Matthew Wildcat offers “Indigenous realist” view of Alberta separatism

By Jeremy Appel, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter 

(ANNews) – The forces that Alberta’s separatist movement represents pose a far greater threat than the prospect of Alberta separating from Canada, according to a scholar in the University of Alberta’s Department of Native Studies.

“It might be better for us to shift our energies from trying to foreclose the possibility of Alberta separation from a legal standpoint,” said Prof. Matt Wildcat, “to thinking through what the Alberta separatist movement is and how it should be responded to.”

Wildcat, a member of Erminskine Cree Nation in Maskwacis, made these remarks at the Parkland Institute’s annual conference at UAlberta on Saturday. 

He emphasized that all 48 First Nations in Alberta — either individually or via the organizations that represent them — have spoken against separatism as an infringement on Treaty rights. 

“There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest Indigenous Peoples as collective bodies support separation in any sort of way,” said Wildcat.

That hasn’t stopped separatist, or separatist-adjacent, leaders from claiming that their project would benefit Indigenous Peoples. 

Wildcat noted that Premier Danielle Smith, who has positioned herself as the voice of Albertans who are sympathetic to separatist concerns, has repeatedly claimed Cherokee ancestry to deflect from charges of racism. 

A 2022 APTN News investigation from Edmonton-based Métis journalist Danielle Paradis, in which a Cherokee genealogist established and analyzed Smith’s family tree, found “no evidence” to support Smith’s contention of Indigenous ancestry. 

The sort of political Pretendianism embodied by Smith, said Wildcat, has a “double effect.”

On the one hand, it “undermines the ability of Indigenous Peoples to make collective statements or speak with representative authority.” On the other, it “undermines the ability of Indigenous Peoples to have internal debate, because we are motivated to bury any sort of disagreements we have within our own communities.”

Smith has said that Alberta and First Nations are “treated the exact same way by Ottawa.” 

Wildcat noted that while Smith and the broader separatist movement try to “become buddies, so to speak, of Indigenous Peoples, there’s no actual willingness to listen to the claims of Ialndigenous Peoples.”

Jeffrey Rath, a lawyer with the separatist Alberta Prosperity Project, which is attempting to put Alberta’s future in Canada to a referendum next year, has faced disciplinary actions from the Law Society of Alberta for his dealings with First Nations. 

In July, he was fined $10,000 because, after getting fired by Thunderchild First Nation in Saskatchewan, he refused for six months to hand over documents to their new lawyers, and continued to claim he was the First Nation’s lawyer.

Rath was ordered in October to pay $800 for failing to properly represent Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation in litigation against the provincial and federal governments.

He has, however, promised that in the event of a successful independence referendum, the separatist movement would uphold First Nations Treaty rights in succession negotiations with the Crown. 

“There seems to be little substance behind the claims that he’s making,” said Wildcat, “but more importantly, he’s contradicted by other parts of the separatist movement.” 

Republican Party of Alberta Leader Cameron Davies has said that he isn’t sure whether First Nations reserves or Treaty rights would exist in an independent Alberta, which he likened to a “table where everyone has a seat.” 

“We’re all under the thumb of Ottawa – whether you’re First Nations or first-generation Albertan – and we have a unique opportunity to break free of that abusive, toxic relationship and forge a new partnership,” Davies said.

This language of a “new partnership” echoes the White Paper of 1969, introduced by then-justice minister Jean Chretien, which would have eliminated unique aboriginal rights from Canadian law to promote assimilation. 

Wildcat described an “Indigenous realist” approach towards the separatist movement, seeking to “grasp what’s in flux in this given moment and what are its likely impacts on Indigenous Peoples,” rather than looking towards a “decolonial future.” 

While the realist political framework emphasizes self-interest, Wildcat noted that “how someone can even understand their self-interest to begin with is never predetermined, but it’s shaped by the moral universe that someone lives in.”

Indigenous opposition to Alberta separatism, he explained, is not “because of some deep allegiance to Canada, but rather, it’s just a rational calculus of which government might you be better off with.” 

An independence referendum, even if it loses, added Wildcat, has an “incredibly high capacity to shape the type of policies that Alberta holds towards Indigenous Peoples.”

“Those policies are that Indigenous Peoples either do not have rights or that the benefit of Indigenous Peoples is simply the fact of living an economically prosperous Alberta,” said Wildcat. 

“It will contribute to an undermining of treating Indigenous Peoples as distinct political authorities who have to be listened to on their own terms.” 

The theme of this year’s Parkland Institute conference, held from Nov. 21 to 23, was Democracy Under Siege: Strengthening the Safeguards. 

Other conference speakers included activist and author Harsha Walia, independent journalist Rachel Gilmore, poet, playwright and literary critic George Elliott Clarke, and keynote speaker Peggy Nash of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.