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Article published In: Journal of Argumentation in Context
Vol. 14:2 (2025) ► pp.179–221

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Is the Canadian administrative state committed to engaging in meaningful dialogue with Indigenous Peoples of Canada?

ORCiD logo with link | University of Windsor, Canada
Published online: 19 August 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.24015.pim
Abstract
Despite pledging to engage in two-sided dialogues during resource consultations with Indigenous Peoples (Haida Nation v. British Columbia (Minister of Forests), 2004 SCC 73, [2004] 3 SCR 511.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, para 44), the administrative Canadian state often defaults to one-sided reasoning, emphasizing the project’s necessity and managing evidential gaps in the project’s assessments by giving the benefits of doubt to the industry while promising Indigenous communities adaptive management programs to mitigate all potential adversaries. Such reasoning strategies raise doubts about Canada’s genuine commitment to administering the promised meaningful dialogue in Indigenous consultations. The lack of normative criteria for assessing the meaningfulness of dialogue within the Canadian administrative system further complicates the evaluation of government officials’ commitment.
This article applies Walton’s dialogue system to evaluate how government agencies engage in consultative exchanges with Indigenous Peoples, focusing on their reasoning as commitments. It differentiates between dialogical and procedural elements in controlled exchanges across three contentious projects — the Mackenzie Valley, Trans Mountain, and Site C projects — theorizing the differences between one-sided, two-sided, and collapsed dialogues in Indigenous consultations. The article reveals that officials’ actions in these dialogues often leveraged their institutional authority and statutory discretion to impose compliance costs on epistemically diverse communities (. 2025. “An Inquiry Concerning Administrative Discretion in Indigenous Consultations.” Public Administration Quarterly, online first.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). This strategy sometimes weakens these communities’ capacity to challenge project developments by subordinating their diverse testimonial credibility to the dominant argumentative discourse centered on consumption, mitigation, and epistemic ignorance.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: “Differend” in Indigenous consultations
  • 2.Meaningful dialogue in Indigenous consultations
  • 3.Procedural justice in Indigenous consultations
  • 4.Walton’s system of dialogues
    • 4.1Reasoning practices in one-sided and two-sided dialogues
  • 5.Discretionary dialogues in Indigenous consultations
    • 5.1Discretionary dialogues
  • 6.Two-sided dialogue: Mackenzie Valley consultations
    • 6.1Berger’s reasoning under uncertainty
  • 7.One-sided dialogue: Trans-Mountain consultations
    • 7.1NEB’s reasoning under uncertainty
    • 7.2Shifting burdens of proof
  • 8.Collapsed dialogue: Site C consultations
  • 9.Discussion
  • 10.Conclusion
  • Epistemic disclosure
  • Notes
  • References
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Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Pimenova, Oxana
2025. “Deliberative Context” Is not the Whole Story of Deliberative Reasoning: the Site C Case of Disagreement Management in Indigenous Consultations. Argumentation 39:3 ► pp. 451 ff. DOI logo

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