CANADA’S "TROUBLED" RELATIONSHIP WITH INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

Author: Bill Lee

                                                                        May 2, 2016
There has been a great deal of comment and discussion regarding how Canada has failed in terms of dealing effectively with Indigenous people. We, rightly, hear talk of racism, and of a "past"  injustice of the residential school system and many other issues. There is one issue however that rarely is addressed and which many Canadians do not seem to see. The land of Canada was occupied and lived in when the first Europeans landed here. Subsequent to landing and being assisted in many ways by the existing inhabitants, European population appropriated the land, making it "theirs" , sometimes for settler homesteading and others for economic development - mining, lumber and railways for example. We as governments or people have never really come to terms with this dynamic, with the fact we are living on and exploiting the lands which the various nations lived on and used and whom our ancestors displaced. Of course there were treaties in many instances, but too often they were either scams, written in languages unknown to the Indigenous people, or they have never been lived up to. So, now Euro-Canadians (and increasingly people of other backgrounds) live on, and control most of the land mass of the country. These historic acts of displacement have resulted in a very good life for many of the present generations of Euro Canadians and their descendents and quite a limited life for the original people. This displacement is the original act of Euro-Canadians relative to Indigenous people in Canada. I have no idea how to resolve this underlying issue, we are not going to "give it back", but we need to own up to it and somehow come to deal with the people whose land we sit on and use for our own good and profit (often for multinational and Canadian resource extraction companies). Actually recompense has to be made. Anything else (like the supremely cynical residential school apology by Stephen Harper for example) is simply dancing around issues that flow from the original act of displacement - residential schools, racism, poverty, etc., etc..

At the present time we seem to have reached a less cynical moment. Last year's election results have brought us a government, led by the still very popular Justin Trudeau, which seems to take the many issues facing Indigenous people with some sense of gravitas and perhaps even empathy. Some concrete action has been taken. We now have a Minister of Indigenous Affairs and "Reconciliation" who actually visits northern communities during crisis times (teenage suicides in the most recent case). As someone who has worked in an Indigenous community during a suicide epidemic I recognize that this is no easy thing and she is to be commended. As well we have a two cabinet ministers who are Indigenous, one of whom occupies a post, Minister of Justice, of extreme importance. More money has been allotted to some of the Indigenous needs though it is not at all sufficient to overtake the incredible gap that has existed from the beginning. Thus, I'm not sure that there is much in the way of "owning up" going on. Evidence that it has would surely involve a recognition of the years of discriminatory funding for health, education and housing that has existed from the first Indian Act of 1876. And it is the courts that are gradually, bit by bit, whittling away at the traditional lack of recognition of Indigenous treaty rights and land claims by our government. Court victories for the various bands and communities involved are not government policy and we will see how this government deals with the decisions.

So this is all somewhat encouraging, but surely not sufficient. If Canada is to actually enter into a relationship with Indigenous people that has some hope of truly leading to reconciliation and justice it cannot simply be left up to government to recognize and deal with the years of colonial injustice, important though that is. It is up to all Canadians to face up to our relative privilege vis a vis Indigenous people. Further, we must recognize what some people (Maurice Switzer and John Ralston Saul, among them), that: "We are all treaty people.", and that clearly the Euro-Canadian side has not lived up to our part of the bargain. To continue to avoid the fact that our ancestors were interlopers who in one way or another appropriated the land from Indigenous people and that successive generations have lived off the avails of the original injustice and that the present generations continue to benefit, means that we will never be able to even begin to address our "troubled relationship".  If we really are treaty people we'll take the example of our Indigenous partners and embrace our responsibilities.

__________________________________________________

[1] I put the term past in parenthesis because, the effect are not past but are generationally passed down from parents who felt shame and were deprived of parenting ability pass these dysfunctions on to children and because the system significantly weakened communities as it deprived them of future leaders and the ability to understand and take pride and use their traditional cultural knowledge and practices.

[2] This was undertaken in two ways, by conquest, which in Canada was not that common, and by treaty which was quite common. Note that the doctrine of "Terra Nullius" was not used In Canada. Even the most empire oriented European could not, and did not try, to suggest the lie that the country was uninhabited and unused (as was done in Australia).

 

[3] This is not to overlook the injustices perpetrated by religious and other institutions in causing suffering to Indigenous people. Indeed it will be interesting to see to what extent the "whitestream" population will rise up in face of the recent news of churches avoiding some of their financial responsibilities to residential school survivors. Will they demand that these church groups, particularly the Roman Catholic entities pay out what is owed.