No quick solutions to native issues
Can’t even get rid of the racist Indian Act
It seems the country is finally determined to confront the disgrace of its treatment of aboriginal peoples. Good. But anyone expecting dramatic, rapid solutions, or promising them, is dreaming or dissembling. Sir John A. Macdonald’s legacy on this front is too deep, and has done too much harm for that.
The l atest community in crisis is the Attawapiskat First Nation, wracked by suicides. The politicians who raced to the scene, this time — Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett and MP Charlie Angus — appear entirely genuine in their compassion and desire to help. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet are seized with the issue and have budgeted more than $8 billion to redress. It’s impossible not to get the sense that this time is different.
But here are some of the structural problems that stand in the way. They are embedded in Canada’s Constitution, laws and culture. Facing them will be difficult, painful and very expensive.
The first, of course, is the Indian Act itself, drafted in 1876, and a racist horror show. It explicitly confers upon “Indians,” a legal and social status akin to that of children. In creating geographically separate reserves and a race- based system of distinction, it enshrined Canada’s very own a partheid r e gi me. The only important difference between ours and the 1980s- era Boer version is that South African blacks are the majority in their country.
The second is that many of Canada’s 600- plus “Indian” bands, though not all, were and remain located in places where there is no natural economy, defined as one in which a plurality of residents have a hope of getting a job that can earn a living for themselves and their families. A natural economy would also be one in which traditional hunting, fishing or gathering offer the prospect of a living. Neither of those is the rule today. Attawapiskat is a prime example.
The third is that the reserve system was designed in such a way as to deny private property rights to most residents, though this is changing on some reserves, propelled by reformers such as Chief Manny Jules. Home ownership is, of course, the nearly universal Canadian path to middle-class savings and a pension. Home ownership also confers the ability to borrow money — whether for renovations, a bigger home or a new business. This avenue to prosperity is still denied most aboriginal Canadians living on reserves.
The fourth is that the system of basic supports enshrined in the reserve system — inadequate though these benefits are when compared with the hope of gainful employment and a nice home — is still preferable f or many reserve dwellers to being thrust into a southern urban setting where all sense of community is gone, family and friends are far away and racism is rampant.
Though hundreds of thousands have voted with their feet in recent years, making the off-reserve population larger now than on reserve, the system still perversely incentivizes the preservation of hopeless Bantustans. It remains to be seen if the Supreme Court of Canada’s extension of “Indian” status to Métis and offreserve people will change this.
And the fifth obstacle, perhaps the most important and least discussed, is that the internal aboriginal governance system is an impossibly unwieldy relic of the 19th century, which denies aboriginal people the possibility of effective representation by population. The Assembly of First Nations is just that — an assembly. It is not a legislature. Its grand chief has no authority to speak for or negotiate on behalf of its members. So, when the time comes for sweeping com- pacts to be concluded with the government of Canada, representing the Crown, along the lines of Stephen Harper’s aborted First Nations Education Act (FNEA), agreement is elusive. One group of chiefs may agree, another may not. Deals fall apart.
To all this, add the tortuously slow pace of landclaims settlements. Taken together, it sheds light on why so many aboriginal activists are so suspicious of exhortations from mainstream civil libertarians to “abolish the Indian Act,” and the reserve system itself, on grounds of their egregious racism. It is a horrendous system, virtually all agree. But although some bands are ready to move beyond the despised act, and many have, there is great variance from band to band in the degree of preparedness for this shift.
Even as t he Liberals strive to bring lasting reform, they must be aware progress will bea slow grind, with individual band’s successes punctuated by further tragedies, in no small part because the process must be led from the ground up. This is the lesson of every previous failed attempt, from Jean Chrétien’s white paper in 1969 to FNEA in 2014. Reform imposed from above will fail. And that rules out speed.
So, begin the transformation, absolutely. But let’s not pretend it will be quick. There are too many promises, too many grand plans under the bridge, for that.