Making space for reconciliation in the planning system

Abstract

Indigenous rights complicate state-led planning with potentially important transformative effects. While rights may grant a particular kind of access to planning venues to create opportunities for challenging prevailing policy views about reconciliation, these opportunities may also be vulnerable to planning system changes. Drawing upon the case of Haida Gwaii, this paper tells a story about a dispute over territorial rights that have been squeezed out of institutional venues for over a century. In seeking to have this dispute heard, the Haida Nation have sought out blockades and the courts, achieving a collaborative planning arrangement with the Province of British Columbia in 2009. These events are set in contrast to a more recent environmental assessment that was initiated by the Government of Canada to consider the controversial Northern Gateway (tar sands) pipeline and tanker project. It is argued that a series of environmental planning reforms tied to this project review are likely to impinge upon the very strategies used by the Haida Nation to achieve collaboration.