To Make Or Not To Make

The Historical Analysis of British Columbia’s Treaty- Making Process

Abstract

This paper interrogated why the process of treaties was executed differently in British Columbia (BC) compared to the rest of the West; i.e., why did BC not negotiate any more treaties after 1854? To answer this question, this paper has offered three answers. First, the differing land history of BC in contrast to the Prairie West, which left BC with differing autonomy to enact its land policy. Second, that the difference in actors and institutions that negotiated the Douglas Treaties (in BC) and the Numbered Treaties (across the Prairies) led to these different outcomes. Finally, it analyzes the defence made by BC in modern-day land claims (Delgamuukw v. British Columbia [1997] and Calder et al. v. Attorney-General of British Columbia [1973]), that white settlement was enough to extinguish Aboriginal title without treaty, to understand why BC made the decisions it did historically, which placed it at such odds with the rest of Western Canada.