The opinions Jared expresses are solely his and not necessarily mine, but I think as usual he asks questions many of us (including me) are afraid to ask.
*****
We
have been fighting for so long that the original misunderstandings
and differences that created this conflict have been forgotten.
Various tactics have been tried by one side and countered by the
other, emotions have taken over from reason; and the passions born of
hatred have grown until neither fighter any longer knows, or cares,
what the fight is about. The fight has become an end in itself.
In
the long run such an attitude can be disastrous, not just for our
people, but also for our country. To reverse this unfortunate trend
of confrontation, we must examine some of the myths that have
contributed to the situation currently faced by Indian people in this
country. We must re-examine the basic philosophies inherent in any
discussion with white society, or white individuals.i
Such
were the words spoken by Harold Cardinal in the mid-1970s regarding
relations between Aboriginal and non-Native peoples in Canada. Since
then, there have been several high-profile confrontations between
Aboriginals and non-Natives, at places such as Burnt Church in New
Brunswick, Oka in Quebec, Ipperwash and Caledonia in Ontario and
Gustafsen Lake in British Columbia. More recently, a new Aboriginal
protest movement calling itself the “Idle No More” movement began
late in 2012.
According
to Idle No More spokeswoman Pam Palmater, Idle No More is a
grassroots citizens’ movement that opposes the legislative changes
the Stephen Harper government made in 2012 as part of the omnibus
legislation it passed last summer. Idle No More believes that many of
the changes affecting environmental protections and the governance of
Aboriginal communities were made by the Harper government without
consulting the Aboriginals who would be affected by them, in
violation of the promises the government had made. It also believes
that the changes will threaten the water and land that people rely on
for their livelihoods, cause all kinds of legal headaches for
Aboriginal communities and violate their treaty rights.ii
In response, Idle No More began organizing everything from “teach
ins” designed to educate people on the Aboriginal perspective to
road blockades to spontaneous dances in public places.iii
The
movement’s actions attracted a great deal of criticism. Some
critics claimed that the Aboriginals were trying to blame others for
their poverty and refused to take responsibility for their actions.
Other critics claimed that they refused to integrate with the modern
world, determined to protect their ancient lifestyles and accepting
government handouts instead of working for a living.iv
Sun News Reporter Ezra Levant reported on how he was accused by Idle
No More protesters of being racist for wanting to be rid of the
Indian Act
that
governed so many parts of Aboriginals’ lives, even though his
overarching goal was to free ordinary Native people from the racism
of the Act.v
The
implication here is that the source of Aboriginal poverty, violence
and dysfunction is the separate status of Aboriginal people in Canada
and their desire to maintain their distinctiveness. The non-Native
thinking is that, if Aboriginals were to be rid of their distinct
status and the expectations of Treaty handouts while assimilating as
full citizens of Canada and taking responsibility for their own
actions, then they would be far better off.
But
is that really the case? Is the supposed refusal of Aboriginal people
to become full parts of Canadian society and leave behind their
reserves really the cause of Aboriginal peoples’ problems in
Canada? No, it is not. In fact, it is quite the opposite. The
reserves that many Aboriginal people now call home are cited as part
of the “special treatment” Aboriginal people insist on, but in
fact they’re symbols of what can be called the “Reserve Paradox.”
The
Reserve Paradox is the fact that the Indian
Act, the
reserves and other similar tools were originally meant to be tools by
which the Canadian government could assimilate Aboriginal people
while gaining full title to their land. The bitter irony is that
these very efforts to assimilate Aboriginal people and erase their
distinct status in Canada have not only failed to achieve their goal,
but they are directly responsible for the poverty, corruption and
abuse we see in so many communities today. Certainly this was the
opinion of Justice John Reilly, an Alberta judge with more than 30
years of experience, who wrote about how colonialism and the
residential schools were the major cause of the dysfunction and
corruption now seen in Aboriginal society.vi
- “Civilizing” Aboriginal People
To
understand exactly how this happened, we need to go back to the early
19th
century in Canada. Early on, relations between Aboriginals and
non-Natives were characterized by a sense of mutual interdependence
and “nation to nation” recognition. The Aboriginal nations shared
the land with the British Crown, which developed a formalized process
for acquiring land through the Royal Proclamation of 1763. Until that
time, the land was originally recognized as belonging to the
Aboriginals as separate from what was claimed by British European
settlers.vii
However,
as time went on a new narrative started to develop among European
settlers to Canada, one whereby the supposedly superior Europeans
would tame and “civilize” the wild lands and the Aboriginal
peoples who dwelled there. The supposedly backwards, primitive
Aboriginal people were doomed to either “civilize” or disappear,
doomed by their own inferiority when confronted by the apparently
superior European cultures.viii
The
displacement and suffering of Aboriginal communities caused by events
such as the War of 1812, diseases such as smallpox and the growth in
European settlement further strengthened the led to the belief that
Aboriginal people were a primitive people doomed to disappear, and
that the British government (then responsible for administering the
colonies) should assimilate and “civilize” them as settled
farmers on the British model. In the 1820s and 1830s, British
colonial governments developed a new method to do this. The
government would settle the Aboriginals onto “model villages”,
the forerunners of the reserves where they would be taught the
“proper” way to live through farming. Aboriginal people, in turn,
were often requesting the provision of tools and knowledge to help
them adjust to the overwhelming changes that they were facing and
work out an accommodation to the new.ix
According to their own narrative, the Aboriginals hoped for a
peaceful, friendly coexistence with the new arrivals, while
continuing to maintain their own autonomy and control over their
homelands and resources.x
However,
it was a sign of things to come that what most Aboriginals were
expecting was not what the colonial government had in mind. By the
1860s, when Canada was fully founded, the idea had fully taken root
that Aboriginal people would eventually be assimilated. John A.
Macdonald asserted that the major aim of the new federal government’s
legislation, as expressed in its new Indian
Act, was to
abolish the “tribal” system of government and assimilate the
Aboriginal people in all respects with the rest of the people of the
country. Aboriginals were considered wards of the federal government
until such time as they chose to assimilate into mainstream society.xi
Of course, the irony was that the process by which Aboriginal
identities and statuses were to be erased in fact established the
legal distinctions between Aboriginals and non-Natives. It also
imposed standards on the Aboriginals that even many European settlers
could not hope to meet, namely being literate, debt free and of “high
moral character.”xii
- The Meaning Of The Treaties
“Civilizing”
the Aboriginals in Canada’s own territory was one thing. However,
the fledgling Dominion was also concerned with expanding into new
territory, knowing full well that the United States might try to
claim it first. To gain access to these lands, it began signing the
numbered Treaties with the Aboriginals who lived there, making
promises of assistance and education to help the Aboriginals adjust
to the changing times in exchange for access to the Aboriginal lands.
Each party had its own interpretations of the Treaties, and the
resulting misunderstanding is directly related to much of the
misunderstanding and frustration we face even today.
The
Canadian government saw the Treaties as a once-and-for-all means of
acquiring title to Aboriginal land and extinguishing Aboriginal
rights, after which the lands could be opened up for European
settlement and development. Treaty promises related to things such as
education and assistance in learning how to farm were seen as
privileges that Aboriginals could enjoy at the pleasure of the Crown,
rather than inherent human rights. The Aboriginals largely overlooked
this, because in their experience Treaties could be continually
modified and updated to take changing circumstances into account. For
them, the Treaties were a way for them to adapt to the changing world
within the framework of their own tradition, in exchange for which
they would be loyal subjects of the British Crown, respecting its
laws and customs. Government negotiators quickly learned to use
phrases like ‘as long as the sun shines and the water flows’ when
saying how long the treaties would last, and the Aboriginals expected
them to live up to their word on this.xiii
The
basic understanding of what the Treaties meant was problematic
enough, but the Aboriginals and the government negotiators also had
very different accounts of the actual content of the Treaties. Cree
activist Harold Cardinal, who was one of the main opponents to the
federal government’s efforts to abolish the Treaties in its 1969
White Paper, writes that the Treaties were based on a recognition of
Aboriginal title to the land that Canada wanted to acquire.xiv
He
further noted that much of what the Aboriginals were verbally
promised by government negotiators, and that the Aboriginals believed
were part and parcel of their Treaty rights, were never written into
the written documents that the government now takes as the final and
definitive versions of the Treaties. As Cardinal bluntly put it, the
plain, literal reading of the Treaties has never meshed with the
spirit in which they were signed.xv
Historical
research of the era shows that the Aboriginals often had little
advance notice that the government intended to negotiate a Treaty
with them and that the Treaties were intended as a safeguard against
all of the Aboriginals’ land being seized by non-Native settlers.
There was little discussion of massive land surrender in the actual
negotiations of the Treaties, much less than there was in the actual
written Treaties themselves. Many of the Aboriginals believed that
they were only giving up surface rights, and not any subsurface
mineral rights that may exist. In some cases, they did not even think
they were surrendering any land at all, and that the Treaty they
signed was more of a peace treaty.xvi
In
other negotiations such as Treaty Eight, the Aboriginals were very
hesitant about accepting the government’s initial Treaty offers,
and were only convinced by a speech from the lead commissioner who
promised that they would continue to be free, and would not have to
live on reserves if they did not want to. Many were very leery of
living on reserves, and even some of the white missionaries who urged
the Aboriginals accept the Treaties in turn felt as though they had
been exploited by the government. The missionaries had only urged the
Aboriginals to sign because they believed the oral promises of the
government would be in the final versions of the Treaties. Many
Aboriginal elders state that the Aboriginals who signed Treaty Eight
did not believe that their hunting and fishing practices would be
restricted, and indeed saw it as a peace treaty, rather than a land
cession.xvii
Ovide
Mercredi, another Cree activist, explains that Aboriginal Treaties
were signed on a basis of equality between distinct peoples to forge
a lasting and positive relationship. The Treaties are a means of
sharing the land in exchange for recognition of the Aboriginals’
land rights, customs and autonomy. The Aboriginals did not see it as
a means of extinguishing their rights to self-government, which
precede the arrival of Europeans, or title to their lands.xviii
As Dene activist George Erasmus told Jeffrey Simpson, the Aboriginals
never meant to give up their sovereignty as nations.xix
Indeed, Harold Cardinal states that many Aboriginals see the Treaties
as their equivalent to the English Magna Carta, a critical guarantee
of their inherent rights as Aboriginals and as people. They are
sacred pacts that cannot be unilaterally abrogated by one of the
parties to the agreement, namely the Canadian government.xx
Nor are the reserves the only traditional lands the Aboriginals were
meant to maintain their more traditional ways of life on.xxi
These
concepts are not as foreign to Canadian or English law as one might
think. Michael Asch has pointed out that, in the old English law, the
indigenous people of a territory newly acquired by the British Crown
did not immediately lose their property or civil rights unless these
rights were eventually-and expressly-extinguished by the monarch.
The
problem has not been so much with British law as it is with the
application of it. Too often, courts have assumed that, unless they
lived a lifestyle similar to those of Great Britain, people in
territories that the British eventually acquired did not have any
inherent rights, as the land was presumed to be “unoccupied” and
its inhabitants were too “uncivilized” to have proper legal
rights. Aboriginal rights, for all that they are in fact compatible
with English legal tradition, were not recognized as such, or were
“extinguished” by general legislation that did not specifically
mention them.xxii
Arguably, this is a violation of those rights.
Even
with the government’s promises, some prominent Aboriginal leaders
were not convinced of its sincerity. The Cree leader Paskwaw opposed
the Canadian surveyors who were coming onto Aboriginal land, seeing
it as a sign of subordination to the new arrivals. Big Bear, arguably
the most influential of the chiefs on the Prairies, believed that
Treaty Six would reduce the Aboriginals’ freedom and autonomy. He
initially refused to sign it in 1876, and only signed it in 1882 to
get food for his people. Other leaders like Little Pine and
Poundmaker had similar fears, lobbying for better terms than they
were able to get.xxiii
As early as 1884, Aboriginals were complaining that they had been
cheated, and that the government did not live up to its promises.xxiv
- Assimilation And Control
The
concerns of Big Bear and his fellows were well-founded. Even as it
signed the Treaties, the federal government passed the Indian
Act to carry
out its goal of “civilizing” the Aboriginals and assimilate them
into mainstream society while erasing their indigenous identities.
Lands were set aside as reserved for Aboriginal people, but it was
not to help them maintain their distinct place in society. Rather,
the reserves were meant to be sites where the Aboriginals could be
assimilated and “civilized”. As the Aboriginals assimilated,
their share of the reserve land could become part of the provincial
land regime, until the reserves disappeared altogether along with the
Aboriginal identity.xxv
To
that end, the Indian
Act set up a
series of white “Indian agents” on reserves, who were given vast
powers to direct the lives of the Aboriginals. The Indian agents
acted on government bans of Aboriginal religious ceremonies essential
to their culture such as the “Ghost Dance” and the potlatch, bans
on the sale of guns and ammunition to Aboriginals, overrode the
decisions of the elected band councils the agents had convened to
govern the reserve, undermined traditional leaders and controlled
access to money, all with the intention of “teaching” them a
“civilized” way to live. In the eyes of one commentator, it was a
way of forcing white ideas on red men.xxvi
To
be very blunt, the results could not have been more of a disaster if
the federal government had deliberately tried to cause one.
Bureaucracy, paternalism and plain incompetence on the part of the
Indian agents led to no end of headaches for those Aboriginals who
were quite willing and eager to learn farming on Aboriginal reserves.
Even when white missionaries, settlers and policemen tried to alert
the government to the problem, the government refused to listen.
Aboriginal leaders like Big Bear were blamed for the problems when
they complained.
When
the Aboriginals tried to unite their reserves, they were forcibly
separated, even though this uprooted Aboriginal farming efforts and
violated their Treaty rights to choose the locations of their
reserves. Some Indian agents also undermined Aboriginal efforts to
unite by withholding food rations or arresting Aboriginals who
entered reserves that they did not live on without the agent’s
permission.xxvii
The destruction of the tribal system, and the occasional withholding
of the money due to certain bands (another violation of Treaty
promises) were done with the goal of encouraging individualism and
self-reliance among the Aboriginals.xxviii
Shuswap
activist George Manuel noted that all of the power exercised by
Indian agents, including the dispensing of welfare, subjecting
Aboriginal hunting efforts to provincial game laws, and preventing
Aboriginals from farming except as the Indian agents dictated,
prevented Aboriginal people from making full use of European
innovations while maintaining the integrity of their own cultures.
This was a critical factor in the undermining of Aboriginal
self-confidence and the functioning of their communities.xxix
Things
only got worse as time went on. Very few Aboriginals were interested
in assimilating and giving up their rights, and so the government
resorted to increasingly harsh and repressive means of control in
order to try and force the issue. Indian agents were given the power
to select Aboriginal peoples’ marriage partners, dissolve elected
band councils, and allotting and leasing reserve lands. Indian agents
were even given the power to unilaterally take status away from
Aboriginals, expropriating the part of the reserve designated for
them and making it of the general land regime, often because
non-Natives wanted Aboriginal land for expansion or resource
development.xxx
As Georges Erasmus noted, Ottawa would also unilaterally reduce
reserves in order to make way for new bridges, railways, roads and
other industrial projects.xxxi
Through it all, assimilation remained the ultimate goal, as expressed
by government spokesmen in the 1920s and even as late as the 1950s.xxxii
Harold
Cardinal noted that many Aboriginals began to see the Treaties as one
big con job, wherein they were ripped off by the government. They
began to feel as though the government supposedly owed them a living,
and their sense of responsibility to themselves, their communities
and the country were nearly totally lost.xxxiii
George Manuel, in turn, pointed out that even the federal
government’s own Hawthorn
Report, commissioned
in the mid-1960s, pointed out that the restrictions of the Indian
Act itself
was a major cause of the alcoholism and poverty many Aboriginals
felt.xxxiv
The
Aboriginals themselves rarely, if ever, had much say in any of the
decisions made by governments and non-Native Indian agents. Even
entire communities could end up being relocated by bureaucratic fiat,
because government officials felt that the movement would benefit the
community, to cut administrative costs or to clear the way for
industrial or agricultural development.xxxv
As noted by Jeffrey Simpson, Aboriginal people were frequently
relegated by industrial development to the margins of the economy and
society.xxxvi
The effects were traumatic and catastrophic for many Aboriginal
communities, with serious consequences for their health, their
economies and their social structures. Substance abuse, violence,
poverty, social apathy and suicide were frequent results.xxxvii
The
control exerted by Indian agents over the lives and welfare of the
Aboriginals and the relocations of communities both caused immense
harm to Aboriginal societies, all with the goal of assimilating them
and abolishing their reserves and separate status. The most infamous
attempt at assimilation, the residential schools, were yet another
source of grief for Canadian Aboriginals. In keeping with its
self-appointed mission to “civilize” Aboriginal people, the
government created a series of residential boarding schools, where
students would live as well as study. The intent was that by giving
the Aboriginal students a European education and cutting them off
from their “savage” cultures, they would be assimilated into
mainstream society. The Aboriginals, on the other hand, believed that
the schools would be a means for them to adapt to the modern world,
learning the skills they needed without abandoning their traditional
identities. They also believed that they themselves would be in
control of the schools, something they quickly learned wasn’t true.
The
residential schools were nothing less than a catastrophe. Underfunded
and overcrowded, the church-run schools kept their students in
miserable, squalid conditions and had them spend more time doing
grunt labour than actually learning anything useful. Children were
ripped away from their families and their homes, told that their
cultures and identities were “retrograde” and “savage,” all
in the name of abolishing their old identities and replacing them
with new ones. Students were also viciously beaten for anything from
speaking their own languages to bedwetting. The “education” was
so bad that, in the words of one critic, it left Aboriginal students
“hanging in the middle of two cultures, and he is not a white man
and he is not an Indian. They washed away practically everything an
Indian needed to help himself, to think the way a human person should
in order to survive.”
Predictably,
the residential school system was fiercely opposed by the
Aboriginals. Many parents angrily criticized the abuses and
ineptitude of the schools, even as they tried to prevent their
children from going. In turn, the federal government made school
attendance mandatory, and Indian agents used such means as the pass
system (where Aboriginals could not leave their reserves without a
pass) to keep them from interfering with the schools’ activities,
and withholding food rations to “persuade” parents to send their
children. In 1969, the federal government would take over from the
churches, but conditions did not improve much, if it all. Notably,
the last of these schools would only be closed in 1996, less than
twenty years ago.xxxviii
George
Manuel was blunt in his assessment of the impact of residential
schools on Aboriginal people. He stated that the residential schools
played a central role in instilling a sense of inferiority and shame
among Aboriginal people, including a feeling of loathing for their
ancestors and their original culture. As early as 1966, when many
schools were still open, the federal government’s own Hawthorn
Report observed
that the alcoholism was caused by the residential schools and control
of Aboriginal peoples’ lives through the Indian
Act, even as
urban ghettoes sprang up in Canadian cities.xxxix
Harold
Cardinal noted that the residential schools also caused bitter
divisions among communities as the churches competed for students,
even as the students themselves were deprived of the critical
education that would have enabled them to learn their
responsibilities in society and form relationships with their
communities. Some Aboriginals became suspicious of education in
general, figuring that it was just a way to assimilate them and
gradually eliminate their reserves, completing the government’s
original goals.xl
A
related phenomenon was the ‘Sixties Scoop’, where Aboriginal
children were removed from their families and placed with
non-Aboriginal families either as adoptees or in foster care, on the
justification that they were better off in the dominant culture than
in the extreme poverty of the Aboriginal one. This process continued
until it tapered off in the 1980s, when it was finally recognized
that the process was “producing individuals who were neither white
nor Indian, whose loss of cultural identity led to social dysfunction
and was becoming a tradition in itself as it was passed on to the
next generation,” as historian Olive Dickason bluntly put it.xli
- The Fallout And The 1969 White Paper
These
problems persist even today, and have filtered down through the
generations. The attempts to assimilate Aboriginal peoples are
directly responsible for the alcoholism, imprisonment, domestic
abuse, suicide and social breakdown that continue to plague many
Aboriginal communities.xlii
George Manuel reminds us that traditional lifestyles and beliefs are
not the cause of these problems. The real problem has been the fact
that non-Native authorities have been continually making the
decisions for Aboriginal people, while they’ve had very little say
in or control over their own lives. And for those Aboriginals who
have tried
to move to the cities and assimilate, it often didn’t work due to
government actions that were being formed in response to the problems
caused by the last
set of
government actions.xliii
Another problem, of course, was the plain racism many Aboriginals
encountered in non-Native communities, which obviously didn’t help
them integrate into these communities.xliv
As
a result of all these actions, and the fallout that has resulted from
them, Harold Cardinal notes that many Aboriginals felt as though they
didn’t have much control over their own lives.xlv
It’s not surprising, when Ovide Mercredi states that many
Aboriginal people living on reserves have little trust in their
leadership because under the Indian
Act band
councils are accountable to the federal Minister of Indian Affairs
and not to their own people, which has allowed corruption to fester
in various areas. The Indian
Act provides
a series of cradle-to-grave rules governing how Aboriginal lands are
governed, and the many things a Minister must approve before a band
council can do them.xlvi
The powers the Minister can exercise are extensive, and allow him or
her to override or reject many of the decisions taken by band
councils. They persist even to this day.xlvii
Far
from the image of Aboriginals who laze around waiting for their next
bit of government cheese, Harold Cardinal tells the story of
Aboriginals who feel stuck in what he calls the ‘welfare trap’,
hating it but not feeling as though they had the ability or support
to build themselves up out of it. He talks about how the federal
government would come up with projects without consulting the
Aboriginals they were intended for, and then conclude that the
Aboriginals weren’t interested when they rejected the government’s
proposals.xlviii
Georges Erasmus pointed out that, as late as the 1980s, most of the
government’s spending on Aboriginals was directed towards welfare,
which illustrates just how long the issue has been going on.xlix
Eventually, it got to the point that many Aboriginals were concerned
that being rid of Indian Affairs’ influence on their lives would
mean they were cast adrift as a people. The idea of Aboriginal
dependence on welfare only came about because of government policy,
not because of any supposed flaws in Aboriginal societies.l
The
stereotype of the “lazy Indian” has deep roots-historian Daniel
Francis notes that it came from Aboriginals refusing to accept the
low wages and bad working conditions offered by many employers in the
19th
and early 20th
centuries, going off to hunt and trap for their food. Because they
walked away from jobs they didn’t like, they were deemed “lazy”.
Welfare dependency and high unemployment only came about because of
the effects of the Indian
Act and
everything else already described here.li
Rather than being lazy, the Aboriginals come across as rational
actors who are making economic choices based on their own
self-interest in preferring the more profitable actions of hunting to
the inferior wages and conditions offered by other employers.
One
might wonder, then, why we don’t just get rid of the Indian
Act, as
people have been advocating for so long, given that so many
Aboriginals dislike it as much as other Canadians? The reason is
because Aboriginals view it as a means of eliminating Aboriginal
status altogether. In 1969, the federal government run by a
newly-elected Pierre Trudeau issued a “White Paper” that proposed
eliminating the Indian
Act and the
Treaties, based on the belief that the special status the Act
and the
Treaties recognized for Aboriginals was holding them back. It meshed
well with his support for strictly individual rights, without
consideration for any sort of distinct legal or constitutional status
for any group of people.lii
Aboriginals
like Harold Cardinal, in turn, rebutted that their identities as
Aboriginal people were intimately bound up with the Treaties, and
distinguishes them from all of the non-Natives who have migrated to
Canada over the years.liii
He further pointed out that, in terms of what Trudeau’s White Paper
was proposing, Aboriginals were being asked to abandon their very
identities and their sense of who they were as people. Indeed,
Aboriginal treaty rights are even bound up as a critical part of
their religious beliefs, with critical responsibilities accompanying
those rights.liv
Ovide Mercredi built on this, stating that the calls for assimilation
come across to Aboriginals as telling them they’re inferior and
savage.lv
An
Aboriginal person could stop being governed by the Indian
Act if he or
she agreed to give up his or her Treaty rights and identity as an
Aboriginal. This was psychologically painful, to say the least.
Indeed, Harold Cardinal noted that many Aboriginal people would
prefer to continue to live in bondage under the Indian
Act than
relinquish their rights.lvi
They do not want to see it repealed, because of the concern that the
implicit recognition of Aboriginal rights and status would be lost.lvii
This sentiment still persists today, as noted by the Royal Commission
on Aboriginal Peoples.lviii
In
the face of all this resistance, the Trudeau government was forced to
drop the White Paper. Unfortunately, Canada’s Aboriginal people are
now stuck in a legal limbo in regards to their rights. While
assimilation is no longer a government policy, the Indian
Act remains
in place because we have not been able to develop an appropriate
replacement for it. Most non-Native Canadians continue to support
Trudeau’s ideas of strictly individual rights for all Canadians,
regardless of their background. This is the reason for their
opposition to the Indian
Act and
their desire to see the Aboriginal reserves abolished, thinking that
the distinct status and insistence on maintaining their Treaty rights
is the reason for Aboriginal poverty and corruption.
Unfortunately,
as historian Christopher Moore noted, they have only seen the
Euro-Canadian interpretation of the Treaties, and don’t know about
the Aboriginal perspective when they comment on Idle No More and
other Aboriginal movements.lix
This is the reason for the Reserve Paradox, the fact that the
legislation and reserves were meant to be tools for assimilating
Aboriginal people but are now seen as recognition of Aboriginal
distinctiveness.
What,
then, is the solution to the Reserve Paradox? This will be the
subject of Part 2 of this essay, examining such problems as land
confrontations, violence and racism on both sides of the fence, and
the challenges of Canadian citizenship for Aboriginal people.
i
Harold Cardinal, The Rebirth of Canada’s Indians. Edmonton,
Alberta: Hurtig Pubilishers, 1977. Page 7.
ii
Pam Palmater, “What Is the Idle No More Movement…Really?”
Indigenous Nationhood blog, January 3, 2013.
http://indigenousnationhood.blogspot.ca/2013/01/what-is-idle-no-more-movement-really.html
See also Palmater, “First Nations Fiasco.” Precedent
Magazine, March 14, 2012.
http://lawandstyle.ca/opinion_first_nations_fiasco/
iii
“Edmonton Idle No More protests draw thousands.” CBC News,
January 13, 2013.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/story/2013/01/13/edmonton-idle-no-more-west-ed.html
See also Gloria Galloway and Oliver Moore, “Idle No More protests,
blockades spread across the country.” The Globe and Mail,
January 16, 2013.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/idle-no-more-protests-blockades-spread-across-country/article7406990/?page=all
See also Amy Van Den Berg, “Idle No More teach-in discussion at
Guelph.” The Ontarion, April 11, 2013.
http://www.theontarion.com/2013/04/idle-no-more-teach-in-discussion-at-guelph/
iv
For example, see Lorne Gunter, “Theresa Spence shows no interest
in taking ownership of issues.” Sun News Network, January 9, 2013.
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/straighttalk/archives/2013/01/20130109-080205.html
See also Jonathan Kay, “Native dignity will come only from
self-sufficiency, not grand gestures from Ottawa.” National
Post, January 11, 2013.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/01/11/jonathan-kay-true-dignity-for-first-nations-will-come-only-from-self-sufficiency-not-grand-gestures-in-ottawa/
v
Ezra Levant, “Ezra Replies To Idle No More Protests of Sun Media.”
Sun News Network, January 21, 2013.
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/video/2109435478001
vi
John Reilly, “First Nations deserve more gratitude and respect.”
Calgary Herald, February 2, 2013.
http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/Reilly+First+Nations+deserve+more+gratitude+respect/7907920/story.html
vii
Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples Chapter 9.2 “Indian
Sovereignty and the Royal Proclamation of 1763.” Indian and
Northern Affairs Canada, 1996. Archived by Library and Archives
Canada, 2006.
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/webarchives/20071211051151/http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ch/rcap/sg/sg22_e.html#73
viii
Patricia McCormack, “Competing Narratives: Barriers Between
Indigenous Peoples and the Canadian State.” Paper prepared for
Indigenous Peoples and the Modern State, Claremont Graduate
University, April 5-7, 2002. Pages 3-5.
ix
Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples Chapter 9.3, “Indian
Policy: Protection, Civilization, Assimilation.”
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/webarchives/20071211051151/http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ch/rcap/sg/sg22_e.html#74
See also Olive Patricia Dickason and David T. McNab, Canada’s
First Nations: A History of Founding Peoples From Earliest Times.
Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press, 4th
edition, 2009. Page 193.
x
McCormack, pages 6-7.
xi
Dickason and McNab, page 226.
xii
John L. Tobias, “Protection, Civilization, Assimilation: An
Outline History of Canada’s Indian Policy.” The Western
Canadian Journal of Anthropology, Volume VI, No. 2, 1976.
xiii
Dickason and McNab, pages 242-244.
xiv
Harold Cardinal, The Unjust Society. Vancouver, British
Columbia: Douglas & McIntyre, 1999. Originally published in
Edmonton, Alberta: Hurtig Publishers, 1969. Pages 24-25.
xv
Ibid., 33-36 and 131.
xvi
John Leonard Taylor, “Two Views On The Meaning Of Treaties Six And
Seven”, in The Spirit of Alberta Indian Treaties, edited by
Richard Price. Montreal, Quebec: Institute For Research On Public
Policy, 1980. Pages 9-45. Citations on pages 40-45.
xvii
Richard Daniel, “Spirit and Terms of Treaty Eight”, in The
Spirit of Alberta Indian Treaties, edited by Richard Price.
Montreal, Quebec: Institute For Research On Public Policy, 1980.
Pages 47-100. Citations on pages 75-79, 82, 85 and 92-99.
xviii
Ovide Mercredi and Mary Ellen Turpel, In The Rapids: Navigating
The Future Of First Nations. Toronto, Ontario: Viking Press,
1993. Pages 30-31 and 61-63.
xix
Cited in Jeffrey Simpson, Faultlines: Struggling For A Canadian
Vision. Toronto, Ontario: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993. Page
191.
xx
Cardinal, The Unjust Society, pages 24-25.
xxi
Richard H. Bartlett, “False Analogy of Indian Reserves to
Traditional Lands”, in Richard H. Bartlett, Indian Reserves and
Aboriginal Lands in Canada: A Homeland. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan:
University of Saskatchewan Native Law Centre, 1990. Pages 65-71.
Citation on page 65.
xxii
Michael Asch, Hone And Native Land: Aboriginal Rights and the
Canadian Constitution. Toronto, Ontario: Methuen Press, 1984.
Pages 41-54.
xxiii
Dickason and McNab, pages 266-268.
xxiv
A. Blair Stonechild, “The Indian View Of The 1885 Uprising”, in
1885 And After: Native Society In Transition, edited by F.
Laurie Barron and James B. Waldram. Regina, Saskatchewan: Canadian
Plains Research Centre, 1996. Pages 155-170. Citation on page 158.
xxv
Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Volume 1, Part 2, Chapter
9.8, “The Indian Act And Indians: Wards Of The State”.
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/webarchives/20071211051055/http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ch/rcap/sg/sg24_e.html.
See also J.L. Tobias, “Indian Reserves In Canada: Indian Homelands
Or Devices For Assimilation?” in Native
People, Native Lands: Canadian Indians, Inuit and Metis, edited
by Bruce Alden Cox. Ottawa, Ontario: Carleton University Press,
1988. Pages 148-157. Citation on page 148. See also Simpson, page
190.
xxvi
Dickason and McNab, pages 251-257.
xxvii
Ibid, pages 269-272.
xxviii
James S. Frideres and Rene R Gadacz, Native Peoples In Canada:
Contemporary Conflicts, 3rd Edition. Scarborough,
Ontario: Prentice-Hall Canada, Inc., 2005. Page 29.
xxix
George Manuel and Michael Posluns, The Fourth World: An Indian
Reality. Don Mills, Ontario: Collier Macmillan Canada, Ltd.,
1974. Pages 53-55.
xxx
Dickason and McNab, pages 288-295. See also J. L. Tobias, 153-154
and Frideres and Gadacz, 30-36.
xxxi
Simpson, pages 191-192.
xxxii
Dickason and McNab, page 298.
xxxiii
Cardinal, The Rebirth of Canada’s Indians, page 147.
xxxiv
Manuel, pages 123-125.
xxxv
Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Volume 1, Part 2, Chapter
11.1, “Why Relocations Took Place.”
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/webarchives/20071211055119/http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ch/rcap/sg/sg34_e.html
xxxvi
Simpson, page 205.
xxxvii
Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Chapter 11.4, “The Effects
of Relocation.”
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/webarchives/20071211055149/http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ch/rcap/sg/sg41_e.html#120
and
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/webarchives/20071211055104/http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ch/rcap/sg/sg42_e.html
xxxviii
The preceding two paragraphs are summarized from Dickason and McNab,
pages 305-312. See also the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples,
Volume 1, Part 2, Chapter 10, “Residential Schools”,
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/webarchives/20071211055641/http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ch/rcap/sg/sg28_e.html,
Chapter 10.1.2, “Changing Policies,”
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/webarchives/20071211055732/http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ch/rcap/sg/sg29_e.html#102,
and Chapter 10.3, “Discipline And Abuse.”
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/webarchives/20071211055821/http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ch/rcap/sg/sg31_e.html.
See also Cardinal, The Unjust Society, pages 72-75.
xxxix
Manuel, pages 59-68 and 101-102.
xl
Cardinal, The Unjust Society, pages 50 and 72-75.
xli
Dickason and McNab, page 314.
xlii
Mercredi and Turpel, pages 4-5. For more particular
examples, see Ken Badger, “Residential School”, based on the
testimony of his father, residential school survivor Frank Badger.
Paper submitted to the
Simon Fraser University “Love Mother Earth” 2009 Weaving
Conference. Available online at
http://www.sfu.ca/lovemotherearth/08classroom/papers/residential_schools.pdf
See also Caroline L.
Tait, Fetal
Alcohol Syndrome Among Aboriginal People in Canada:
Review
and Analysis of the Intergenerational Links to Residential Schools.
Ottawa, Ontario: Aboriginal Healing Foundation, 2003. Pages 41 and
60. Available online at
http://www.ahf.ca/downloads/fetal-alcohol-syndrome.pdf.
xliii
Manuel, pages 161-186.
xliv
Georges Erasmus, cited in Simpson, page 199. See also Cardinal, The
Unjust Society, pages viii, 3-5 and 21-22.
xlv
Cardinal, The Unjust Society, pages 7-8.
xlvi
Mercredi and Turpel, pages 80-84.
xlvii
James S. Frideres and René D. Gadacz, Aboriginal Peoples In
Canada. Toronto, Ontario: Pearson Education Canada, 2005. Page
4.
xlviii
Cardinal, The Unjust Society, pages 53-55.
xlix
Georges Erasmus, in his contribution to If I Were Prime Minister,
compiled and introduced by Mel Hurtig. Edmonton, Alberta: Hurtig
Publishers, 1987. Pages 78-82, citation on pages 79-81.
l
Cardinal, The Rebirth of Canada’s Indians, page 93.
li
Daniel Francis, “Inventing the ‘Lazy
Indian’”. The Canadian
Encyclopedia blog, August 4,
2011.
http://blog.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/blog/posts/inventing-the-lazy-indian-by-daniel-francis/
lii
Dickason and McNab, pages 371-372. See also Simpson, pages 208-209.
liii
Cardinal, The Unjust Society, pages 18-22.
liv
Cardinal, The Rebirth of Canada’s Indians, pages 140-145.
lv
Mercredi and Turpel, pages 108-109.
lvi
Cardinal, The Unjust Society, pages 119-120.
lvii
Cardinal, The Rebirth of Canada’s Indians, pages 110-111.
lviii
Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Chapter 9, “The Indian
Act.”
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/webarchives/20071211051151/http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ch/rcap/sg/sg22_e.html#71
lix
Christopher Moore, “Kay on Treaty
history: Well-meaning, wrong-headed.” Christopher
Moore’s History News blog,
January 8, 2013.”
http://christophermoorehistory.blogspot.ca/2013/01/kay-on-treaty-history-well-meaning.html
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