Canada’s colonial oppression of its FIRST NATIONS

Theresa Spence, Chief of Canada’s indigenous Attawapiskat people, ended her 44-day fast from solid foods on January 24. Although her protest carried out camped in a teepee near Canada’s House of Parliament, did not achieve the aim of bringing together the Governor General, Prime Minister and the Canadian First Nation leaders to discuss the aboriginal or First Nations issues, it brought aboriginal leaders and opposition politicians together to fight for a long list of priorities.

This protest is important to draw attention to the situation of the indigenous people of Canada, the country that is today seeking to play a role more in keeping with her geographical size and value of natural resources than its respect for civilized behaviour, in teaching other countries how to behave on matters such as human rights, accountability and minority rights, than in actual practice in these important areas of activity.

Canada has for some time been making strong criticisms of Sri Lanka and opposed holding of the forthcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) here, based on alleged war crimes and violations of humanitarian law in the operations to defeat the LTTE in May 2009. It has ratcheted up on the opposition to Sri Lanka after the unverified allegations in the Channel 4 videos, the highly questioned Darusman report and the constant propaganda and campaigning by the pro-LTTE Tamil lobby in Canada, which has the largest number of expatriate Sri Lankan Tamils in the world today.

It is, therefore, interesting to know that while shouting out so much about the treatment of Sri Lanka’s Tamil people, with little regard to the context of an extended period of terrorism, in which all communities in this country were affected; Canada is itself oppressing her own important minority – the aboriginal or indigenous people Canada - known as the First Nations. There is now strong evidence of gross violations of treaty obligations signed by the British and Canadian Governments with their leaders, carrying out moves to grab the natural resources on First Nations lands, and also threatening the health and the very existence of these people.

These anti-democratic acts and blatant violations of the rights of the indigenous people of Canada has been raised in important sections of the international media in recent weeks, in addition to them being taken up at important international fora with moves for these to come up in the United Nations, too. The Stephen Harper government is getting increased flak over this treatment of the indigenous people both within the country, and increasing concerns outside as the truths are exposed.

Indigenous community

The Guardian Weekly (04.01.13) had an important piece titled “Rising anger of Canada’s First Nations” that exposed much of the harsh reality under which these people live, in a country that is fast seeking to be among the leading oil producers of the world.

Reporting on the fast launched by Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence, Guardian writer Isabel Doucet from Montreal, quoted New Democratic Party parliamentarian Charlie Angus stating that: “When images of Canada’s First Nations people living in mouldy shacks and frosty tents, without toilets or running water, emerged last year, Canadians were shocked. It was Canada’s ‘Katrina moment.’… “A year on, progress has been excruciatingly slow. The indigenous community received only 22 trailer homes to deal with the housing crisis. A construction trailer with three bathrooms and a kitchen still caters for around 50 people,” according to Angus.

The Guardian Weekly reported that: “Many of Canada’s aborigines live in what can only be described as developing-world conditions. Chronic underfunding of essential social services and complete collapse of infrastructure on reserves result in high mortality, unemployment, substance abuse, suicide and incarceration.

“Early development is obstructed for children on reserves by a bureaucratic financial hole that gives 30 percent to 50 percent less educational funding than to other Canadian youngsters.

“Unrest is growing among Canada’s First Nations as the conservative government makes sweeping changes to environmental protections and the Indian Act, which many fear will fast-track the absolute surrender of indigenous territory, terminate treaty rights and endanger land and water in favour of economic gain.

“The past few weeks has seen the largest series of nationwide protests in two decades, and last month a grassroots-led campaign under the Twitter hashtag #IdleNoMore, saw thousands in over a dozen cities across Canada, the US and UK take to the streets and call on Harper and Governor General David Johnston to enter negotiations with Spence.

“Pamela Palmater, lawyer, professor and director of the Centre for Indigenous Governance, believes the unprecedented changes to legislation, combined with drastic cuts to native organisations, will open up Canada’s indigenous lands to mineral extraction sell-offs to China.

“The spokesman for the minister of aboriginal affairs and northern development was asked what consultation process was conducted with First Nations before amending the Indian Act.

Jason MacDonald didn’t specify, but said the government conducts “over 5,000 consultations with First Nations” every year. First Nations chiefs across Canada disagree and after more than 250 of them wanting to discuss the budget bill were denied entry to the house of commons in early December, some rallied behind a grass-roots campaign, Idle No More.

Charlie Angus is quoted stating that frustration and anger have built up for a long time as communities feel they are moving backwards while the government’s attitude is increasingly dismissive and derogatory, “like a colonial power treating First Nations like a hostage population”. The budget bill dismantles a 130-year-old environmental law removing from federal oversight 99.7% of Canada’s 32,000 major lakes and over 99.9 percent of Canada’s more than 2.25m rivers.

This will disproportionately affect First Nations, as decades of underfunding and neglect have left 73% of all water systems and 65% of waste water systems on reserves at medium to high risk.” (Guardian Weekly Jan 04-10.2013)

What is significant is that the Stephen Harper government is going about this major attack on the First Nations, despite the constitutionally protected rights to be consulted and accommodated on any developments that could cause irreversible damage to their lands. It seems evident that the Conservative government of Stephen Harper has little respect for the constitutional rights of the Canada’s First Nations.

Tearing up of treaties

The background to the crisis now facing the indigenous people of Canada was clearly explained by The Economist (Jan 19, 2013) in an important piece under its Americas section titled “Time we stop meeting like this”. It explained how, “Back in the 18th century British and French settlers in what is now Canada secured peace with the indigenous inhabitants by negotiating treaties under which the locals agreed to share their land in return for promises of support from the newcomers. This practice continued after Canada became self-governing in 1867. These treaty rights were incorporated into the 1982 constitution. The Supreme Court has since said they impose on the federal government “a duty to consult” the First Nations (as the locals’ descendants prefer to be called) before making any changes that impinge on their treaty rights.”

The Economist reports that: “The Assembly of First Nations, which represents about 300,000 people living in 615 different reserves, reckons Stephen Harper’s Conservative government has broken the bargain. In protests over the past month they have blocked roads and railways, staged impromptu dances in shopping malls and chanted outside the office of the prime minister”….which led to Chief Theresa Spence’s, refusal of solid food since December 11, last year.

“The spark for the protests was the government’s omnibus budget bill, approved last month. With a majority of seats in both the House of Commons and the Senate, Mr Harper’s government has grown used to passing legislation without amendment over the objections of the opposition parties. The budget act is a 414-page whopper that changes 64 acts or regulations, including the Indian Act of 1876, while also watering down federal environmental protection. The First Nations revile the Indian Act, a paternalist law that governs many aspects of life on reserves, including education, health care and commerce. But they insist they should be consulted before it, and other laws that affect them, are changed.

“If you want our First Nations to continue to hold up their end of the bargain in terms of our treaty rights, it is very important that our Canadian government not make unilateral decisions, because the treaties were made nation to nation,” Simon Bird, a Cree vice-chief, told a parliamentary committee in November. A small number of chiefs were later stopped from pushing their way into the House of Commons to speak on the budget bill. So they opted to organise demonstrations.

Separately, in November four women in Saskatchewan began a protest over what they saw as the erosion of treaty rights, under the slogan “Idle no More”. This grassroots protest has spread: it is partly directed at the chiefs themselves, who are quarrelsome, divided and, in some cases, seen as being out of touch.

As The Economist reports, Mr Harper got off to a promising start with the First Nations and Canada’s other aboriginal groups, the mixed-race Métis and the Arctic Inuit, when he issued an apology in June 2008 for the treatment their children had suffered in residential schools (they were separated from their families and often abused). The prime minister promised a new relationship based on “collective reconciliation and fundamental changes”.

That raised hopes that have yet to be fulfilled. The largely unspoken issue behind the protests is that the Indian Act is long overdue for replacement. Its conditions are cumbersome, and make it hard for First Nations to attract outside business and income. It sets up a different, and some would say, inferior, class of citizenship. While some reserves have successful economies, others such as Attawapiskat, have appalling housing and lack running water. The leak of an audit of the Attawapiskat reserve that showed questionable financial practices may have been a crude government effort to discredit Ms Spence. But it was a reminder that not all the C$8 billion ($8 billion) budgeted for aboriginal affairs is well spent.

It seems evident that the Conservative government is using the interests that some (very few) chiefs have in keeping the broken system going, to serve its own interests of exploiting the First Nations and other indigenous people, and depriving them of their rights under treaty obligations and principles of Universal Human Rights.

According to The Economist, polls suggest most Canadians do not think the First Nations’ grievances are very important. Many might argue that they would do better to assimilate with the rest of Canada. Yet, under the developing situation such assimilation is not an immediate possibility.

As it reports, “That is less likely to happen now than in the past: exploration for minerals, oil and gas on their territories has given the First Nations leverage over companies and governments. With their constitutional rights to consultation and the accommodation of their interests, the First Nations can tie resource projects up in legal knots for years. These have already ensnared Northern Gateway, a proposed pipeline to carry Albertan oil to the Pacific coast. And it may also happen in the Albertan tar sands themselves.

That is one reason why staying on bad terms with its aboriginal citizens is a foolish choice for a government which wants to boost investment in natural-resource development. Another is that on January 8th a federal court ruled that 200,000 Métis and 400,000 First Nations’ people living outside reserves should also be considered to be Indians under the constitution. If upheld by the Supreme Court, this will cost the federal government money. The protests may be messy and discordant, and involve only a small minority of Canadians. But they cannot be ignored.” (The Economist – Jan 19-25, 2013)

What is significant today is that the new activism of the First Nations of Canada must be seen in the role that Canada is seeking to play as a major defender of human rights in other parts of the world. Its increasing criticism of Sri Lanka on matters of human rights and alleged violations of humanitarian law and tradition arises mainly from what is alleged to have taken place in the final months of the necessary military operation to defeat what was recognized as an international terrorist organization, and the most ruthless of such groups.

What is being exposed today is how Canada treats its own minority indigenous people, in the absence of any militancy or violence among any sections of these people, and its attempts to totally disregard the obligations imposed by the treaties signed by those original people of Canada, first with the British Crown and later the Government of Canada, which remains a member of the Commonwealth, with the Queen of England as its sovereign.

This also draws the United Kingdom to this mounting dispute over the rights of Canada’s First Nations, raising important questions as to the worth and value of these treaties signed by the British Crown with the people of Canada, in exchange for the limited rights over their traditional lands.

The situation is now made more serious with the developments in regions such as Alberta, where its enormous resources of oil sands are to be exploited for oil that can make Canada among the largest producers of fossil fuel in the world. But there is mounting opposition to this among the indigenous people who have to suffer the most sacrifices for this pursuit of energy by the Canadian authorities and foreign investors. It is in the lands of the First Nations that most of these oil sands resources are found. New research by reputed scientists have shown the threats to the present and future living conditions of the indigenous people, whose rights over their land are fast being threatened.

Tipping Point

For years, residents of the northern Alberta community of Fort Chipewyan, down the Athabasca River from the oil sands, have been plagued by rare forms of cancer. They were concerned that toxins from oil sands production might be to blame. Industry and government, meanwhile, claimed production in the oil sands contributed zero pollution to the Athabasca River.

But in 2010, new and independent research measured pollution in waters flowing through the oil sands and discovered higher-than-expected levels of toxins, including arsenic, lead and mercury, coming from industrial plants. Leading the research was renowned freshwater scientist Dr. David Schindler. At the same time, the leaders of tiny Fort Chipewyan took their battle to the boardrooms of global oil companies, demanding change.

The struggle of the indigenous people against the oil sands exploitation, and the dangers this causing to the indigenous people through increasing illness, and genetic dangers too, have been well documented in Tipping Point: The Age of the Oil Sands (by Clearwater Media) is a two-hour visual tour de force, taking viewers inside the David and Goliath struggle playing out within one of the most compelling environmental issues of our time, which was recently shown on Australian TV and is drawing increased attention the world over.

The storm of controversy over the oil sands issue with the related threats to the lands and lifestyles of the First Nations and other indigenous communities of Canada, has created a whole new storm over Canada’s treatment of its indigenous people, and the apparent disregard it has for the protection of the environment at a time when the world is thinking more about the dangers of Climate Change and the need for Sustainable Development.

The rapidly emerging reality is that Canada, far from being a defender of human rights and humanitarian values it is positioning itself is one of the most dangerous threats to the humanitarian traditions of civilized society, especially its contempt for the rights of its own indigenous people and for worldwide concerns about the exploitation of oppressed people.

Far from the liberator of people and societies it seeks to present itself to the world today, it is in fact being exposed as bringing out the worst of colonial exploitation within its own borders, in the oppressive control of its original inhabitants – the First Nations.