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Bucking Conservatism: 1. Indian Status as the Foundation of Justice

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1. Indian Status as the Foundation of Justice
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“1. Indian Status as the Foundation of Justice” in “Bucking Conservatism”

1 Indian Status as the Foundation of Justice

Leon Crane Bear

Indigenous peoples were not included in the decision making that led to the 1867 creation of the country that settlers named Canada. In the decades following Confederation, “Indians” and “half-breeds” were systematically relegated to the margins of Canadian society through a combination of legislation and policy. Of particular concern to the government was the relationship of Indians, as a legally defined category, to the Canadian state, along with the Crown’s potentially costly obligations under the numerous treaties that it had signed with Indian bands in order to appropriate their lands. These concerns were reflected in many of the provisions of the Indian Act—a document used chiefly to curtail the right of Indians to practice their traditional cultures, to deny them control over their own affairs, and to encroach on their reserves. From 1867 onward, the policies pursued by the Canadian government were driven by the desire to assimilate Indians into mainstream Canadian society through the process of enfranchisement and thereby to relieve itself of its responsibilities—which, in the meanwhile, it endeavoured to discharge in cheapest way possible.

By the early 1960s, the deplorable conditions in which most First Nations (then still known as “Indians”) were obliged to live had become embarrassingly obvious even to the federal government. Its first step was, of course, to commission a report, for which it turned in 1963 to anthropologist Harry B. Hawthorn.1 The resulting report—A Survey of the Contemporary Indians of Canada, otherwise known as the Hawthorn Report—was submitted in two volumes, in 1966 and 1967. As the authors made a point of stating “clearly and simply” at the outset, they did not think “that the Indian should be required to assimilate, neither in order to receive what he now needs nor at any future time.” Their recommendations therefore took account of the possibility “that many Indians should reject some values or institutions held dear by the Canadian majority.”2 Indians were, at present, “citizens minus,” the authors noted. Instead, they “should be regarded as ‘citizens plus,’” given that “in addition to the normal rights and duties of citizenship, Indians possess certain additional rights as charter members of the Canadian community.”3 These were not ambiguous statements.

With the recommendations of the Hawthorn Report in hand, the federal government drafted its new Indian policy, which was announced in June 1969. Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy, 1969, commonly known as the White Paper, offered a novel solution to the problems besetting the Indian population: it proposed to make Indians “equal” to other Canadians by abolishing Indian status altogether. “Special status,” it declared in its opening statement, “has made of the Indians a community disadvantaged and apart.” If Indians were now disaffected and disempowered—lacking in education, employment opportunities, and self-esteem—it was because they had become accustomed to “special treatment.”4 Obviously, then, the remedy was to eliminate that special status and assimilate Indians into the Canadian body politic.

The White Paper sent a wave of anger surging through First Nations communities from coast to coast. Outraged protests immediately ensued. In an impassioned response titled The Unjust Society, Harold Cardinal, then president of the Indian Association of Alberta, argued that what the government had set out was “a thinly disguised programme of extermination through assimilation.”5 In the end, the government felt obliged to withdraw the White Paper, a decision prompted in no small measure by an incisive and outspoken rebuttal issued in 1970 by the Indian Chiefs of Alberta, which swiftly became known as the Red Paper.6 Central to the impact of the Red Paper was its thoroughgoing rejection of the White liberal universe. As I hope to make clear in what follows, the Red Paper’s forceful affirmation of the right of Indians to a separate identity infused First Nations communities with a fiery, and enduring, spirit of rebellion.

The Assault on First Peoples

The government’s White Paper on Indian policy reflected Prime Minister Trudeau’s broader plan to create a “just society,” a vision that formed the centerpiece of his 1968 campaign. Trudeau’s “just society” was founded on the liberal principles of human equality and support for individual rights, foremost among them the right of individuals to pursue their own interests, provided that, in so doing, they do not violate the rights of others. In particular, Trudeau placed a strong emphasis on minority rights and on equality of opportunity, so that disadvantaged individuals and groups would have equal access to education and to participation in the market economy.7 In an official statement made on 10 June 1968, roughly a year before the White Paper appeared, Trudeau declared that the “Just Society will be one in which our Indian and Inuit populations will be encouraged to assume the full rights of citizenship through policies which will give them both greater responsibility for their own future and more meaningful equality of opportunity.”8

The meaning of these lofty-sounding words became clear a year later, when, on the afternoon of 25 June 1969, Jean Chrétien, Trudeau’s minister of Indian Affairs, formally introduced the White Paper in the House of Commons. In the words of historian James Frideres, the White Paper “outlined a plan by which First Nations would be legally eliminated through the repeal of their special status and the end of their unique relationship with the federal government, and the treaties would cease to be living documents.”9 To this end, the government proposed repealing the Indian Act, abolishing the “Indian Affairs” branch of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, and transferring responsibility for the provision of services to First Nations from the federal to provincial and local governments, on the grounds that such services should be available to all Canadians on an “equitable basis.”10 It further announced its intention to grant Indians full title to their reserve lands, with a view to facilitating economic development. Noting that “full ownership” brings with it “an obligation to pay for certain services,” the government recognized that “it may not be acceptable to put all lands into the provincial systems immediately and make them subject to taxes.” However, it confidently predicted, “when the Indian people see that the only way they can own and fully control land is to accept taxation the way other Canadians do, they will make that decision.”11

With regard to treaties, the White Paper adopted a somewhat weary tone. “The terms and effects of the treaties,” it explained, have been “widely misunderstood”—evidently by the many Indians who “believe that lands have been taken from them in an improper manner, or without adequate compensation, that their funds have been improperly administered, that their treaty rights have been breached.”12 And yet “a plain reading of the words used in the treaties reveals the limited and minimal promises which were included in them.” After defending the government’s track record with regard to meeting these promises, the White Paper went on to declare that “the significance of the treaties in meeting the economic, educational, health and welfare needs of the Indian people has always been limited and will continue to decline.”13 Eventually, once Indians were securely in control of their lands, the treaties would need to be reviewed with a view to determining how they can be “equitably ended.”14 In the meanwhile, rather than pursue the idea of creating a Claims Commission, the government would appoint a single commissioner “to consult with the Indians and to study and recommend acceptable procedures for the adjudication of claims.”15

Especially in view of the paternalism on display throughout the White Paper, that it provoked such outrage should have come as no surprise to either Chrétien or Trudeau. The anger it generated stemmed, in part, from a sense of betrayal. For over a year, the government had been making a show of engaging in community consultations, initially by distributing a pamphlet titled “Choosing a Path” to reserves all across the country, apparently with the intention of soliciting grassroots input regarding the future of Indian policy.16 Once installed as Trudeau’s minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Jean Chrétien had resolved to amend the Indian Act. In July 1968, officials from the Indian Affairs branch of the department had accordingly embarked on a series of meetings with representatives from local First Nations communities. These meetings ran through the end of January 1969, but no concrete results had emerged from them. Then, in April 1969, shortly before the White Paper was released, the government had brought representatives from First Nations communities to Ottawa for a nationwide meeting. Throughout these consultations, Indian leaders had repeatedly expressed their concerns about Indian rights and treaty rights, about land title, about unresolved claims, about living conditions on reserves, and about the need to give Indians a voice in policy making.

When, barely two months later, the White Paper described itself as “a response to things said by the Indian people at the consultation meetings,” Indian leaders were astonished.17 They thought they had been participating in a process to amend the Indian Act, not to eliminate it, much less to abolish Indian status altogether and transform Indigenous people into just another minority group. Their reaction was both swift and critical. On 26 June, the day after the White Paper was unveiled, Indian leaders—who had been flown to Ottawa for the announcement of the new policy—issued a press release under the banner of the National Indian Brotherhood, firmly rejecting the policy on a number of grounds. The government, they argued, had failed to take into account the views expressed by Indian leaders during the consultation process. Moreover, the resulting policy refused to recognize not only that Indians had special rights but also that any new relationship between Indians and the government presupposed the resolution of existing grievances.18 That same day, Dave Courchene, president of the Manitoba Indian Brotherhood, released a similar but more strongly worded statement in which he noted that, yet again, “the future of Indian people has been dealt with in a high-handed and arbitrary manner.”19

In the weeks that followed, anger was quickly translated into plans for resistance. The Union of Nova Scotia Indians, which held its first meeting in July 1969, was founded expressly to provide a unified political voice for the province’s Mi’kmaq people in the face of the threat posed by the White Paper, and the Union of New Brunswick Indians formed at roughly the same time.20 On the opposite side of the country, in British Columbia, representatives from 140 different bands convened in Kamloops in November 1969 to draft a collective response to the White Paper and to map out the next steps in their fight for the recognition of land title and Indian rights.21 Ultimately, however, it was the response of the Indian Association of Alberta—an organization with roughly a thirty-year history of political activism—that would have the greatest impact on the future direction of Indian policy.

The Indian Association of Alberta and the Arrival of Harold Cardinal

The Indian Association of Alberta (IAA) was founded in 1939 by John Callihoo, a Haudenosaunee-Cree from the Michel reserve, northwest of Edmonton, and Métis advocate Malcolm Norris, one of the leading members of the Metis Association of Alberta. Initially, the IAA’s focus fell on efforts to improve the living conditions on reserves, where poverty, unemployment, poor access to education, and inadequate health care were part of everyday life. The link between these local problems and federal Indian policy was plain to see, and the IAA soon established a relationship with officials in Indian Affairs (then a branch of the Department of Mines and Resources). In 1944 and 1945, it submitted two “Memorials,” or briefs, to Indian Affairs that addressed the social, educational, and economic needs of Indian communities in Alberta, the first within the context of federal Indian policy and the second in relation to the government’s plans for postwar reconstruction. In its early dealings with Indian Affairs, the IAA generally adopted a non-confrontational approach, making an effort to operate within existing administrative and legislative structures.22 It also gained valuable experience in working with government.

By the mid-1940s, in the face of growing discontent among First Nations communities, coupled with widespread criticism of the Department of Indian Affairs, the government had recognized that some sort of response was necessary. The result was the creation, in May 1946, of a special joint committee of the House of Commons and Senate, which met from 1946 to 1948 to review the policies of Indian Affairs and to consider possible amendments to the Indian Act. Members of the IAA were invited to make presentations to the committee. One of the many issues on the table was the situation of Indians with respect to citizenship rights—a timely topic, in view of the passage, in June 1946, of the Canadian Citizenship Act.23 The committee held to the established view that, in order to be eligible for full citizenship rights, Indians first had to be educated in their civic duties and be fully able to contribute to the economy—that, under the terms of the Indian Act, they would remain wards of the Crown until they proved themselves worthy of citizenship.24 But the IAA refused to accept this argument. In their view, the treaties already conferred the full rights of citizenship on Indian peoples. It was the intention of the treaties, they argued, to grant equal status to Indians and to enable them to be “self-sustaining, loyal citizens of the Crown” by providing them with education and the means to earn a livelihood.25 It was a provocative position—although, not very surprisingly, it failed to convince the committee. All the same, a strong emphasis on treaty rights would continue to inform the IAA’s thinking over the next two decades.

The dramatic challenge represented by the White Paper came at a moment of transition for the IAA, with the arrival of a dynamic leader in the person of Harold Cardinal. Born in 1945, Cardinal was the son of Frank Cardinal—an active member of the IAA who, in 1947, travelled to Ottawa as part of the delegation that presented the IAA’s views to the special joint committee.26 Harold grew up on the Sucker Creek Cree reserve, roughly 350 kilometres northwest of Edmonton, on the southwestern shore of Lesser Slave Lake. In 1968, at the age of only twenty-four, he was elected president of the IAA, the youngest person ever to serve in that role. Two years earlier, while he was still a student at St. Patrick’s College in Ottawa, Cardinal had been elected president of the Canadian Indian Youth Council, an event that marked the beginning of a lifetime’s involvement in political activism.27

From the start, Cardinal was confident and forthright in speaking about issues of concern to the Indian community. As president of the Indian youth council, for example, in 1967 he attended a conference at the University of Alberta, hosted by the Canadian Union of Students, to celebrate the country’s centennial. There, he told the conference delegates, “We are tired and fed up with paternal futility. What have we got to celebrate during this centennial year?” He went on to question what was too often described as the “Indian problem”: “Is there an Indian problem or just a White manufactured problem?”28 If Indians were angry and dissatisfied, this was the result of colonialism, which had created a system to marginalize and subdue them. Cardinal carried this uncompromising, outspoken attitude with him into the presidency of the IAA, imbuing the organization with a newly activist spirit.

Faced with the government’s sudden announcement of a plan to terminate its long-standing contract with Indian peoples, Cardinal reacted with an outraged expression of anger and disgust. “Instead of acknowledging its legal and moral responsibilities to the Indians of Canada and honouring the treaties that the Indians signed in good faith,” he wrote on the opening page of The Unjust Society, the government “now proposes to wash its hands of Indians entirely.” As he went on to point out, later in the book, “As far as we are concerned our treaty rights represent a sacred, honourable agreement between ourselves and the Canadian government that cannot be unilaterally abrogated by the government at the whim of one of its leaders unless that government is prepared to give us back title to our country.”29 In light of the overall policy direction laid out in the White Paper, Cardinal was also reminded of Chrétien’s announcement, early the previous fall, of the impending reorganization of his department. Under the new structure, the existing branches were to be replaced by three program areas, under which Indian Affairs would then be subsumed.30 Cardinal concluded that the government had known its intentions “long before any results could be expected from the phoney consultation meetings”—which were, he said, “the purest hypocrisy.”31

By the time The Unjust Society appeared late in November 1969, it was already a bestseller.32 Although the book was written as Cardinal’s personal response to the White Paper, his views and sentiments were widely shared, and they would form the moral backbone of the Red Paper.

The Red Paper

Although Cardinal clearly exerted a strong influence over the content of the Red Paper, the document was the result of a collaborative effort and is formally credited to the Indian Chiefs of Alberta.33 Preparation of the Red Paper began in early fall of 1969, with a series of discussions with reserve communities in Alberta.34 On 22 January 1970, at a meeting in Calgary, the chiefs wrote to Prime Minister Trudeau to alert him to the impending submission of a “Counter Policy.” In their letter, they stated, “This assembly of all the Indian Chiefs of Alberta reaffirms its position of unity and recognizes the Indian Association of Alberta as the voice of all the Treaty Indian people of this province.” The letter, which was subsequently included in the preamble to the Red Paper, ended: “We request that no further process of implementation takes place and that action already taken be reviewed to minimize suspicions and to make possible a positive and constructive dialogue between your government and our people.”35 Trudeau had been put on notice.

When, in June, the Red Paper was released, it proved to contain a detailed assault on the White Paper’s program of assimilation, one that repeatedly emphasized the government’s obligation to respect the treaties as the foundation of its relationship to Indian peoples. In the argument of the Red Paper, treaties between Indians and the Crown signed in the latter half of the nineteenth century could not be extinguished in the name of equality and, in fact, needed to be honoured. “The Government has never bothered to learn what the treaties are and has a distorted picture of them,” it declared. Instead, it must “recognize that treaties are historic, moral and legal obligations.”36 Moreover, if the government feels that “there should be positive recognition by everyone of the unique contribution of Indian culture to Canadian life,” then it needs to understand that “the only way to maintain our culture is for us to remain as Indians. To preserve our culture it is necessary to preserve our status, rights, lands and traditions. Our treaties are the bases of our rights.”37

The hundred-page text of the Red Paper consists of two main parts. The first part is devoted to a rebuttal of the White Paper’s policy proposals, which are taken up one by one. This is followed by a consideration of the steps that need to be taken with respect to the Indian Act, the proposed transfer of responsibilities to the provinces, funding for economic development, the future of Indian Affairs, and the notion that a single commissioner be appointed to adjudicate claims.38 The second part lays out detailed plans for both economic development and education that would put the Indians of Alberta in charge of their own future. While these plans are elaborated specifically within the context of Alberta, they provide a template that could easily be adapted for somewhere else.

Not surprisingly, the Red Paper unequivocally rejects the abolition of Indian status, the repeal of the Indian Act, and the dissolution of Indian Affairs, all three of which it regards as essential components of the special relationship between Indian peoples and the Canadian state. Under the heading “Immediate Requirements,” it insists, first, that before any further policy discussions can take place (for example, about possible revisions to the Indian Act), the government must first accept the treaties as binding contracts and, second, that the government must appoint a minister responsible solely for Indian Affairs. Moreover, the Indian Affairs branch “needs to change its outlook”—it should “stop being authoritarian” and instead “start to serve people,” functioning “mainly as the keeper of the Queen’s promises, the treaties and the lands.”39 With respect to the devolution of responsibility for education onto the provinces, the Red Paper refuses to accept any arrangement under which decisions can be made without the direct participation of Indian tribal councils. “Our education is not a welfare system,” it points out. “We have free education as a treaty right because we have paid in advance for our education by surrendering our lands.”40

The Red Paper is impressive in part for its thoroughness: in repudiating the White Paper, it leaves few stones unturned. But it is also remarkable for its strong thematic unity. No government official reading the document could possibly miss its central message, which is summed up in the opening sentence of the preamble: “To us who are treaty Indians there is nothing more important than our Treaties, our lands, and the well being of our future generation.”41 These treaties recognize Indians as the original holders of title to the lands now called Canada and thus acknowledge the special status of Indian peoples. The government cannot simply decide to extinguish these agreements in the name of “equality.” Equality will be achieved when, in the words of Harold Cardinal, “the buckskin curtain of indifference, ignorance and, all too often, plain bigotry” ceases to exist. But once it has been torn down, Indians will not become “good little brown white men”: they will remain Indians.42

The Sound of Thunder

On 4 June 1970, the IAA presented its Red Paper on Parliament Hill at a meeting with Prime Minister Trudeau and his cabinet members, including Jean Chrétien. Also in attendance were representatives of the National Indian Brotherhood, who had convened in Ottawa a few days earlier. As a national organization, the brotherhood represented a large number of non-treaty Indians—that is, those who have Indian status under the terms of the Indian Act but whose bands never concluded treaties with the federal government. For non-treaty Indians, the Red Paper’s emphasis on treaty rights clearly posed a stumbling block. After some debate among its members, the National Indian Brotherhood had agreed, just the day before, to endorse the Red Paper as its official response to the White Paper, but only after revisions were made to incorporate the concept of Indian rights into the Red Paper’s discussion of treaties.43

At the meeting itself, two members of the IAA delegation—Adam Solway, chief of the Siksika Nation, and John Snow, chief of the Wesley band of the Stoney-Nakoda Nation—created a dramatic back-and-forth exchange between the White Paper and Red Paper by reading passages from each in turn. At the conclusion of their presentation, the chiefs placed the White Paper on the table in front of Chrétien, to signal its rejection, and then handed a copy of the Red Paper to the prime minister.44 In his own statement, Cardinal stressed that the government’s formal recognition of both Indian rights and treaty rights was fundamental to any new relationship between Indians and the Canadian state and proposed the creation of a Claims Commission to resolve existing complaints about violations of these rights. After summarizing the main points in the Red Paper’s position and reiterating the need for economic development and education, he called for the immediate cessation of efforts to implement the White Paper’s proposals, followed by the development of consultative procedures that Indians would find acceptable.45

What followed would be a defining moment for everyone in attendance, but particularly for the IAA. In his response to the presentation, Trudeau sounded a note of contrition:

I’m sure that we were very naive in some of the statements we made in the paper. We had perhaps the prejudices of small “l” liberals and white men at that who thought that equality meant the same law for everybody, and that’s why as a result of this we said, “well let’s abolish the Indian Act and make Indians citizens of Canada like everyone else. And let’s let Indians dispose of their lands just like every other Canadian. And let’s make sure that Indians can get their rights, education, health and so on, from the governments like every other Canadian.” But we have learnt in the process that perhaps we were a bit too theoretical, we were a bit too abstract, we were not, as Mr. Cardinal suggests, perhaps pragmatic enough or understanding enough, and that’s fine. We are here to discuss this.46

Here was the grand architect of the White Paper, acknowledging the “prejudices” of liberalism. Although Trudeau’s statement stopped well short of an apology, and although he defended his position on special rights, he assured those in attendance that his government was prepared to reconsider its position in light of their response. “We won’t force any solution on you,” he said in closing, “because we are not looking for any particular solution.”47 In other words, the White Paper had been put on hold.

This victory was like a jolt of lightning, followed by a resounding thunderclap. From coast to coast, First Nations collectively flexed their muscles, recognizing that resistance could succeed. Although the battle was clearly just beginning, Indian communities were infused with an understanding of their own power and dignity, as well as with a sense of possibility. In the face of escalating protests, Trudeau’s government soon began to back away from the White Paper. Finally, in a speech delivered in March 1971, Chrétien announced that the ideas put forward in the White Paper were “no longer a factor” in the continuing debate over the future of Indian policy. “The Government,” he stated, “does not intend to force progress along the directions set out in the policy proposals of June 1969.”48 The White Paper was officially dead.

Conclusion

Fifty years later, Indigenous people grapple with many of the same problems that sparked protests in the 1960s and 1970s. However, the Red Paper represented a watershed moment in Indigenous activism. Indigenous people were now in the public eye and they were organized and ready to resist any threats to assimilation, or their “special status” as Indians. Although the Indian Association of Alberta spearheaded the resistance, they had support from other Indigenous organizations from across the country and it was with new-found resolve and confidence that Indigenous communities continued in their fight to have their rights recognized.

In the 1980s, Indigenous people had an impact on the repatriation of the Canadian constitution when Indigenous leaders advocated for the constitutional protection of Aboriginal and Treaty rights. Following the statements laid out in the Red Paper, the IAA advocated for the inclusion of treaties in any future amendments in the constitution. As a result, when the First Ministers’ Conferences were convened between 1983 and 1987 to address the issue of self-government, among other topics, the IAA was an important participant.49 These constitutional conferences offered an opportunity to the IAA to restate their position on the rights of Indigenous people to govern themselves.50

In 1991, when a Royal Commission on Aboriginal People (RCAP) was initiated by then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, it came nearly fifty years after it had been first called for by the IAA.51 The five-volume final report, completed in 1996, investigated the relationship between Aboriginal people in relation to non-Aboriginal people and society.52 The report, noteworthy for its depth and breath of Indigenous content, included a series of recommendations, most of which were never implemented.

By the late 1990s, the IAA no longer played a major role on the national stage, in part due to cuts made to the federal and provincial funding programs that had sustained the organization for three decades. As a result, the IAA was forced to return to the work of collecting private donations, a practice that had funded the organization prior to 1968.

Harold Cardinal, a prominent IAA figure of the time, left the organization in the late 1970s to pursue other interests, but not before a brief time in the position of regional director general of Indian Affairs in Alberta. Although his term lasted only seven months, his appointment marked the first time that an Indigenous person had ever held the position. In 1999, Cardinal was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Alberta, before passing away in 2005. He will be remembered for his tenacity—when he spoke, his audience listened—and for his tireless efforts to implement the treaties. His work in the 1960s and 1970s empowered Indigenous people and continues to inspire activism efforts today.

NOTES

  1. 1. On the early development of the report and the choice of Hawthorn as lead author, see Dennis Magill, Study on the Hawthorn Report (Ottawa: Treaties and Historical Research Centre, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, 1976).
  2. 2. H. B. Hawthorn, ed., A Survey of the Contemporary Indians of Canada: A Report on Economic, Politicial, Educational Needs and Policies, vol. 1 (Ottawa: Indian Affairs Branch, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, 1966), 6. The generic use of the male pronoun was, of course, typical of the period.
  3. 3. Ibid., 6, 13. On the development and subsequent influence of the Hawthorn Report, see Sally M. Weaver, “The Hawthorn Report: Its Use in the Making of Canadian Indian Policy,” in Anthropology, Public Policy, and Native Peoples in Canada, ed. Noel Dyck and James B. Waldram (Montréal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1993), 75–97.
  4. 4. Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy, 1969, presented to the first session of the Twenty-Eighth Parliament by the Honourable Jean Chrétien, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Ottawa: Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, 1969), http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2014/aadnc-aandc/R32-2469-eng.pdf, 2. Note that, because this document is not paginated, page numbers refer to the page in the PDF.
  5. 5. Harold Cardinal, The Unjust Society, 2nd ed. (Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre; Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999), 1. First published 1969 by M. G. Hurtig (Edmonton).
  6. 6. Although Cardinal is usually credited as the principal author of the Red Paper, an unlikely source may have had a hand in it. According to historian Laurie Meijer Drees, “The IAA and Cardinal spent the winter of 1969/70 using government funds to pay for the writing of a response paper. To such ends they employed M and M Systems Research, a research firm established by the former Social Credit Premier of Alberta and his son, Preston Manning, for a reputed fee of $25,000. The resulting document, entitled ‘Citizens Plus,’ was ready for public consumption in the spring of 1970.” Laurie Meijer Drees, The Indian Association of Alberta: A History of Political Action (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2002), 169.
  7. 7. On Trudeau’s understanding of liberalism see, Thomas S. Axworthy and Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Towards a Just Society (Ontario, Canada: Penguin Books, 1990), 263.
  8. 8. “The Just Society,” Official Statement by the Prime Minister, 10 June 1968, in Pierre Elliott Trudeau, The Essential Trudeau, ed. Ron Graham (Toronton: McClelland and Stewart, 1998), 19.
  9. 9. James S. Frideres, First Nations in the Twenty-First Century (Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press, 2011), 15.
  10. 10. Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy, 1969, 15. With regard to the transfer of federal funds to provincial governments, the White Paper noted: “Subject to negotiations with the provinces, such provisions would as a matter of principle eventually decline, the provinces ultimately assuming the same responsibility for services to Indian residents as they do for services to others” (15). In other words, the cost of these services would ultimately be borne by the provinces.
  11. 11. Ibid., 22.
  12. 12. Ibid., 19, 18.
  13. 13. Ibid., 19. The implication was, of course, that if First Nations now found themselves living in destitution, it was not because the government had failed to make good on its promises.
  14. 14. Ibid., 20. In the government’s view, the treaties were in many ways relics of the past. Regarding the need for the government and First Nations to arrive at an agreement about the future role of the treaties, the White Paper commented: “Many of the provisions and practices of another century may be considered irrelevant the light of a rapidly changing society” (20).
  15. 15. Ibid., 8.
  16. 16. On “Choosing a Path,” see Cardinal, Unjust Society, 101–2. According to Mark Anderson and Carmen Robertson, a number of prominent First Nations leaders (including Harold Cardinal) suspected that the pamphlet—soon dubbed “Down the Garden Path”—was “a moot exercise, the real intention of which was to effectively disguise a hidden government agenda that had already been decided upon.” Mark Cronlund Anderson and Carmen L. Robertson, Seeing Red: A History of Natives in Canadian Newspapers (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2011), 159.
  17. 17. Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy, 1969, 6.
  18. 18. See Sally M. Weaver, Making Canadian Indian Policy: The Hidden Agenda, 1968–1970 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), 173–74. As Weaver notes, the Indian leaders present in Ottawa held an “emergency session” on 26 June (173).
  19. 19. On Courchene’s statement, see ibid., 174–75; the quotation from his press release appears on p. 174.
  20. 20. On its “About” page (http://www.unsi.ns.ca/about/), the Union of Nova Scotia Indians explicitly states that the organization came into existence “in the face of a proposed federal government policy to assimilate Canada’s First Nations people into mainstream society.”
  21. 21. See “The White Paper 1969,” Indigenous Foundations, 2009, https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/the_white_paper_1969/, paras. 11–12. The Kamloops meeting led to the formation of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs. Its response, A Declaration of Indian Rights: The BC Indian Position Paper, was released in November 1970.
  22. 22. Meijer Drees, Indian Association of Alberta, 73–74 .
  23. 23. Under the Canadian Citizenship Act, which went into effect at the start of 1947, British subjects living in Canada automatically became citizens of Canada. The act made no specific mention of Indians—but, at the time, only enfranchised Indians were British subjects, and such Indians were very few in number, given that enfranchisement meant loss of Indian status. The option of enfranchisement—first made available to Indians in 1857, with the passage of the Gradual Civilization Act—had long been recognized by Indians as a tactic of assimilation, and it had proved to be exceedingly unpopular.
  24. 24. Laurie Meijer Drees, “Citizenship and Treaty Rights: The Indian Association of Alberta and the Canadian Indian Act, 1946–48,” Great Plains Quarterly 20, no. 2 (2000): 142.
  25. 25. Ibid., 151; the quotation is from the brief that the IAA presented to the special joint committee.
  26. 26. Ibid., 153. Also see, Laurie Meijer Drees’ dissertation on which her book is based, http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp04/nq24550.pdf, 209.
  27. 27. “Council President Says Indian Youth Refuses Passive Role,” Leader Post, 13 October 1966, 5.
  28. 28. Cardinal’s remarks are quoted in “Indians Not Celebrating Says Chief of Council,” The Gateway, 9 March 1967, 1.
  29. 29. Cardinal, Unjust Society, 1, 25.
  30. 30. More specifically, under the new structure, the activities of the four existing branches—Indian Affairs, Northern Development, the Parks Service, and the Wildlife Service—were to be variously assigned to one of three programs: social affairs, economic development, and conservation. The ostensible goal was to cut costs and improve efficiency by eliminating redundancy. See Jean Chrétien, “Indian Affairs: Statement on Reorganization of Department,” 2 October 1968, https://www.lipad.ca/full/1968/10/02/1/.
  31. 31. Cardinal, Unjust Society, 104. See also Anderson and Robertson, Seeing Red, 158–59. There, they quote remarks that Chrétien made in a September 1968 speech to the Indian-Eskimo Association, nine months prior to the appearance of the White Paper. “It is possible,” Chrétien said, “that the Indian people will decide that there should not be an Indian Act at all. They might decide they do not want special legislation. There would then be required some transitional legislation which would transfer federal responsibility for the land to the Bands and individuals. On completion of the process, the Act would pass out of existence.” As the authors point out, the parallel to the policy laid out in the White Paper is unmistakable. Cited in Peter McFarlane and Doreen Manuel, Brotherhood to Nationhood: George Manuel and the Making of the Modern Indian Movement (Toronto: Between The Lines, 1993), 108.
  32. 32. According to a profile of Cardinal that appeared in Maclean’s at the time the book was released, the publisher received more than sixteen thousand advance orders. Jon Ruddy, “What the Canadian Indian Wants from You,” Maclean’s, 1 December 1969, https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1969/12/1/what-the-canadian-indian-wants-from-you, 20.
  33. 33. Meijer Drees, Indian Association of Alberta, 169.
  34. 34. Ibid., 166.
  35. 35. Indian Chiefs of Alberta, Citizens Plus (Edmonton: Indian Association of Alberta, 1970), reprinted as a Foundational Document in Aboriginal Policy Studies 1, no. 2 (2011): 191, 192. The reprint is available at https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/aps/index.php/aps/article/view/11690. To read a copy of the Red Paper, see http://caid.ca/RedPaper1970.pdf.
  36. 36. Ibid., 196.
  37. 37. Ibid., 194. The first quotation reproduces the words of the White Paper itself.
  38. 38. In the Red Paper, the first part comprises sections B (section A is the preamble) through E (“Conclusion”). The second part, which is substantially longer, is made up a series of “F” sections.
  39. 39. Ibid., 206.
  40. 40. Ibid., 202.
  41. 41. Ibid., 189.
  42. 42. Cardinal, Unjust Society, 1.
  43. 43. Weaver, Making Canadian Indian Policy, 183. Thus, for example, after proposing that the government entrench the treaties in the Constitution, the Red Paper states: “Only by this entrenching will Indian rights be assured as long as the sun rises and the river runs.” Indian Chiefs of Alberta, Citizens Plus, 199.
  44. 44. Ibid., 183–84. Note that Weaver refers to Adam Soloway, but the name is more commonly spelled Solway.
  45. 45. Ibid., 184.
  46. 46. “Statement by the Prime Minister at a Meeting with the Indian Association of Alberta and the National Indian Brotherhood, Ottawa, June 4, 1970,” typescript, http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2018/aanc-inac/R5-598-1970-eng.pdf, 2–3.
  47. 47. Ibid., 7.
  48. 48. Jean Chrétien, “The Unfinished Tapestry: Indian Policy in Canada,” speech delivered on 17 March 1971, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, quoted in Weaver, Making Canadian Indian Policy, 187. In the original typescript, the sentence quoted was underlined.
  49. 49. Colin H. Scott, “Custom, Tradition, and the Politics of Culture: Aboriginal Self-Government in Canada,” in Anthropology, Public Policy and Native Peoples in Canada, ed. Noel Dyck and James B. Waldram (Montréal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1993), 311–33. Scott explained that this series of conferences between Indigenous leaders and the two levels of governments (federal and provincial) was to determine the nature of self-government. However, the federal and provincial governments had “limited” their understanding of self-government to two areas: “cultural survival and the resolution of socio-economic problems besetting aboriginal people” (316). While Indigenous leaders thought of self-government as “cultural rights to the historical priority of aboriginal peoples, and to an institutionally comprehensive definition of cultural survival” (317).
  50. 50. The Indian Association of Alberta, Citizens Plus: the Red Paper, 191. Note that, because this document is not paginated, page numbers refer to the page in the PDF.
  51. 51. The 1991 Royal Commission occurred in the wake of the Oka crises and was called as a result of the failed Meech Lake Accord, a process that excluded First Nations. The IAA had been informing the federal government of the concerns of Indigenous communities in Alberta for nearly fifty years when the commission was finally called. As early as the mid-1940s, the IAA had submitted “Memorials” to Indian Affairs which addressed the social, education, and economic issues in their communities. Drees, Indian Association of Alberta, 97.
  52. 52. See the five volumes of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples here, https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/aboriginal-heritage/royal-commission-aboriginal-peoples/Pages/final-report.aspx.
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