Senator way off base on ‘advice’ to First Nations

We’ve been Canadian citizens since the 1950s, and pay taxes

This week social media in Indian country lit up with news stories of Conservative Senator Lynn Beyak and her advice to Canada’s First Nations. Beyak’s advice was that we turn in our treaty cards and become Canadian citizens.

It is a simple solution, but she’s late. The Indian Act of 1951 extended Canadian citizenship to First Nations. In fact, during the 1950s Indian Affairs was a branch of the federal department of citizenship and immigration. In 1960, the Diefenbaker government extended voting rights to status Indians. It also appointed James Gladstone as Canada’s first Indigenous senator and his picture is on the new $10 bill. But, I digress.

In any event, Beyak feels that if we had a negotiated cash settlement we could join the mainstream and stop costing taxpayers billions each year. What she fails to realize is that every Canadian benefits from taxpayers’ dollars for education, health, welfare and so on, and First Nations people are taxpaying citizens.

Beyak came from northwestern Ontario where her late husband owned General Motors dealerships in Dryden and Rainy River. Her political experience consists of a failed bid to get elected for the Conservatives in a provincial election. She was appointed to the senate by Stephen Harper who had no use for the Senate and used it as a dumping ground for party hacks and sycophants.

So the controversy rages on. The mayors of both Winnipeg and Edmonton have asked that she resign her senate seat. Naturally, she has ignited a firestorm in Indian country.

But I recall the many expressions and malapropisms of movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn who once stated of someone he held beneath contempt, “Him, I don’t even ignore.” So rather than work myself into a lather when it comes to Senator Beyak, “Her, I don’t even ignore.”

John A. Macdonald was an Orangeman, a statesman, a racist and a prodigious lush who was Canada’s first prime minister. Today, there are streets, buildings and statues to him all over the country. There is also a growing body of individuals who would like to see an end to this hero worship and a more circumspect honouring of our founding father.

John A. was prime minister from 1867 to 1891 with a brief hiatus from 1873 to 1878. His dream was a nation and a railroad from coast to coast. To complete this task he had to secure sovereignty over Western Canada, which meant signing treaties with the First Nations. Once that was completed he went after the stragglers and those who refused to sign the treaty such as Big Bear, Little Pine and others. The policy of the day was to send the First Nations farther north and starve those who resisted.

Meanwhile, the Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia have been protesting the statue and recognition that the City of Halifax has for Gen. Cornwallis, the founder of the city. The history of the city ignores the fact that Cornwallis issued a bounty on Mi’kmaq scalps in order to clear the surrounding area of Mi’kmaq people. The city is split as to whether the statue should go.

This story is repeated over and over. Former heroes are being examined from the point of view of those who were oppressed. George Washington drove the Mohawks out of the Mohawk Valley in Upstate New York. Lincoln, the great emancipator, ordered the public hanging of 38 Sioux men in Minnesota in 1862, an act that John A. Macdonald would repeat in 1885 with the public hanging of eight Cree warriors at Battleford. Both were the largest public hangings in both nations’ history.

It’s true that history is written from the point of view of the conquerors and that includes statues, place names and a whitewashed view of history.

Senator Murray Sinclair waded into this topic, recently suggesting that we become aware of the checkered past of Canada’s heroes and name streets and roads after First Nations and Metis heroes. It’s time to erect statues that reflect our past that includes First Nations and Metis people and other immigrants other than the French and British conquerors.

The statues of Chief White Cap and Gabriel Dumont in Saskatoon are a good place to start.