Meager payments reminder of history
Scars of aboriginal discrimination etched deeply in Canada
WINNIPEG, Manitoba — On a brilliant afternoon in Winnipeg, scores of indigenous people lined up under a large white tent to collect what’s known as the annual “treaty payment” — money stipulated in treaties, signed by past generations with the Canadian government in exchange for territory. The payment? $5. Yes, per year. “That’s how much we natives were worth back then,” said Keri Buboire, 24, a construction worker who lives in Winnipeg, the provincial capital of Manitoba, and had come to collect several years’ worth of money. “But it really doesn’t feel legitimate today.”
Last increased from $3 in 1875, the payments are a potent symbol of the complex legal relationship between aboriginal groups, known as First Nations, and the Canadian government — and a reminder of Canada’s long record of broken promises and unmet obligations to those communities.
Beginning in the mid-19th century, treaties stipulating annuities were an important tool in British and then Canadian efforts to acquire valuable territory to expand white settlement and economic development. Canada signed seven treaties in Manitoba between 1871 and 1906.
But the treaties were not mere contracts to exchange land, historians say. They were part of a broader strategy to erase indigenous identity and autonomy, as laws gave the federal government power over the First Nations’ finances and religious practices.
The residential school program was described as “cultural genocide” by a 2015 government commission that examined the history and impact of the schools. Its findings led Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to promise a “total renewal” of Canada’s relationship with the First Nations, and to hold reconciliation talks with 300 aboriginal communities.
Even as these efforts press forward, however, many people of the First Nations suffer from disproportionately high rates of poverty, unemployment, suicide, violence, incarceration and addiction.
The scars of aboriginal discrimination are etched deeply here in Winnipeg, home to Canada’s largest urban indigenous population.
The metropolis was built on treaty territory, and was the nation’s most violent city in 2015.
On a visit to the treaty payment event held during seven days at the end of June, indigenous people young and old, many from Winnipeg, made their way to a large tent set up for the occasion in a downtown park.
Inside the tent, government employees sat behind picnic tables draped in Canadian flags, checking identification before handing over new fivedollar bills. On another table sat a mounted replica of a treaty from the 19th century, its delicate calligraphy barely legible.
Nearly everyone standing in line was collecting several years’ worth of payments. Many said treaty days were a chance to see friends and fulfill their part of a sacred obligation signed by their ancestors.
Gerald McIvor, 54, a native rights activist, collected nine years’ worth of payments. Originally from the Sandy Bay First Nation, a reserve on the western shore of Lake Manitoba, he explained that for many indigenous families, especially those living on impoverished reserves, treaty payments, though modest, can help make ends meet.
But the free payments contribute to a devastating culture of economic reliance on the government, he said. “The web of dependency is so perpetuated that a lot of people on reserve actually think welfare is a treaty right,” he said.
Many indigenous people say the Canadian government and First Nations were supposed to share the land and its economic benefits, and criticize the government for depriving aboriginal communities of the billions in natural resources extracted from treaty territory.
“After everything Canada has taken from native people, we should be getting $5,000 instead of 5,” said Marcel Guiboche, 72, a retired social worker who recalled being regularly beaten and sexually abused during his years in residential school.
Still, he came for the money out of principle. “I come and get it because they owe me.”
In 2016, 579,000 First Nation people were eligible to collect annuities stipulated in treaties signed between 1850 and 1921, according to Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, the department that oversees payments.
Last year, the department distributed around 1.9 million Canadian dollars, or $1.5 million, at more than 360 treaty payment events nationwide. Still, more than 16 million Canadian dollars in total annuity payments had never been claimed by the end of last year.