While we wholeheartedly share in the exhilaration at the success of the Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en peoples in the recent legal decision in the white man’s courts, we also have a sense of foreboding.

Foreboding that the decision will have dramatic repercussions, even to initiating major paradigm shifts in the Canadian social fabric, and most likely worldwide. But first…. a recap of history.

When the white men came to North America, they did so from a society that valued strength over compassion. Being Church driven, ie. crusades, the first discovery voyages were meant to find new land that could be colonized and civilized. The key word here is civilized. With counsel from the early priests, the leaders of these excursions were convinced that the aboriginal peoples already living on the land were not civilized (as these visitors thought of civilized, which we now know to have been of questionable quality). Therefore is was right and just that these barbarians be guided along the righteous path. To achieve that end, it was deemed appropriate to usurp any and all traditions and rights these poor people "suffered" through during their histories.

This led to white people taking over "management" of the lands and resources, sometimes with appropriate recompensation. As the barbarians did not have a civilized language, written contracts of exchange were few and far in-between, with most being verbal accords. At that time, most white men and all of the aboriginal peoples lived by the motto : "My word is my bond" and the tradition of a hand shake sealing an accord. That was then.

Regrettably, until now the aboriginals have had great difficulty in proving their version of history. Not too many written accords were made. To fight for their rights, aboriginals have had to learn the white man’s ways… legal ways… and venture into civilized courtrooms. In that environment, they have been educated to realize that written agreements are considered of higher value than verbal accords, especially in todays over-legalized society. Lawyers are everywhere. They would loose out if more value were associated with verbal accords and fewer written contracts were undertaken. The letter of the law would be undermined by the "intent" and moral arguments.

The Changing the rules article by Jennifer Hunter in the December 22nd issue of Maclean's sheds light on some of the events that have lead to the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision that…

"…native people can have clear, definable aboriginal title to their land,... that their oral histories… are just as valid as written European history, and that governments have "a moral, if not legal, duty" to negotiate… "in good faith"."

And that brings me to our TrendStar ^® alert !

With verbal contracts now considered acceptable evidence in disputes between two parties, namely aboriginals and governments, we will see a major paradigm shift in people’s dealings between each other as this thinking pervades the rest of society. From now on, anything that one says could be considered part of an agreement… part of a binding legal new-age contract. The result ? A need for new types of protection. No more need for massive legal departments, but certainly a need to tape all conversations using both audio and video technologies, some of which can be very unobtrusive, even secretly registering every thing. But hold on here. Since nascent technologies already exist to "manufacture" scenes involving interaction between peoples, why go to the bother of meeting with someone when you can create a virtual meeting, tape it, and provide it as proof of a verbal accord ! Boy oh boy !… will we need techies and nerds to help us, eh !

In the meantime, sincere congratulations to the Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en peoples, and other native peoples, on their new found "power" in negotiating with governments as true "equals".

Let us hope that all parties involved in future negotiations will remember that accords are only as good as the honesty and sincerity that the participants bring to the table.