Indigenous people need place around Site C table: new report – Times Colonist

September 25, 2017

“Collaborative consent,” an approach to making political decisions about land and fresh water as they affect First Nations and other Canadians, can offer some answers to issues like the Site C dam, says an advocate for Indigenous Peoples.

A report by the POLIS Water Sustainability Project at the University of Victoria and the Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources lays out a shift to achieve what it calls a more equal and fair relationship between First Nations and other governments in Canada.

Merrell-Ann Phare, lead author of the report, Collaborative Consent and British Columbia’s Water: Toward Watershed Co-Governance, said collaborative consent starts with agreeing to have discussions with Indigenous Peoples on a nation-to-nation basis.