Tonda MacCharles, Toronto Star
After the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) warned Prime Minister Mark Carney he must secure Indigenous Peoples’ consent to his plans to expedite massive infrastructure projects, citing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, Fraser said the legal duty under that declaration is viewed by international experts and the current government as limited.
“In most circumstances, I think it demands a very deep level of, of engagement and understanding of the rights that may be impacted. And to the extent that those rights can be accommodated, we should make every effort to. The explicit nature of a veto — so from my understanding — is it stops short of a complete veto,” Fraser said in response to the Star’s questions Tuesday.
“But it certainly, in my view, heightens the demands upon government to engage fully to both understand the nature of the rights that could be impacted by decisions taken by the government, but also the heightened duty to accommodate those rights that are baked into our treaties and protected by our Constitution.”
