Subhead:Guests appearing on the state broadcaster made dramatic claims about the treaties covering Alberta. There’s only one problem, the words in those treaties contradict these so-called experts’ claims.#
CBC recently quoted two First Nations leaders and an Indigenous politics professor arguing that Alberta has no path to separation because treaty lands were never “ceded, given up, yielded or surrendered.”
“Alberta can’t separate. They simply cannot. They do not have the authority,” said professor Danette Starblanket.
Starblanket’s argument wasn’t merely that separation would be difficult or constitutionally messy. She made a broader claim: treaty territories were never “ceded, given up, yielded or surrendered,” that First Nations maintain authority over those territories, and because treaties helped create Canada itself, they cannot simply be violated.
Dramatic claim. There’s only one problem: the treaties themselves say otherwise.
The written text of the numbered treaties covering Alberta, including Treaties 6, 7 and 8, repeatedly uses explicit surrender language.
