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Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Rebecca Alty (pictured) announces new federal funding in Winnipeg alongside Sovereign Keewatin Yahthi Nations Grand Chief Walter Wastesicoot aimed at strengthening First Nations’ capacity to participate in consultations on major development projects.
Winnipeg Sun file photo
For many Canadians, frustration is no longer about a single project, a court ruling, or a government decision. It is about a growing feeling that ordinary citizens are losing their voice while a small group of lawyers, consultants, activists, and governments profit from endless consultation processes that never seem to end.
The recent Alberta court decision involving a separatist petition brought that frustration into the open. A judge ruled that Indigenous consultation had to occur before citizens could even move ahead with a democratic petition process tied to a possible referendum. Whether someone supports Alberta separation or opposes it entirely is not the point. The bigger issue is that Canadians are now watching democratic participation itself become tied up in consultation requirements that seem to expand year after year.
Most Canadians understand that consultation matters. Indigenous communities deserve to be heard when government decisions directly affect treaty rights, land use, or economic development. That is reasonable. What is no longer reasonable is a system where consultation has become so broad, expensive, and undefined that governments, businesses, and even voters can be trapped in years of delay before anything happens.
Winnipeggers know exactly what this looks like in real life.
Projects take years longer than expected. Housing developments stall. Infrastructure costs climb. Resource projects disappear. Investors leave. Governments hire outside consultants, legal advisers, facilitators, and negotiators while taxpayers carry the bill. Meanwhile, families are paying more for housing, utilities, groceries, and transportation because economic growth keeps getting blocked by process after process after process.
A typical Winnipeg household does not experience these delays as constitutional theory. They experience them through higher bills and fewer opportunities. When projects are delayed for years, construction costs rise. Those costs get passed directly onto renters, homeowners, and consumers. When investment leaves Canada because approvals are too uncertain, workers lose jobs and governments collect less tax revenue to pay for services people actually use.
The people benefiting most from this system are often not the average Indigenous family living in Winnipeg, Thompson, or northern Manitoba. Instead, the winners are frequently law firms, consulting companies, lobbyists, and political organizations that have turned consultation into an industry. Every delay creates another round of reports, meetings, negotiations, legal filings, and taxpayer-funded payouts.
Governments rarely admit this publicly because consultation has become politically untouchable. Any criticism is quickly labelled as anti-Indigenous or insensitive. That shuts down honest discussion. Canadians should be capable of supporting reconciliation while also questioning whether the current system is producing practical results for anyone outside a small professional class.
The defenders of the current process argue that stronger consultation protects Indigenous rights and prevents governments from repeating past mistakes. Fair enough. But there is a major difference between meaningful consultation and allowing consultation to become an unlimited veto over development, infrastructure, or even democratic participation.
At some point, governments must govern.
No province or country can function if every major decision becomes trapped in legal uncertainty for years. Businesses will not invest under those conditions. Young workers will continue leaving for stronger economies. Families will continue paying more while governments continue spending millions managing process instead of delivering results.
Other countries manage to balance Indigenous recognition, environmental protection, and economic development without creating endless paralysis. Canada increasingly looks incapable of making decisions at all. That hurts Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities alike because economic stagnation does not create prosperity for anyone.
Discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin is deemed unlawful under the Canadian Human Rights Act and likewise, the Human Rights Code of Manitoba. However, the epithet “colonizer” is often wielded with no connection to specific actions or personal behaviours, raising questions about its usage.
The solution is not eliminating Indigenous rights or ignoring treaty obligations. That would create even greater division and legal conflict. The solution is establishing clear limits, timelines, and standards for consultation so everyone understands the rules.
Governments should set firm deadlines for consultation processes. Courts should stop expanding consultation requirements into areas where no direct rights impact exists. Legislatures should have the authority to move projects and democratic processes forward once reasonable consultation has occurred. Taxpayers also deserve full transparency on how much money is being spent on consultation-related legal and consulting work every year.
Most importantly, governments need to remember who they work for.
Democracy cannot survive if ordinary citizens believe their voice matters less than unelected courts, endless bureaucracy, or special-interest negotiations happening behind closed doors. Canadians are patient people, but patience wears thin when they see projects collapse, costs rise, and opportunities disappear while governments hide behind process.
The consultation system was created to encourage fairness and inclusion. Increasingly, it is producing delay, confusion, division, and growing distrust in public institutions. When citizens start feeling like they need permission just to participate in democracy or build economic opportunity, governments should recognize that something has gone seriously off course.
That is not reconciliation. That is dysfunction.
—Kevin Klein is the Publisher of the Winnipeg Sun, a former City Councillor, and Minister of Environment with the Government of Manitoba and Host of Inside Politics. — Follow Kevin Klein on Facebook, X, YouTube, and visit his website kevinklein.ca