The Reconciliation Manifesto: Recovering the Land, Rebuilding the Economy by Art Manuel

This is Art Manuel's second book in collaboration with Grand Chief Ronald Derrickson. The first book, Unsettling Canada: A National Wake-up Call, is an excellent companion to this follow-up and an indespensible read in itself. This celebrated sequel includes an introduction and afterword by Grand Chief Ronald Derrickson, as well as a preface by Naomi Klein spoken at Art Manuel's funeral, in which she expresses her profound respect for him as a “savvy tactician,” as well as a “true visionary,” whose work helped so many “to understand how indigenous land rights, if truly respected, hold tremendous power to create a more caring and generous society- and they are our only hope of protecting the planet from ecocide.”

The book is a well-structured work, educational and accessible. It has a coherent, well-thought out style that makes sense of very tough material, in particular the chronology of systematic legislation and the oppression of First Nations people since confederation and before. Art Manuel was a fighter for indigenous self-determination for his entire life, as was his father before him, George Manuel, and the book is loaded with helpful guidance towards a future of decolonized prosperity.

With a complete versing in UNDRIP, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, and as it is his job to be a critic, he spares no one his razor-sharp wit. At the time of writing he had an extremely cynical view of Justin Trudeau's approach, interpreting it as yet another twist in a pattern of doublespeak that creates false hope.

In particular, the book takes us on an interesting exploration of the White Paper, lest we forget, that is unforgettable but also grim and sobering. “Canada's unwillingness then and now to change comprehensive land claims and self-government policies, both of which demand that we surrender our Aboriginal title and rights, indicate that Canada accepts no fundamental change to be made to our impoverishment. Administering to Indigenous peoples through the dependency programs is an expenditure to maintain Canada and the provinces' 99.8 per cent control of our Aboriginal and treaty territories.”

He talks about new negotiations that offered non-committal agreements for FN land claims, but introduced a prerequisite of first extinguishing any existing arrangements and rights. In other words, contemptuous wordplay to further draw FN leaders towards legal quicksand. Remarks Manual, “but by this time, the UN was watching. After 1975, the UN said to Canada, 'You cannot ask indigenous people to extinguish their title as part of a land settlement agreement.' No people in world has the right to demand another people surrender their land to them. So Canada had to figure out how to meet the UN requirement and still get control of our land.”

My favourite chapter was chapter ten, “Changing Legal and Policy Landscape – 1984-2014” which is written with Art Manuel's typical dry wit. “We can see from the table below that the shape of these agreements are not really negotiated (in the usual sense of two parties sitting down and going through give and take) at all. The chapter then actually supplies a “Cookie cutter agreement” chart which, although wittily named, is undeniably accurate and damning in its presentation. He explains the Nisgaa court challenges, remarking, “the bureaucrats seemed have provided an endless stream of euphemisms and Orwellian distortions for what they are actually doing. One of the more recent was the “modified rights” model. According to this model, Indigenous people would be forced to “modify” their rights so they no longer included what we understood as Aboriginal title. They don't extinguish our title out of existence, instead they modify it out of existence.”

Explains Manuel, “it can all get very confusing, especially when you're trying to explain this to grassroots people, who use language with integrity.” Addressing the non-existent change in what are touted to the public as new policies, Manuel comments, “in a staggering case of déjà vu , the 2012 policy followed the broad lines of the White Paper policy of 1969. And the new Trudeau government simply adopted the 2012 Harper policy, which in fact was based on Liberal strategies going back to 1973 when the Supreme court initially kicked the can of Indigenous rights in the direction of the government.”

In Chapter eleven, Tsilhqot'in Case and Crown Title, Manuel describes how “the Tsilhqot'in decision was delivered on June 26, 2014, and it picked up where Delgamuukw left off with the first ever declaration of Aboriginal title on the ground in Canadian history. By granting this powerful remedy and recognizing the existence of Aboriginal title over a two thousand square kilometre section of Tsilhqot'in territory, the court has shown that extinguishment is far from the only option in Canada.”

Yes, extinguishment is the opposite of thriving and for the land to thrive is the answer, but the shell game of half-truths and deception that has dominated Canada's approach to First Nations rights has got to end. Read this book, it's an inspirational, direct guidebook and Manuel will reset your thinking in a way that is refreshing and empowering at once. Then, after you have read it, take the appropriate action in your own life to apply his visionary teachings to the work that needs to be done.

Manuel, A., Derrickson, R. M., & Klein, N. (2018). The Reconciliation Manifesto: Recovering the land, rebuilding the economy. James Lorimer.

Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear Regulator

Jaczko's book is intended to take readers on a hair-raising journey through his very turbulent term as chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Jaczko was given the position in 2009 by Obama, and Jaczko was in charge at the time of the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan, an event which his critics say caused a crisis in his leadership, resulting in extensive conduct criticisms and Jaczko's ultimate resignation in 2012. To call himself rogue, in light of of some of the allegations against Jaczko, while at least self-reflective, may be an understatement. Jaczko was notorious for his hotheadedness, and was actually investigated for 15 episodes of leadership behaviour that caused emotional distress in his staff. In simpler terms, his leadership style alienated many. As a result, Jaczko is highly controversial and the book is considered by many to be an reputational recovery attempt for a damaged public image after his resignation, while at the same time there clearly are threads of well-meaning and good intention in Jaczko's narrative. This redemptive aspect occurs particularly regarding his opposition to the current state of domestic nuclear waste disposal and his exposeé of certain NRC tendencies that require public scrutiny. The book does succeed I think, in its intention, demonstrating that Jazcko was deeply frustrated by biased-to-corrupt decision-making structures at the NRC.
The book was released only a few months before Charles Casto, the nuclear safety expert in charge of the government's response to the 2011 nuclear accident at Fukushima, published Station Blackout: Inside the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster and Recovery. In it, Casto claims that he and his team were denied critical resources by Jaczko. Analysis of the Fukushima emergency evacuation have determined that a number of evacuees perished in the post-accident panic (including hospital evacuees) who would have survived if the level of immediate radiation had been properly assessed, a missing assessment feature that potentially could have been met had former NRC chairman Jaczko come through with staff and other resources in a timely manner. In a review by Michelle Shellenberg of Forbes Magazine, who also wrote a Washington Post review of Jaczko's Confessions of a Nuclear Rogue, Shellenberg remarks, "Casto's testimony is troubling because he is the rare NRC official who Jaczko singles out for praise in his book." Indeed this is the case, as in the book, Jaczko refers to Casto as "the lead NRC expert in Japan," and "my most trusted advisor there." Reviewing the book within the light of these newest allegations is difficult, and yet the story of Jaczko's tenure as chair of the NRC has some features that will withstand the test of time as a helpful insider chronicle of a specific period of history.
If anything this book reminds us of the human frailty involved in nuclear power generation and nuclear waste disposal, and why so many resist the idea of nuclear power in its current state, with the massively problematic byproduct of tons of radioactive waste no one wants to store. To Jaczko's credit, he was well-informed when it came to the issue of the storing of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, and writes an insider view of the situation at Yucca Mountain.
Jaczko's opposition to storing nuclear waste at what is essentially a site sacred to the Western Shoshone, and a place with questionable geological studies regarding its stability, is part of what Jaczko credits as his ultimate downfall, after what Jaczko considered a "coup" by fellow commissioners who complained about his conduct on a number of levels, resulting in his resignation in 2012. His opinion that these site choices are based largely on political rather than geological features is seconded by many particularly in Nevada, which has no nuclear power plants yet is intended to contain a vast amount of nuclear waste at Yucca. The Yucca Mountain choice, opposed by Obama among others for reasons the author details well, including that it failed to meet the original geographic criteria, and is easily penetrated by water that can easily carry radiation elsewhere, something the Western Shoshone believe as well.
Jaczko fights back with the publication of a book intended to expose how the nuclear industry endangers lives, as well as expressing his own impressions regarding backroom goings-on and why congress does nothing to stop it. Beginning with how he ended up in Washington, Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear Regulator quickly moves to a well-constructed chapter on the history of nuclear accidents, called “Forget and Repeat,” and arrives at "The Burning Issue: The Battle to Prevent Nuclear Fires." In reading the book I learned that fire is one of the biggest hazards in a nuclear plant, one which Jaczko believes is addressed with inadequate planning.
Jaczko's other insider knowledge include some interesting discussion of the Fukushima disaster, which ironically, like many stations, does not use its own power that it has generated to power safety systems but relies instead on a back-up system, so a big problem was loss of off-site power, considered the worst scenario. Nuclear plants have massive diesel engines on-site, but in the case of Fukushima, these had been damaged by the quake. The author describes his personal role in this frightening moment in the history of nuclear power, and here, in particular, it's difficult to see Jaczko as exclusively the raging management failure others portray, while easy to see him as a human mantled with a very difficult task and inadequate support. As someone who saw a need for US power plant and waste disposal safety, and attempted to change it from within, it's too bad things became so out-of-control that he was ultimately seen as making the situation worse. Fascinating and fast-paced, given the issues at hand and the immediate questions surrounding the future of power generation, this book reads like a spy thriller only real life.

Jaczko, G. B. (2020). Confessions of a rogue nuclear regulator. Simon & Schuster.