Brandishing a U.S. tribal-law text like holy writ, B.C. lawyer Doug White insisted Indigenous peoples can have the same in Canada — their own laws, police and courts.
At a key meeting in November 2018 at the B.C. legislature involving government and Indigenous leaders, he pulled aside Attorney-General David Eby and Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth and pointed across the Juan to Fuca Strait at Washington State.
“I waved this book around,” he vividly re-enacted, “and said I want you guys to know what this is. Look across at the southern part of the Coast Salish world … and you will find Coast Salish courts with Coast Salish judges applying Coast Salish law. In the north here, it’s a completely different history of exclusion.
“If we are being serious about shifting into a period of rights recognition … if we are serious about the U.N. declaration, we have to be talking about the implementation of self-determination in terms of justice.
