Some day, I think that the Halalt Decision will be talked about by our children with the same high regard leaders of today talk about the Delgamuukw or Haida Decisions by Canada’s courts.

I would recommend that everyone download the 178-page BC Supreme Court decision. Maybe you could print it out and keep it at your bedside for nighttime reading. And while reading, you will probably be amazed, like I was, at the power and knowledge that Madame Justice Catherine Wedge showed in reaching her decision.

In a nutshell, the judge thoroughly chastized BC and the District of North Cowichan for a number of things, but mainly in the procedures involved in awarding the certificate. Justice Wedge said that Halalt had a good case for aboriginal title because of “shared exclusive occupancy” with other Hul’qumi’num nations. She talked a lot about the failure to consult and accommodate Halalt.

As a member of Stz’uminus council, the decision interested me on many levels. First of all, the Halalt are our relations and neighbours. Our #10 and #11 Reserves are near Halalt and we have shared history with Halalt and the nearby Penelakut reserve. Also, my own nation’s relationship with a neighbour – the Town of Ladysmith – has many of the same challenges that Halalt discovered.

All of our Naut’sa mawt Tribal Council nations have ongoing relationships with neighbouring municipalities, regional districts and, of course, the governments of BC and Canada. These relationships are a lot like a marriage. The parties can argue all they want, but at the end of the day, a way has to be found to get along with one another.

That is what a lot of the ‘sub-text’ was for me in the Halalt decision… getting along and being recognized as an equal partner at the table. My heart soared when I read Justice Wedge writing about Halalt having an “arguable case” for aboriginal title and that it had a “legitimate claim to a proprietary interest” in the groundwater.

Weeks before the Halalt decision in mid-July, the BC Assembly of First Nations published its Governance Toolkit. Reading through that document in light of the Halalt decision brought one big thing home for me. If we are going to be taken seriously and be respected by our neighbour governments, we have to face up to the big responsibilities we face as we all move toward self-governance.

And that reminds me of what I was talking about earlier when I said that these relationships are like marriages. To make any marriage a good one, there has to be good communication at all levels. That’s why I will be paying close attention when NmTC leaders get together in September for our annual workshop that features NmTC’s own Toolkit on communications.

It is always a pleasure to sit around the table with leaders from other First Nation communities. I always hope that they learn half as much from me as I have learned from them!

That was the case when the Aboriginal Aquaculture Association (AAA) hosted one of its valuable information-exchange workshops in Nanaimo in late May. Like other workshops that the AAA has held in Port Alberni and Campbell River, this day-long session was rich in information about the many opportunities available to us through ‘farming’ seafood of all kinds. But it was the people sitting around the table, and the knowledge they brought with them, that really made the meeting worthwhile.

I was glad to be joined at the meeting by my fellow Naut’sa mawt Tribal Council executives: vice-chair Doug White of Snuneymuxw and secretary-treasurer Gordon Planes of T'Sou-ke. Also attending was Mike Baird representing Tsawwassen fisheries, my relative Harvey Alphonse from Cowichan and fishery leaders from other parts of the Island.

Once again we learned just how much all First Nations have in common when it comes to fisheries issues, whether it is wild sockeye or farmed salmon, wild geoducks or farmed clams and oysters. We are all worried about disappearing wild resources and about our access to aquaculture opportunities.

As the AAA explained, there are many opportunities available to us in the aquaculture sector. The question is whether we will be able to take advantage of the resources in our traditional territories or if we will just sit back and watch while others profit.

That is exactly what happened in the past. And it is why I asked the AAA if they would be able to provide mediation help to nations who might want to work with the Underwater Harvesters Association (UHA) on resolving the geoduck issue. I was very pleased to hear Odd Grydeland of the AAA say that help would be available when we needed it.

I also told the meeting that the geoduck protest that occurred at Stz’uminus last summer was all about access to resources along our beaches, not in some remote spot. The relationship between the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the UHA looks like it is big conflict of interest to me.

I hope the AAA will continue to go to bat for us and keep on having such worthwhile meetings.