Many coastal First Nations communities, particularly in British Columbia, see consultation as a positive way of getting around the firmly entrenched position of both provincial and federal governments on fish farming. Even those Native groups such as the Musgamagw Tsawataineuk Tribal Council (MTTC) and the Homalco First Nation, who are adamantly opposed to any open net fish farming in their waters, eagerly engage in consultation. The Native response to unsatisfactory interactions with the provincial ministry and fish-farming companies is most often a call for further consultation or a declaration that exchanges worthy of being called "consultation" have not yet taken place. In this article, the author explores the gap between the promise of consultation and the ways in which consultation serves to entrench rather than overcome the colonial relationships of the past. She points out the possible pitfalls of a cooperative strategy--"consultation"--that appears to have placed the burden of creating consensus between settlers and First Nations squarely on the shoulders of Native peoples and their continued cooperation with the property and productive arrangements of the status quo. She concludes by recognizing that consultation, as a social practice, often works as a tactic of repression rather than as a means of protecting Aboriginal title and rights, but that the government of Canada may be able to transform the practice of consultation and thereby make progress toward a just and long-term resolution of Native peoples' claims. (Contains 87 notes.)