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Comment by garbagewoman | Hacker News Reader

You think they shouldn’t negotiate with native tribes?

If they're not building reactors on the land allocated to native tribes, why should they?

That's the thing, they will be on unceded land. As I understand it Canadian settlers signed treaties which allowed indigenous people to retain rights to the land. Canada then violated those treaties and built on land they didn't own. Today Canada is trying to respect the original treaties while also appreciating that they can't undo what's already been done.

First Nations have treaties with Canada with constitutionally protected land use rights that have implications beyond tiny reserves. Rights to hunt and fish can be implicated by heavy industrial land use which compels a duty to consult. Doesn't mean that First Nations can veto a project, but also doesn't mean that all this can be ignored.

All of this is more complex in British Columbia where in many places treaties were never signed and so the land is unceded and under unresolved land claim.

Did the native tribes negotiate with whoever they last defeated? Or did Europeans literally invent the concept of conflict and war, and all the tribes of North America just filed into America in an orderly fashion and never battled each other?

I'm not saying every square mile of land in Canada, America, Europe has been controlled by at least two distinct tribes or nations, and been fought over at some point since the dawn of man, however I would say that most desirable land probably has. Many cultures have been partly or fully wiped out over human history. It's sad in all cases, but I'm not convinced there's any purpose served by arbitrarily elevating some of those cultures as noble and deserving of special veto power.

Note: I acknowledge that regardless of the above, Canada has formally granted them such powers anyway, so, yep, they get to live in that system they've created.

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