Tsawwassen Treaty is Racially Discriminatory …

… writes Mark Milke in the National Post:

… Canadians in general are suspicious of any policy that provides favourable treatment to certain Canadians on the basis of their race. A national poll in 2003 from the Centre for Research and Information found 49% of all Canadians believed that “few or none” of the hundreds of land claims made by aboriginals were valid; 43% thought they were.

Some would argue that such numbers reveal hidden racism. I disagree. Whether the issue is Caledonia, the Tsawwassen Treaty, separate commercial fisheries, unnecessary and preferred tax treatment or lobster fishing by select natives out of season on the east coast, there is an important principle at stake. Institutionalized racial discrimination represents the antithesis of an ethnically neutral and liberal society. While most Canadians accept the reality of any preferential treatment mandated by existing treaties, many also suspect, rightly, that going further down that road in new treaties or government policy only encourages segregation and deepens the pathologies that result therefrom.