Prospering Together: The Economic Impact of the Aboriginal Title Settlements in BC. 2nd ed.

David Mardiros is a lawyer and anthropological consultant in Terrace,
British Columbia.

Originally published in 1998, Prospering Together is an extremely timely
work. With the election of a Liberal government in British Columbia in
2001, a complete overhaul of the decade-old provincial treaty process is
under way—a process that includes a provincewide referendum on the
direction the government should take in negotiating treaties with B.C.
First Nations. Little of the debate to date, however, has focused on the
economic impact of settling Aboriginal claims on both the First Nations
and the larger society. The contributors to this work supply important
information and advance compelling arguments in favor of settling
Aboriginal claims that go far beyond the ideological posturing that has
characterized the current public debate.

The authors come from a variety of academic and applied
disciplines—history, economics, political science, forestry,
health-care administration, and law. In nine chapters, they set out the
recent history of the treaty process and provide analyses of the
implications of the process on land and resource tenure, investment and
capital productivity, education, heath, and self-government. There is
also a useful discussion of the terms of the Nisga’a Agreement, the
one modern treaty that has been negotiated in British Columbia, as well
as an analysis of the criticisms leveled at that agreement. The editor
has thoughtfully provided a useful overview of the issues and a summary
of the positions of each of the authors.

While much of the public debate in British Columbia has focused on the
cost to the taxpayer of settling the many First Nations’ claims in the
province, Prospering Together presents the other side of the coin—the
costs of not settling claims. Included in these costs are lost capital
investment in the resource sector due to uncertainty of land tenure, the
cost of the continued poor-health situation among the province’s
Native peoples, the cost of the extensive Aboriginal Affairs
bureaucracy, and the cost of interminable litigation over Aboriginal
land title and rights. While the authors all recognize that settling
Aboriginal claims is not a panacea for all ills facing First Nations
people, this book provides useful food for thought for all Canadians who
wish to develop an informed opinion of the merits of settling Aboriginal
claims.