A West Coast lawyer says he thinks more practical approaches need to be taken to the duty to consult issue.
Keith Bergner says some arguments over development on First Nations land are becoming increasingly bogged down in questions over legalities.
He argues this is especially true when the question of what consultation actually means gets thrown into the mix:
“If proponents and First Nations can find their way through at the negotiating table to something that works for everybody — well that’s obviously a better outcome than protracted legal debate in a courtroom or elsewhere which, at the end of the day as often as not, nobody wins.”
Bergner says, legally speaking, the duty to consult rule doesn’t actually give First Nations a veto over development on their territory.
But he says if the company actually communicates its intentions clearly to the First Nation, the two sides often can get down to business and figure out what concerns need to be met.
Bergner says, failing that, the First Nation will often launch a legal process that can slow things down, and essentially act as a type of veto.