The BC treaty process was established in 1992 with the aim of resolving the outstanding land claims of First Nations in British Columbia. Two discourses have since become prominent within the treaty negotiations between First Nations and the governments of Canada and British Columbia. The first, a discourse of justice, asks how we can remedy the past injustices imposed on BC First Nations through the removal of their lands and forced assimilation. The second, a discourse of certainty, asks whether historical repair can occur in a manner that provides a better future for all British Columbians.

In Between Justice and Certainty, Andrew Woolford examines the interplay between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal visions of justice and certainty in the first decade of the BC treaty process to determine whether there is a space between the two concepts in which modern treaties can be made.

Using interviews, field research, and both archival and modern treaty documents, Woolford argues that the goal of certainty is overriding the demand for justice, and suggests that greater attention to justice is necessary if we are to initiate a process of reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples in British Columbia.

Andrew Woolford is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Manitoba. He is author of Between Justice and Certainty: Treaty Making in British Columbia (2005) and co-author of Informal Reckonings: Con-flict Resolution in Mediation, Restorative Justice, and Reparations (with R.S. Ratner, 2008).

Andrew Woolford's profile page

[T]his argument is very well made. Between Justice and Certainty is strongest in its presentation of a sociology of knowledge and meaning. Woolford’s work clearly demonstrates the profound gulf between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal parties at the negotiating table – and that these disjunctures are simultaneously masked and intensified by the very procedures that were designed to bridge these distances.

The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology

This book is destined to become a standard text for university courses dealing with First Nations issues, but, equally important, it should be required reading for politicians, negotiators, and policy makers involved in the B.C. treaty process. Between Justice and Certainty: Treaty Making in British Columbia will inform all those who seek a deeper understanding of why treaty making and reconciliation must begin with facing our history. For as Woolford argues so persuasively, our failure to do this will create neither certainty nor justice in indigenous-settler relations in British Columbia in the twenty-first century.

BC Studies, no. 149, Spring 2006