When we Canadians look at the unholy mess in the US, we gaze into the Evil Queen’s magical mirror -

Mirror, mirror on the wall

Who is the fairest one of all?

Is it you or is it me?

You’re so ugly, must be me.

And so we delude ourselves. We are Snow White.

Among the evils we see in the mirror is racism. Racism finds different expressions. Raw is what we all recognize when we hear the ‘n’ word and see a cop’s knee on a Black man’s throat. Systemic racism is all but invisible. It comes with the way we do things that seem fair to us but, in their application to people of colour, they discriminate.

But there is a third kind of racism, political racism. It is what we in Canada excel at. It’s the kind of racism that allows the delay of resolutions to systemic racisms we have already identified – the court-recognized treaty rights of the Mi’kmaq on the east coast for example.

This kind of racism is like a grass fire that burns underground for years and then, with a whistle of accelerant from certain political leaders, explodes into the trees.

In Ontario, Bruce Grey Owen Sound has experience with all three kinds of racism. Systemic racism consigned 1% of the Lake Huron-Georgian Bay fishery quota to Nawash for decades and left Saugeen out entirely. Raw racism inspired damage done to Saugeen Ojibway Nation fishing boats and gear – and to SON people. Political racism delayed negotiations with SON after a court recognized the Bands’ rights to fish commercially.

The court decision that rendered the MNR’s management regime discriminatory and illegal came in 1993, but an agreement that recognized SON rights and protected the fishery didn’t come until 2000.

So it is with Nova Scotia’s troubles. The Supreme Court of Canada handed down its Marshall decisions in 1999. Successive federal Liberal and Conservative governments have had 21 years to consult with the Mi’kmaq and negotiate a management plan to keep the in-shore fishery healthy. That should have included a definition of what the Court called a right to a “moderate livelihood” which, by the way, is in sync with Netukulimk, the Mi’kmaq way of managing natural resources.

Marshall II said the federal government could (not must) regulate the Mi’kmaq fishery for conservation and to protect public safety. But that regulation must come with thorough consultation with First Nations. And the Court did not mean that criminal acts spawned by raw racism should be the driving force behind Native regulation.

Why has it taken so long? Because First Nations people never matter much in politics (just look at Justin’s tattered ‘special relationship’). Their vote doesn’t swing elections. Their tax-free status angers white voters. Their harvesting rights enrage sportsmen (an influential group in rural Canada) and commercial fishers alike.

This is not unlike the political racism of the Dixiecrats who stalled implementation of Civil Rights legislation in the South in the 1960s.

So let us not gaze too long into the Magic Mirror south of us.

David McLaren, Neyaashiinigmiing, ON