763, the treaties that followed. "Here first" doesn't mean some contest over deep prehistory. It means here, as nations, when those agreements were made. That isn't me deciding it, and it isn't arbitrary. It's the documented basis on which this country was legally assembled. The whole argument rests on those agreements, not on ancestry and not on who migrated when.
So when you ask what gives anyone the right to tell us what to think, I'd gently say nobody is. I'm not telling you what to think. I'm describing the ground the argument stands on, and you remain completely free to reject the argument built on it.
As for writing it too surely and leaving no room, I'll push back a little. I wrote it plainly because I believe it, and because a claim stated clearly is far easier to argue with than one buried in qualifications. Had I hedged every line, you'd have less to grab hold of, not more. And I'm not hiding a bias. I write openly as a conservative making a conservative case. That's the masthead, not a secret. The room for disagreement was never going to come from me softening the claim until it said nothing. It comes from exactly what we are doing right now.
And I mean that. If settler doesn't sit right with you, and Canadian is too broad to carry the distinction the argument needs, then I'm genuinely asking: what word would you use? The distinction doesn't disappear with the label. The piece ends on the word discussion for a reason. So let's have it.
You can use any words you like, but if you want to treat me with respect, you'll only refer to me using descriptors and labels that I want. Anyone who uses the word "settler" or "colonist" to refer to someone who was born in Canada is using the word inappropriately. I was born in this country. Full stop. I've been consistent about this point ever since people started spewing it, long before it became as loaded as it is now. I'm no colonist, nor am I a settler. I'm Canadian. No... other... labels.
I hear you, and I respect that you feel strongly about this. But I want to be honest with you rather than just agreeable, because I think you deserve that more than you deserve comfort. My respect manifests in the quality of this engagement, not in backing down from my use of the word automatically however.
Settler is not an insult in this context. It is a historical category describing people who came to a land already occupied by others and built their lives there. That includes my family. It includes most Canadian families. Accepting that description doesn't diminish anyone. It simply locates them honestly in a historical relationship that the rest of this argument depends on being clear about. I am not calling you a bad person. I am describing a fact about how this country came to exist.
On the question of labels people choose for themselves: I understand the principle and I respect it in most contexts. But I'd also gently note the irony. Demanding that a writer use only the descriptors you personally approve of, and threatening to disengage if he doesn't comply, is exactly the move the identitarian left makes. The mechanism is identical. Only the preferred vocabulary differs. I've been clear and consistent about how I use this word and what I mean by it. Readers who think carefully and engage seriously with the argument understand that. Those are the readers I'm writing for. I have lost many readers since my reiteration of this site and I am not lost to the fact that I will probably lose more. My freedom comes in not worrying about readership and focusing solely on the quality and consistency of my writing.
Historical description doesn't work on the basis of personal preference. We do not get to opt out of a historical category simply by asserting a preferred alternative. That's not how history works and it's not how honest argument works either.
You are Canadian. Absolutely. So are the Songhees and Esquimalt peoples whose territory Victoria sits on. Canadian is not a descriptor that resolves the question of what relationship exists between the people who were here first and the people who came after. It papers over it. That's precisely the problem. This argument requires a word that distinguishes between those two groups clearly and honestly. If settler is repugnant to you and Canadian is too broad to do the work, I'm genuinely open to the question: what word do you propose? Because the distinction itself is not going away regardless of what we call it, and I'd rather have that conversation than pretend the distinction doesn't exist.
If the word settler causes you to close the door on this argument, that is genuinely your choice and I will respect it. But I will not change accurate language to protect anyone from a historical truth that the argument requires us to face together.
(One could argue my great, great grandfather was a settler...)
If none of the above is enough, and it certainly is for me, the Oxford English Dictionary defines settler as, "One who moves, typically as part of a group..."
This has nothing to do with feeling strongly. This "colonial/settler" silliness is just another flavour of the month, in my lifetime, and it too shall pass.
It does have to do with how humans, in search for answers, even sometimes with the best of intentions, violate basic ethics about how to treat each other. Happens all the time. Humans are inconsistent, inauthentic, emotionally driven with rational justification, flawed, cruel, vindictive.
We can also be wonderful, and loving.
I'm not interested in this topic any more. You can call anyone a settler you want/need to. Just not me.
In the context in which I use the term, yes I am a settler. Because I am not a member of the nations that were here before my European ancestors and my Crown came and made formal agreements with them. The line in the sand here is not arbitrary it is based on the legal realities of our country and the agreements that were made by the same Crown we appeal to when we are wronged by another person or the government itself.
The ten-thousand-year question is the wrong one precisely because it's unanswerable, and that's what makes it useful to anyone who'd rather argue about prehistory than about the agreements actually on the books.
You speak of respect, sir, yet you continue to push your opinions instead of actually engaging with the thoughtful responses from SJI.
Further, as it stands right now - the government and narratives pervading society that we are living on stolen land, etc., - I am definitely not a proud Canadian. I used to be ... but not any more.
With respect, that simply isn't true, and the thread is right here to prove it.
I have written SJI well over two thousand words in this exchange, point by point, every objection met directly. You can scroll up and read them. What you are calling a failure to engage is a screen full of my engagement. So let's be clear about what's actually being asked. You don't mean I haven't responded to SJI. You mean I haven't conceded. Those are not the same thing, and I won't pretend they are.
I have said from the start that respect, for me, lives in the quality of the engagement, not in folding the moment someone pushes back. I've given the careful version. I've defined my terms, shown my evidence, and invited anyone who dislikes my language to propose better. That offer still stands. What I won't do is mistake agreement for respect, because that would be an insult to everyone in this thread capable of disagreeing with me and thinking anyway.
As for no longer being a proud Canadian over it, I'll only say this. The argument I'm making is the opposite of the one you think you're rejecting. I am not telling you that you live on stolen land and should feel ashamed of your country. I am saying this country made agreements, that honouring what we agreed to is the oldest conservative instinct there is, and that a Canadian can hold his head up precisely because we are the kind of people who keep our word. If pride in this country is what you're after, that's where I'd point you. Not to grievance. To the agreements we're capable of keeping.
That's my engagement. It has been here the whole time.
I haven't had the chance or inclination to sit down and read the full article yet, and based on this quote and post, I'm honestly even less inclined to read it. I think the accepted definition of "settler base" here on the Left Coast is anyone who can't trace their lineage in Canada back for millennia.
Read through the comments with sji. I’ve explained myself fully on how and why I use the term. If that stops you from reading the article then I personally don’t see how that is much different than the identity-politics left who censor writers and demand they use their accepted terms. There’s not much I can do about that.
I have and it has confirmed my suspicion that the interests of the Municipal Fly are not in opening minds and hearts to possible perspectives and truths (as we understand them right now) but is aimed at promoting an ideological narrative.
Then we'll have to disagree, and that's all right.
I'd only point out that "promoting a perspective" and "refusing to open minds" are not the same thing, though your comment treats them as one. I write from a stated point of view and back it with evidence. That's not a hidden agenda, it's the masthead. An opinion newsletter that held no opinions wouldn't be honest, it would be empty.
Opening minds was never going to mean arriving without one of my own. It means putting a clear claim on the table, showing the ground it stands on, and inviting anyone to take it apart. I've done that here at length, with you and with others, in thousands of words anyone can scroll up and read. The door has been open the whole time. You're choosing to read a firm argument as a closed one, and I can't talk you out of that, nor will I try.
While I haven't yet read the full article ... I'm really looking forward to it ... I'm wondering if the separation of "Indigenous" - which applies to all Canadians born on the land, in my opinion - is yet another aspect of "The British Great Game of Divide and Conquer"? Specifically, by legally recognizing a group based on "race," are you not creating a false dichotomy? I'm reminded of the Israel/Palestine conflict ... and, really, that kind of division is very evident everywhere colonialism or forced migration has taken place.
After sitting down and reading more closely, I'm sure I'll have other questions and possible connections or ideas!
Thanks for engaging — looking forward to hearing your thoughts after the full read.
On the race question: this is worth addressing directly because it comes up often and it matters. The proposal isn't based on race. It's based on nationhood. The First Nations of British Columbia are not an ethnic category. They are distinct political communities with their own governance traditions, legal histories, and prior occupation of specific territories. The Songhees Nation is not a racial designation. It is a nation, in the same sense that Canada is a nation, with a political identity that predates the province surrounding it.
The "all Canadians born on the land" framing, while I understand the inclusive spirit behind it, actually does the work of erasure rather than inclusion. It dissolves a distinct political and legal relationship into a general category of birthplace. That's precisely what the 1969 White Paper attempted: fold everyone into equal citizenship, eliminate the distinct status. Indigenous leaders rejected it for good reason. Equal treatment of unequal situations produces unequal outcomes.
The Israel/Palestine comparison is worth setting aside. That conflict involves two groups with contested claims to the same territory and no settled legal framework governing the relationship. BC has a legal framework: Section 35 of the Constitution, a body of Supreme Court jurisprudence, and the historical record of who was governing this territory before 1858. The comparison introduces heat without adding light.
The divide and conquer concern is real historically. But the answer to colonial division isn't to pretend the nations don't exist. It's to give them genuine political standing inside the institutions that govern their lives. That's the argument.
Who did the First Nations take the land from? Who was here before FNMI? Chinese? Koreans? The Inuit? Were the Inuit displaced thousands of years ago?
Isn’t yours (tongue-in-cheek) also a colonialist argument? Or is colonialism only practiced by Evil White Europeans? This is the problem of so-called colonialism. It reduces and eviscerates the truth that conflict/friction of one sort or another has actually been a significant driver of “evolution.”
Still haven’t finished your article. Just stream-of-consciousness …
Still looking forward to your thoughts once you've finished it.
On who was here before: the question is historically interesting but it's doing no legal work. The obligation to honour Aboriginal rights doesn't rest on some mystical claim about who occupied this territory since the dawn of human habitation. It rests on something far more concrete. When the Crown arrived it made formal legal agreements with the nations it found governing this land. The Royal Proclamation of 1763. The treaties. Those are contracts. They don't become void because someone can construct a chain of prior displacement stretching back ten thousand years. And for conservatives especially, the principle should be straightforward: you honour your agreements. Not because you feel guilty. Because that is what decent people do and always have done.
The colonialism practiced by Evil White Europeans point: I'd set the moral framing aside entirely because it isn't what I'm arguing. I'm not making a guilt argument. I'm making a contracts argument. Two parties entered into legal agreements. One party has not honoured them. The ancestry or virtue of either party doesn't change what the agreements say or what they require.
The conflict as driver of evolution observation is true as far as it goes. It just doesn't follow that because conflict is universal, specific legal obligations arising from specific historical relationships are therefore void. That's a non sequitur dressed as historical sophistication.
Finish the piece and come back. The argument I am sure stands on its own once you've seen the whole thing.
You propose those contracts as settled, yet not honoured?
I went to the courthouse a few months ago, requested and read the files for 5 FN land claim civil cases (disappointing... they should have been available through CSO... one does wonder why they have to be requested.)
Among the surprises was to read the very different versions of history presented by the parties, who said what to whom, when, and what it meant.
Those files present a picture of profound disagreement about the facts. They don't confirm a contract at all.
Another big surprise was to read that the FN cases include, as evidence, many land acknowledgements spoken by government officials, including the date, words, and context, and presented as evidence those individuals or entities are in full support of their side of this case. Several politicians with whom I shared this were surprised and taken aback. I'll never speak one now, and always wondered what those silly things were... a prayer? a legal statement? an ideological wish?
And to respond to your earlier question... you could refer to me as non-indiginous Canadian if you like. I'll accept that. You should always ask people what they're comfortable being called when you feel the need to use something.
SJI, first the obvious thing. You went to the courthouse and read the files. That puts you ahead of almost everyone who holds loud opinions on this, me included on my lazier days, so let me take what you found seriously, because it earns it.
You read profound disagreement about the facts, competing histories, no tidy contract underneath. I believe you. And here is the part that may surprise you. That is my argument, not a hole in it.
I have not proposed that the contracts are settled. Look at the title of the piece, The Offer We Never Made. Where the Crown actually signed, the numbered treaties and the Douglas treaties on the Island, there are real contracts. The dishonour there is often in the keeping, not the existence. But over most of this province, the Crown never signed anything at all. It never made the offer. So when you pull the land claim files and find two sides telling irreconcilable stories with nothing agreed beneath them, you have not disproved a contract. You have found the empty space where one was never written. That empty space is the subject. To be clear the contracts are not settled but the framework of entering into agreements with nations is well established in law and particularly with the Crowns relationship with First Nations of Canada.
Notice the venue where you found it. A courtroom. Two adversaries, each paid to present the half of history that helps its client, and a judge forced to choose between them. That is close to the worst machine ever built for settling a contested past, and it is the machine we use. You saw the dysfunction with your own eyes. My argument is that we need something designed to investigate and establish a historical record, not referee a contest between hired narratives.
On land acknowledgements, you are not imagining things. They are surfacing in litigation. That fact cuts both ways. It shows that words spoken lightly in ceremony are not weightless after all. It also shows the poverty of our approach, ritual substituting for resolution.
I have little interest in the ritual. I would trade every land acknowledgement in the country for one clear, negotiated agreement and constitutional certainty about where we all stand. Symbolism is cheap. Settlements are hard.
And thank you for answering the question I put to you. I mean that plainly. “Non-Indigenous Canadian” is perfectly clear.
Here is where I want to be precise.
When I use the word settler, I am not assigning you a personal identity the way one assigns ethnicity, religion, or a nickname. I am describing a political and historical position in relation to this land, the same position you describe with “non-Indigenous Canadian.” Those two phrases point to the same structural fact. There are nations here whose presence predates the Crown, and there are those of us whose legal presence flows from it.
You did not reject that distinction. You renamed it.
Consent governs personal identity. It governs how I would address you in person. If we were having this conversation face to face and the question arose, I would happily use the term you prefer. Courtesy is simple enough.
But in my writing, when I am describing a constitutional relationship rather than addressing an individual, I will use the vocabulary I find most accurate. That is not name calling. It is analytic language. I would not change that language because a reader experiences it as personal address when it is not intended that way.
You are free to use “non-Indigenous Canadian.” I will continue to use “settler” when I am describing the structure we both inhabit. I have an essay coming out next week that will dive into this exact issue that I am sure you will find most useful moving forward.
The very disagreement you found in those court files proves the point. We do not have a settled foundation. We have competing narratives inside an adversarial system, improvising outcomes province by province. That is not what a country with clear, honoured agreements looks like.
I disagree. I'm no settler and your justifications seem awkward. You can spin it any way you want, but it's less appropriate now that I've read your reasoning.
I saw that. But it doesn't change the facts presented in my series here. It just brings us back to where we were in May 2021 perhaps a little more wise and level-headed than before (one would hope).
Another thoughtful piece, and yes, seats in representative proportion to population seems an ethical offer, one I'd support. I expect some FN might focus on lost opportunities to extract rent through self-serving friction for, even outright destroying, nation building projects.
One request:
"It tells the anxious settler base what it wants to hear without offering Indigenous communities or non-Indigenous communities anything structurally different..."
I'm not sure who you mean by "settler base"... new immigrants? internal migrants? I'm not a settler, and reject the label outright. I was born in Canada, my chosen label is Canadian, and I'm the only one who labels me. Calling me, and the people I know, "settlers" or "colonials" ends the conversation. I will turn away because it's not appropriate or respectful.
Glad the core argument is landing, and I appreciate the support.
On the rent extraction point: I'd gently push back. The framing assumes that First Nations opposition to resource projects is primarily self-serving friction rather than legitimate governance. Some of it may be. Some settler municipal councils engage in self-serving friction too. The proposal here is precisely to move those disputes into accountable political institutions where they can be argued, negotiated, and resolved rather than managed permanently in legal limbo. Representation is the answer to that problem, not evidence of it.
On settler: I understand the friction, and I want to be clear about how I'm using the word. It's descriptive, not accusatory. People whose families came to this land after it was already occupied by distinct nations are settlers in the same way that people whose ancestors were here before are Indigenous. That's a historical description, not a moral verdict. I'm not calling anyone a bad person. I'm naming a relationship that actually existed and that the rest of the argument depends on being honest about. The left has loaded the word with blame and some Indigenous activists have weaponized it. That's not what's happening here. If the word has been used against you unfairly elsewhere, I understand why it lands hard. But I'd also ask: if encountering a word you dislike is enough to close your mind to the argument being made, how is that different from the identitarian left and their approved vocabulary lists? Shutting down at language you've decided is offensive is the same move regardless of which side of the political spectrum makes it. I'm not going to stop using accurate language because others have misused it.
If you refer to Canadians who were born in this country as settlers, colonialists... especially now, in the current environment, your audience will shrink. I won't put up with it because it's disrespectful to label people in any way they do not choose for themselves.
Regarding "labels": I completely agree that there is not way to minimize a collection of individuals to a single, overarching cultural outlook. This is like saying that everyone who belongs to the "White, Anglo-Saxon, WASP tradition" - whatever the heck that is, agree completely - for argument - everything that Mr. Mark Carney says. I sure don't.
The term "settler" is used in this article in a way that is divisive, IMO. All individuals, regardless of who they are, are settlers. First Nations were arbitrarily said to be here first. Why? By who? What gives them the right to tell us what to think?
The article was worded in such an academically sure way it doesn't leave space for others to express or have differing opinions or beliefs. I'm unsure why it's necessary to not identify perceived bias?
Thanks Scott. This is the kind of engagement I hoped the piece would draw, so let me take your points honestly.
On labels, we actually agree. You can't reduce any group of people to a single outlook, and I wouldn't try to. But that's just the thing: settler, the way I use it, isn't a claim about anyone's outlook at all. It says nothing about what you believe, who you vote for, or what tradition you carry. It names a historical relationship to this land and to the Crown. My own family falls under it too. Nothing more than that.
Which goes to your stronger point. I am not drawing a line back to the first human footprints on this continent, and if I were, you'd be right to call it arbitrary. That isn't the line. When the Crown arrived, there were organized nations already here, governing this land, and the Crown made agreements with them. The Royal Proclamation of 1763, the treaties that followed. "Here first" doesn't mean some contest over deep prehistory. It means here, as nations, when those agreements were made. That isn't me deciding it, and it isn't arbitrary. It's the documented basis on which this country was legally assembled. The whole argument rests on those agreements, not on ancestry and not on who migrated when.
So when you ask what gives anyone the right to tell us what to think, I'd gently say nobody is. I'm not telling you what to think. I'm describing the ground the argument stands on, and you remain completely free to reject the argument built on it.
As for writing it too surely and leaving no room, I'll push back a little. I wrote it plainly because I believe it, and because a claim stated clearly is far easier to argue with than one buried in qualifications. Had I hedged every line, you'd have less to grab hold of, not more. And I'm not hiding a bias. I write openly as a conservative making a conservative case. That's the masthead, not a secret. The room for disagreement was never going to come from me softening the claim until it said nothing. It comes from exactly what we are doing right now.
And I mean that. If settler doesn't sit right with you, and Canadian is too broad to carry the distinction the argument needs, then I'm genuinely asking: what word would you use? The distinction doesn't disappear with the label. The piece ends on the word discussion for a reason. So let's have it.
You can use any words you like, but if you want to treat me with respect, you'll only refer to me using descriptors and labels that I want. Anyone who uses the word "settler" or "colonist" to refer to someone who was born in Canada is using the word inappropriately. I was born in this country. Full stop. I've been consistent about this point ever since people started spewing it, long before it became as loaded as it is now. I'm no colonist, nor am I a settler. I'm Canadian. No... other... labels.
I'll address both comments together here.
I hear you, and I respect that you feel strongly about this. But I want to be honest with you rather than just agreeable, because I think you deserve that more than you deserve comfort. My respect manifests in the quality of this engagement, not in backing down from my use of the word automatically however.
Settler is not an insult in this context. It is a historical category describing people who came to a land already occupied by others and built their lives there. That includes my family. It includes most Canadian families. Accepting that description doesn't diminish anyone. It simply locates them honestly in a historical relationship that the rest of this argument depends on being clear about. I am not calling you a bad person. I am describing a fact about how this country came to exist.
On the question of labels people choose for themselves: I understand the principle and I respect it in most contexts. But I'd also gently note the irony. Demanding that a writer use only the descriptors you personally approve of, and threatening to disengage if he doesn't comply, is exactly the move the identitarian left makes. The mechanism is identical. Only the preferred vocabulary differs. I've been clear and consistent about how I use this word and what I mean by it. Readers who think carefully and engage seriously with the argument understand that. Those are the readers I'm writing for. I have lost many readers since my reiteration of this site and I am not lost to the fact that I will probably lose more. My freedom comes in not worrying about readership and focusing solely on the quality and consistency of my writing.
Historical description doesn't work on the basis of personal preference. We do not get to opt out of a historical category simply by asserting a preferred alternative. That's not how history works and it's not how honest argument works either.
You are Canadian. Absolutely. So are the Songhees and Esquimalt peoples whose territory Victoria sits on. Canadian is not a descriptor that resolves the question of what relationship exists between the people who were here first and the people who came after. It papers over it. That's precisely the problem. This argument requires a word that distinguishes between those two groups clearly and honestly. If settler is repugnant to you and Canadian is too broad to do the work, I'm genuinely open to the question: what word do you propose? Because the distinction itself is not going away regardless of what we call it, and I'd rather have that conversation than pretend the distinction doesn't exist.
If the word settler causes you to close the door on this argument, that is genuinely your choice and I will respect it. But I will not change accurate language to protect anyone from a historical truth that the argument requires us to face together.
Nope. I'm a Canadian, full stop.
Only I choose my labels, and,
I was born in Canada.
(One could argue my great, great grandfather was a settler...)
If none of the above is enough, and it certainly is for me, the Oxford English Dictionary defines settler as, "One who moves, typically as part of a group..."
This has nothing to do with feeling strongly. This "colonial/settler" silliness is just another flavour of the month, in my lifetime, and it too shall pass.
It does have to do with how humans, in search for answers, even sometimes with the best of intentions, violate basic ethics about how to treat each other. Happens all the time. Humans are inconsistent, inauthentic, emotionally driven with rational justification, flawed, cruel, vindictive.
We can also be wonderful, and loving.
I'm not interested in this topic any more. You can call anyone a settler you want/need to. Just not me.
Can Eric trace his roots back 10, 000+ years to this land? If not, he is a settler too.
In the context in which I use the term, yes I am a settler. Because I am not a member of the nations that were here before my European ancestors and my Crown came and made formal agreements with them. The line in the sand here is not arbitrary it is based on the legal realities of our country and the agreements that were made by the same Crown we appeal to when we are wronged by another person or the government itself.
The ten-thousand-year question is the wrong one precisely because it's unanswerable, and that's what makes it useful to anyone who'd rather argue about prehistory than about the agreements actually on the books.
You speak of respect, sir, yet you continue to push your opinions instead of actually engaging with the thoughtful responses from SJI.
Further, as it stands right now - the government and narratives pervading society that we are living on stolen land, etc., - I am definitely not a proud Canadian. I used to be ... but not any more.
With respect, that simply isn't true, and the thread is right here to prove it.
I have written SJI well over two thousand words in this exchange, point by point, every objection met directly. You can scroll up and read them. What you are calling a failure to engage is a screen full of my engagement. So let's be clear about what's actually being asked. You don't mean I haven't responded to SJI. You mean I haven't conceded. Those are not the same thing, and I won't pretend they are.
I have said from the start that respect, for me, lives in the quality of the engagement, not in folding the moment someone pushes back. I've given the careful version. I've defined my terms, shown my evidence, and invited anyone who dislikes my language to propose better. That offer still stands. What I won't do is mistake agreement for respect, because that would be an insult to everyone in this thread capable of disagreeing with me and thinking anyway.
As for no longer being a proud Canadian over it, I'll only say this. The argument I'm making is the opposite of the one you think you're rejecting. I am not telling you that you live on stolen land and should feel ashamed of your country. I am saying this country made agreements, that honouring what we agreed to is the oldest conservative instinct there is, and that a Canadian can hold his head up precisely because we are the kind of people who keep our word. If pride in this country is what you're after, that's where I'd point you. Not to grievance. To the agreements we're capable of keeping.
That's my engagement. It has been here the whole time.
I haven't had the chance or inclination to sit down and read the full article yet, and based on this quote and post, I'm honestly even less inclined to read it. I think the accepted definition of "settler base" here on the Left Coast is anyone who can't trace their lineage in Canada back for millennia.
Maybe Eric can clarify this?
Read through the comments with sji. I’ve explained myself fully on how and why I use the term. If that stops you from reading the article then I personally don’t see how that is much different than the identity-politics left who censor writers and demand they use their accepted terms. There’s not much I can do about that.
I have and it has confirmed my suspicion that the interests of the Municipal Fly are not in opening minds and hearts to possible perspectives and truths (as we understand them right now) but is aimed at promoting an ideological narrative.
Then we'll have to disagree, and that's all right.
I'd only point out that "promoting a perspective" and "refusing to open minds" are not the same thing, though your comment treats them as one. I write from a stated point of view and back it with evidence. That's not a hidden agenda, it's the masthead. An opinion newsletter that held no opinions wouldn't be honest, it would be empty.
Opening minds was never going to mean arriving without one of my own. It means putting a clear claim on the table, showing the ground it stands on, and inviting anyone to take it apart. I've done that here at length, with you and with others, in thousands of words anyone can scroll up and read. The door has been open the whole time. You're choosing to read a firm argument as a closed one, and I can't talk you out of that, nor will I try.
All the best, genuinely.
While I haven't yet read the full article ... I'm really looking forward to it ... I'm wondering if the separation of "Indigenous" - which applies to all Canadians born on the land, in my opinion - is yet another aspect of "The British Great Game of Divide and Conquer"? Specifically, by legally recognizing a group based on "race," are you not creating a false dichotomy? I'm reminded of the Israel/Palestine conflict ... and, really, that kind of division is very evident everywhere colonialism or forced migration has taken place.
After sitting down and reading more closely, I'm sure I'll have other questions and possible connections or ideas!
Thanks for engaging — looking forward to hearing your thoughts after the full read.
On the race question: this is worth addressing directly because it comes up often and it matters. The proposal isn't based on race. It's based on nationhood. The First Nations of British Columbia are not an ethnic category. They are distinct political communities with their own governance traditions, legal histories, and prior occupation of specific territories. The Songhees Nation is not a racial designation. It is a nation, in the same sense that Canada is a nation, with a political identity that predates the province surrounding it.
The "all Canadians born on the land" framing, while I understand the inclusive spirit behind it, actually does the work of erasure rather than inclusion. It dissolves a distinct political and legal relationship into a general category of birthplace. That's precisely what the 1969 White Paper attempted: fold everyone into equal citizenship, eliminate the distinct status. Indigenous leaders rejected it for good reason. Equal treatment of unequal situations produces unequal outcomes.
The Israel/Palestine comparison is worth setting aside. That conflict involves two groups with contested claims to the same territory and no settled legal framework governing the relationship. BC has a legal framework: Section 35 of the Constitution, a body of Supreme Court jurisprudence, and the historical record of who was governing this territory before 1858. The comparison introduces heat without adding light.
The divide and conquer concern is real historically. But the answer to colonial division isn't to pretend the nations don't exist. It's to give them genuine political standing inside the institutions that govern their lives. That's the argument.
On the concept of erasure:
Who did the First Nations take the land from? Who was here before FNMI? Chinese? Koreans? The Inuit? Were the Inuit displaced thousands of years ago?
Isn’t yours (tongue-in-cheek) also a colonialist argument? Or is colonialism only practiced by Evil White Europeans? This is the problem of so-called colonialism. It reduces and eviscerates the truth that conflict/friction of one sort or another has actually been a significant driver of “evolution.”
Still haven’t finished your article. Just stream-of-consciousness …
Still looking forward to your thoughts once you've finished it.
On who was here before: the question is historically interesting but it's doing no legal work. The obligation to honour Aboriginal rights doesn't rest on some mystical claim about who occupied this territory since the dawn of human habitation. It rests on something far more concrete. When the Crown arrived it made formal legal agreements with the nations it found governing this land. The Royal Proclamation of 1763. The treaties. Those are contracts. They don't become void because someone can construct a chain of prior displacement stretching back ten thousand years. And for conservatives especially, the principle should be straightforward: you honour your agreements. Not because you feel guilty. Because that is what decent people do and always have done.
The colonialism practiced by Evil White Europeans point: I'd set the moral framing aside entirely because it isn't what I'm arguing. I'm not making a guilt argument. I'm making a contracts argument. Two parties entered into legal agreements. One party has not honoured them. The ancestry or virtue of either party doesn't change what the agreements say or what they require.
The conflict as driver of evolution observation is true as far as it goes. It just doesn't follow that because conflict is universal, specific legal obligations arising from specific historical relationships are therefore void. That's a non sequitur dressed as historical sophistication.
Finish the piece and come back. The argument I am sure stands on its own once you've seen the whole thing.
hmmm....
You propose those contracts as settled, yet not honoured?
I went to the courthouse a few months ago, requested and read the files for 5 FN land claim civil cases (disappointing... they should have been available through CSO... one does wonder why they have to be requested.)
Among the surprises was to read the very different versions of history presented by the parties, who said what to whom, when, and what it meant.
Those files present a picture of profound disagreement about the facts. They don't confirm a contract at all.
Another big surprise was to read that the FN cases include, as evidence, many land acknowledgements spoken by government officials, including the date, words, and context, and presented as evidence those individuals or entities are in full support of their side of this case. Several politicians with whom I shared this were surprised and taken aback. I'll never speak one now, and always wondered what those silly things were... a prayer? a legal statement? an ideological wish?
And to respond to your earlier question... you could refer to me as non-indiginous Canadian if you like. I'll accept that. You should always ask people what they're comfortable being called when you feel the need to use something.
SJI, first the obvious thing. You went to the courthouse and read the files. That puts you ahead of almost everyone who holds loud opinions on this, me included on my lazier days, so let me take what you found seriously, because it earns it.
You read profound disagreement about the facts, competing histories, no tidy contract underneath. I believe you. And here is the part that may surprise you. That is my argument, not a hole in it.
I have not proposed that the contracts are settled. Look at the title of the piece, The Offer We Never Made. Where the Crown actually signed, the numbered treaties and the Douglas treaties on the Island, there are real contracts. The dishonour there is often in the keeping, not the existence. But over most of this province, the Crown never signed anything at all. It never made the offer. So when you pull the land claim files and find two sides telling irreconcilable stories with nothing agreed beneath them, you have not disproved a contract. You have found the empty space where one was never written. That empty space is the subject. To be clear the contracts are not settled but the framework of entering into agreements with nations is well established in law and particularly with the Crowns relationship with First Nations of Canada.
Notice the venue where you found it. A courtroom. Two adversaries, each paid to present the half of history that helps its client, and a judge forced to choose between them. That is close to the worst machine ever built for settling a contested past, and it is the machine we use. You saw the dysfunction with your own eyes. My argument is that we need something designed to investigate and establish a historical record, not referee a contest between hired narratives.
On land acknowledgements, you are not imagining things. They are surfacing in litigation. That fact cuts both ways. It shows that words spoken lightly in ceremony are not weightless after all. It also shows the poverty of our approach, ritual substituting for resolution.
I have little interest in the ritual. I would trade every land acknowledgement in the country for one clear, negotiated agreement and constitutional certainty about where we all stand. Symbolism is cheap. Settlements are hard.
And thank you for answering the question I put to you. I mean that plainly. “Non-Indigenous Canadian” is perfectly clear.
Here is where I want to be precise.
When I use the word settler, I am not assigning you a personal identity the way one assigns ethnicity, religion, or a nickname. I am describing a political and historical position in relation to this land, the same position you describe with “non-Indigenous Canadian.” Those two phrases point to the same structural fact. There are nations here whose presence predates the Crown, and there are those of us whose legal presence flows from it.
You did not reject that distinction. You renamed it.
Consent governs personal identity. It governs how I would address you in person. If we were having this conversation face to face and the question arose, I would happily use the term you prefer. Courtesy is simple enough.
But in my writing, when I am describing a constitutional relationship rather than addressing an individual, I will use the vocabulary I find most accurate. That is not name calling. It is analytic language. I would not change that language because a reader experiences it as personal address when it is not intended that way.
You are free to use “non-Indigenous Canadian.” I will continue to use “settler” when I am describing the structure we both inhabit. I have an essay coming out next week that will dive into this exact issue that I am sure you will find most useful moving forward.
The very disagreement you found in those court files proves the point. We do not have a settled foundation. We have competing narratives inside an adversarial system, improvising outcomes province by province. That is not what a country with clear, honoured agreements looks like.
I disagree. I'm no settler and your justifications seem awkward. You can spin it any way you want, but it's less appropriate now that I've read your reasoning.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-there-is-no-reconciliation-without-truth/
Five years late, and at a cost to several good careers, but at least the words have been written.
I saw that. But it doesn't change the facts presented in my series here. It just brings us back to where we were in May 2021 perhaps a little more wise and level-headed than before (one would hope).