Idea for a hit Canadian show. Law & Order: Indigenous Victims Unit. The shows begin with a horrific crime reported by the Canadian media. Children murdered by priests and then buried in the dark of night with no markers. PMJT tells the world we are a genocidal culture. Media goes Code red. Statues of Canadian PMs past are toppled.

The kicker in the show is that no one actually investigates the allegation. It’s just an hour of media mindlessly repeating the claims while local indigenous leaders say we didn’t use headstones and the dead are accounted for. Every episode ends with PMJT sending a whack of money to indigenous agitators and a promise to repeat the plot next week.

Okay, a bit glib. But amidst all the carnage PMJT has inflicted on his citizens, the Indigenous shell game of accusation = payout has received scant attention from a media salivating for Woke narratives on CBC. If possible, the PM’s tepid performance on this file— firing his indigenous finance minister was the highlight— is worse than almost all the others combined.

His cringing performance theatre in a graveyard was the most visible sign of this ineptitude. But for longer-lasting harm to the nation you probably need to look at the negotiations his government and the NDP BC government are conducting with the Haida Gwaii nation (population about 4,500) of the Queen Charlotte Islands archipelago. While no one was looking PMJT and his scofflaw partner BC premier David Eby have created a scenario where indigenous bands in Canada can achieve the daily double of independence while retaining all the perks of a social welfare state.

So far the tactic is working— for the Haida Gwaii. To be brief, the Haida Gwaii, who never signed a treaty with the Crown, are claiming the Queen Charlotte Islands as an independent nation that simultaneously is a recipient of financial and health benefits from the people they’re taking to court. The Haida Gwaii have reached something called the Rising Tide “agreement” with the BC. The federal Liberals are panting for the chance to do the same.

Geoff Moyse KC explains: “Trudeau succumbed  to a provision in the Haida agreement to the effect it is not a ‘treaty’.  The sole reason for this clause is to preserve the Haida position that they are not Canadians, rather they are a completely separate nation.  As a separate nation they can negotiate “agreements” with other nations, such as Canada. But if they entered into a “treaty” they would be recognizing Canadian sovereignty.  Which they are not prepared to do.”

In exchange for this agreement, explains Moyse, PMJT and David Eby received no concessions whatsoever from the Haida Gwaii. There is no release of the huge claim for damages for all the alleged things done to them nor for damages for the benefits BC has extracted from the land over the last 200 years. There is no release claim to being a completely separate nation, not subject to Canadian sovereignty.

Eby, the freshly re-elected premier, claims this is “the greatest thing he has ever done, and he wants to enter into similar agreements throughout BC.” Eby wants to grant indigenous bands throughout his province joint control over Crown lands. The province would then need consent from their new partners to do anything on that land. Say goodbye to forestry and pipelines. 

What could go wrong? After all, this is Justin Trudeau we’re talking about. Mr. Sobriety. You guessed it. A bad deal became worse. BC has now instituted this Rising Tide agreement into provincial legislation. The federal Liberals seem intent on doing the same if PMJT can extend his mandate till October of 2025.

Instead of joint control, Eby and Trudeau will grant sole ownership and sovereignty of the Crown lands to the native bands, conceding aboriginal title over most of BC. Ergo, the PMJT/ Eby collapse could render property ownership worthless throughout the province. 

What’s infuriating in this abject retreat is that, in the only two cases to have gone to final verdict after a trial, the bands obtained aboriginal title to only a very small part of what they are claiming. In short, the law seems to be demonstrating that a rigourous defence of the federal position would likely result in minor concessions, not complete surrender.

There is a chance to save the province and many other disputed hotspots across the nation if someone will show some spine in Ottawa when the issue is tested in court. That’s why PMJT’s government is in a hurry to pass equivalent federal legislation to BC’s for this to cement Aboriginal title over the entirety of the Haida archipelago for all time.

The bad news is that the spine needed for indigenous claims currently belongs to PMJT. A weaker spine is hard to imagine. The good news is that, if current trends continue, his window to pass the agreement— especially in a prorogued Parliament— is shrinking rapidly. So to the list of things Trudeau wants to wreck given enough runway, you can add this file to the urgency for his departure.

It’s hard to imagine a more tendentious, perverse way to run a country. But Canada has been watching Law & Order: Indigenous Victims Unit, directed by PMJT and his deputy Jagmeet Singh, since 2015. It’s time to cancel the show.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster. His new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed Hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org. You can see all his books at brucedowbigginbooks.ca.