The September 10th, 1990 issue of Maclean’s magazine was dramatic. The cover picture: a battle-ready Canadian soldier staring across to a Mohawk warrior. An assault rifle was part of the picture. Over 3000 armed troops, including 2500 combat soldiers along with military hardware, were deployed to Oka by Canadian forces chief of staff John de Chastelaine at the behest of both the Prime Minister – Mulroney – and the Premier of Quebec – Bourassa. The issue: who really owned the golf course lands?

In a nutshell, the scene symbolized the long-standing asymetrical relationship between the federal and provincial Crown and Indigenous Peoples. A potent armed force in the name of law-and-order overwhelming long-suffering, courageous people in the wearying pursuit of justice. Said de Chastelaine, “As the last resort of Canadian law and order, we cannot fail.”

It had too long been a failure. This Canadian style of “law-and-order” was the problem. Governments long acting as if committed to that noble value, while north Turtle Island’s Indigenous Peoples were depicted as law-breakers and disturbers of the peace and good order. False. It was the Crown and its agents failing “law-and-order”. (see my Pilgrim Praxis blog post at:  http://www.minister.ca/restore-law-order-recognize-indigenous-land-rights-3  )

It has taken many years of litigation for Indigenous peoples to gain significant degrees of vindication. Their claims to traditional lands and their resources, their refusal to go along with the notion of “extinguishing” their title and rights, their resistance against assimilation in general, their demand for comparable social, educational, and health conditions, their right to decent housing and clean drinking water on reserves, the justified claims to self-determination, and much more – core law is actually on their side and the Crown’s honour has been besmirched as governments procrastinate, prevaricate, legislate, and resist the irresistible arc of justice.

The Courts of Canada reading the case history determined that it is indeed the governments of Canada that have broken the law and created the disorder. As far back as the 15th century obscene “Doctrine of Discovery” – the then Pope declared European Christian monarchs could take possession of “terrae nullius” – lands only occupied by “heathen and pagan” natives – starting a European land rush and wars to take control of the “vacant lands”.

With British dominance, Turtle Island becomes a colonial settler-controlled region. After the American Revolution, British North America is limited to the area “north of the border” – Canada. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 assures Indigenous peoples of their land and resources rights; the Charter of Rights and Freedoms of 1982 enshrines “inherent” rights; endless court cases confirm Indigenous claims and rights; Royal Commissions and other in depth investigations dig deep into the malignant relationship between settler and Indigenous societies; apologies confirm the abuse suffered by Indigenous peoples as governments, churches, and immigrants press original inhabitants to extinguish land rights and assimilate into Euro-Canadian ways; reparations and the Truth & Reconciliation Commission reveal starkly the evil the Residential School system perpetrated over six or seven generations of Indigenous children. “Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children….”

Indigenous efforts to restore “law-and-order” is a long saga involving tense moments of encounter as at Oka, at Caledonia, at Burnt Church, Kettle Point, with Wet’suwet’en Elders blocking the TMX pipeline and activists blockading mainline trains; resisting RCMP officers enforcing judicial injunctions burdening justice seekers with incarceration and violent restraints; and suffering endless imposed litigation for land rights and resource justice.  

 

Instead of observing legally established law-and-order, governments have forced Indigenous Peoples into lengthy legal mazes delaying, manipulating with a view to minimizing Indigenous gains and maximizing the lands’ natural wealth for the settler society. The benefits have made colonial society wealthy while impoverishing Indigenous peoples, forcing them into dependency on government “beneficence” for paternalistic hand-outs. Coralled into postage stamp reserves, Indigenous peoples were deprived of their rootedness in and the abundant wealth of their vast lands by the Crown and its perverse colonial legislation.

In March 1990, Max Yalden, then the Chief Commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission wrote in his annual report, “If there is any single issue on which Canada cannot hold it head high in the international community, it is in the area of aboriginal relations.”   

“His comments: Broken promises, paternalism, and arbitrariness are the three main factors in the frustration that has built up over the years. Always having to follow the rules set by the Indian Affairs department, natives must have felt increasingly that this was a game of cards in which the deck was stacked against them. It is paradoxical that federal authorities spend billions of dollars a year aimed at improving the health and well-being of the native population and yet their conditions remain poor and their prospects nil. They [Indigenous peoples] are saying, ‘Give us a land base and the financial resources you owe us, and we will run our own affairs.’ Well, we certainly haven’t done a satisfactory job, so we should take up their challenge.”   [p.28-29, Maclean’s/September 10, 1990]

Have things changed in the intervening 31 years since Yalden reported?  Not much. The struggle continues with more of the same. What is needed is a fundamental shift in approach. Instead of hollow ritual words about Indigenous lands, Canada and all Canadians need to “take up the challenge” to welcome the opportunity for a new mutually respectful, harmonious, productive relations between settler peoples and Indigenous peoples.

Will Parliament's Bill C15 affirming the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) now signal that government is actually willing to take up that challenge? If you read the words of the Bill, then it could be interpreted this way. It seems to have all the makings.   It states:

“that the Government of Canada must take all measures necessary to ensure that the laws of Canada are consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and must prepare and implement an action plan to achieve the objectives of the Declaration.” 

An action plan? The Trudeau government has not detailed one in C15 except to review current laws to ensure they conform to international standards of justice – something they could have done over the past five years! And if some senators have their way, the whole bill and UNDRIP will go away just as the NDP’s Romeo Naganash’s Private Member’s Bill C262 was squashed by the Red Chamber lobbied hard by corporate interests.

A real action plan will require changed hearts. But there are still too many people ill-informed today like the letter writer to Maclean’s editor back in 1990 who fulminated : 

 “Is it not amazing what is happening on the Mercier Bridge and at Oka? Some Indians pay very little in the way of taxes, set up their own governments on the reserves and, in so doing, choose not to participate in Canada. They add insult to injury by demanding federal funding for the reserves, and Canadians are further insulted by the interruption of transportation and the disruption of the economy in the areas affected. Perhaps the army should have moved in on July 11, when the standoff began.”

Settler society needs to become just as aware of the actual Indigenous experience of living under the Indian Act as the Indigenous peoples have learned about settler society harvesting abundance from Indigenous lands! Then there might be deeper understanding, more compassion, renewed incentive for shared visioning and cooperation, and perhaps even hope for a welcome future.

But to have change – to restore law and order as it should be – we do need hope - not some ill-defined, vague feeling. Thomas Homer-Dixon, social scientist, commends “commanding hope” in a world in need of change – “we hope TO bring about a specific vision of the future," he expounds,  "by setting out goals for achieving that vision and by making ourselves active, powerful protagonists in that vision’s story. It’s designed to shift us from a vicious to a virtuous circle of agency.” (Thomas Homer-Dixon, Commanding Hope – the Power We Have to Renew a World in Peril. Toronto, Alfred A Knopf Canada, 2020. p. 84.)

The first thing government and well-intentioned allies could do is educate the populace about the historic occupation and tell the sorry story as Indigenous peoples have experienced the settler reality. Public opinion is shifting but still has a long, long way to go for the change of heart that understands, appreciates, and welcomes a new “two-row wampum” relationship with Indigenous peoples.

Instead of the adversarial relationship that hasn’t worked, let’s help Canadians with diverse backgrounds, experiences, gifts, values, and cultures,  learn about gratefully sharing our home on native lands and embracing a desire and the necessity for well-being and productive life together. Truth, justice-based values, and the common good must inform the hope.

Let’s create some dreaming circles representative of both Indigenous and settler peoples to imagine a future of respect and welcome for all of Canada’s peoples. But let’s also create a way that Indigenous peoples don’t have to go cap in hand to enter into processes of change.    Indigenous peoples need an assured revenue stream that allows them to determine what they need to do and how they can participate in partnership processes without having to beg for money from the federal government.

The land is key to any new funding approach. What was taken from the Indigenous peoples was the source of their well-being and economic potential. Confining people to reserves too often on unproductive land was a formula for impoverishment and degradation, dependency and disempowerment. 

 So now let’s determine that in those vast traditional territories - land and its resources - lies the future of both Indigenous and settler Canadians.  Let’s start with a sign of “good faith” to signal that the traditional territories – the entire land mass of Canada - of the Indigenous peoples has made the settler community rich and productive, and it is long overdue for Indigenous peoples to share in the common-wealth. 

 

The bridge building sign of good faith could be a 1% toll or levy or "expression of gratitude" on the sale of any property anywhere in Canada. It would provide a steady revenue for Indigenous peoples to participate authentically and independently in renewing the relationship and developing their social and economic potential. 

How would such a Fund be perceived? The most perverse way to see it would be to say it is a bribe or a ransom to gain peace. Others might see it as restitution to redress the injustices – past and present. Some might interpret such a Fund as reparations – to finance improvement of the living standards of Indigenous people more in line with that of other Canadians. None of these views brings hope for the future of a vibrant and respectful, productive relationship.  

 

Instead, could we see  the Fund as the first fruits of a new spirit that seeks to treat the other as we would want to be treated, a new spirit that recognizes the iniquity and inequity of the past and our resolution to embrace a new, mutually respectful and productive future, in shared appreciation of the land and its blessings so abundantly provided?

An Indigenous authority structure would steward the Fund for social and community development, for education, housing, and ecological endeavors, while conversations with the Crown continue about how Indigenous claims and rights are fairly determined for the common good – for Indigenous peoples and settler peoples and for the well-being of the Earth. 

 Such a scenario would be a wonderful, miraculous way to bring to an end the dramas like that of Oka and Wet’suwet’en. The fruits of this spirit could just be law-and-order, or better: justice and peace. We too can have a dream….. the arc of the moral universe is long, but even in Canada it bends inexorably towards justice – the basis for peace.