BC's municipal politicians have a golden opportunity this fall to set an example for their provincial and federal counterparts on a point of principle, but instead seemed determined to blow it. The opportunity in question is the prospect of holding municipal referendums on the Nisga'a treaty.
Normally, cities should stay away from holding plebiscites on issues over which they have no direct control, but every so often an issue appears which demands direct input from voters, especially when senior levels of government are determined to horse-trade core political and civil rights.

On this issue, the BC Fisheries Survival Coalition has already pushed hard, but so far it seems most local politicians would rather bury their heads in petty sewer issues than take a principled stand of great consequence. Too bad, since there are plenty of reasons why Nisga'a should be voted on somewhere, somehow, starting with the most visible but actually least important concern: money.

Back in 1995 when the first details of the deal leaked out, government estimates put the Nisga'a deal at $125 million in cash. That jumped to $190 million by the time the Agreement in Principle came out in 1996. When pressed, the government reported the land to be worth an additional $107 million. Last year, the new estimate was then $312 million, sort of. When then Premier Clark was questioned more closely, the cost ended up near $382 million. Add in a few things the Premier forgot to mention but later released by his staff, and the official estimate of Nisga'a - for 2,000 people - was voila, $459 million, a figure revised yet again a few days later to $490 million. And none of those figures include financial assistance to the new Nisga'a government.

Meanwhile, the estimated cost of "settling" outstanding treaty claims in BC has likewise been revised upward repeatedly, from a government estimate of $5 billion in 1992, to an estimate this past spring from then-Aboriginal Affairs Minister Gordon Wilson at possibly $10.8 billion in cash, land and resources. The opposition claims BC treaty settlements will reach $13 billion. Given the governments involved, who have never met a grievance they won't throw gobs of money at, don't bet your mortgage on even the opposition's estimate as the final cost.

But the dollar cost to taxpayers, while important, pales in comparison to the sell-out of core civil and democratic principles now being routinely horse-traded by politicians and bureaucrats in the treaty process - no voting rights for non-natives on native land, and continued communal ownership of land instead of private property. (Of course, communal ownership has been a smashing success on native reserves thus far, not to mention its great history in Eastern Europe, Cuba and Cambodia.)

But back to municipal politicians; if federal and provincial politicians willingly give away the taxpayer farm, and then throw in core civil and political rights of both native and non-natives in the process, one would hope some principled local politician with a little courage might stand in defense of principle and the common good.

So far though, the response is underwhelming. Excuses range from it being "too late" to print up referendum ballots to wanting to avoid the "division" such referendums would bring. (Note to such local politicians: Such "divisions" are the stuff of democracy, and principles are worth a little division from time to time.)

So it seems BC's local politicians would rather chat about sewers and street lamps than issues of real consequence. How tragic.