@prefix vivo: . @prefix edm: . @prefix ns0: . @prefix dcterms: . @prefix skos: . vivo:departmentOrSchool "Arts and Sciences, Irving K. Barber School of (Okanagan)"@en, "History and Sociology, Department of (Okanagan)"@en ; edm:dataProvider "DSpace"@en ; ns0:degreeCampus "UBCO"@en ; dcterms:creator "van Dalfsen, Kathleen A."@en ; dcterms:issued "2014-04-30T18:10:51Z"@en, "2014"@en ; dcterms:description "In June of 1969 the White Paper on Indian Policy was presented to the House of Commons. With this White Paper, the Government of Canada hoped to solve the ‘Indian problem’ which had become noticeable and problematic in the decades following World War Two. In seeking the equality required of a ‘just society’ the White Paper promised to give First Nations equality by removing all unique designations of native rights from legislation. In essence, it was a new version of the same type of assimilationist policy that had existed since the early nineteenth century. Under the circumstances of the late 1960s, however, such a proposal met great opposition. Native peoples who had gained confidence and who were supported by newly established precedents from this important decade rejected the White Paper in a feat of native nationalization and unity that had never before existed and which signified a new departure in the native-government relationship."@en ; edm:aggregatedCHO "https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/46630?expand=metadata"@en ; skos:note """   Nationalization of the Native Voice: The White Paper of 1969 and the Growth of the Modern Native Movement by Kathleen A. van Dalfsen Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Honours Program in History (499) University of British Columbia, Okanagan (2014)      1    Abstract In June of 1969 the White Paper on Indian Policy was presented to the House of Commons. With this White Paper, the Government of Canada hoped to solve the ‘Indian problem’ which had become noticeable and problematic in the decades following World War Two. In seeking the equality required of a ‘just society’ the White Paper promised to give First Nations equality by removing all unique designations of native rights from legislation. In essence, it was a new version of the same type of assimilationist policy that had existed since the early nineteenth century. Under the circumstances of the late 1960s, however, such a proposal met great opposition. Native peoples who had gained confidence and who were supported by newly established precedents from this important decade rejected the White Paper in a feat of native nationalization and unity that had never before existed and which signified a new departure in the native-government relationship. Acknowledgments Thank you to my friends and family for the love and support you have shown me over the past year as I took on one of the biggest challenges of my life so far! Jake, thank you for your patience and for your encouragement when things were tough. Finally, thank you Doug for all of your insight and guidance this year. I have been very lucky to work with such an accomplished academic and I wish you all the best in your retirement.      2    Table of Contents  Introduction: the Native Peoples of Canada Then and Now ............................................... 3  Literature Review  ......................................................................................................................................................  8  Chapter One – Past and Precedence: the Indian Identity in Canada ................................. 11  Chapter Two – From Consultation to Coercion: the 1968 Consultation Meetings and the White Paper .................................................................................................................................. 21  Chapter Three – Breaking the Bonds of Bureaucracy: Reactions to the White Paper ...... 37  Epilogue ............................................................................................................................. 49  Bibliography ...................................................................................................................... 52          3    Introduction: the Native Peoples of Canada Then and Now In 1945 and in the wake of World War Two the United Nations was established. In its founding charter a goal of the organization was stated “to achieve international co-operation in solving international problems … and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.”1 The Nazi genocide had left a distinctive mark on the world and a new emphasis on human rights and racial equality was the result. For Canada, a signatory of the United Nations charter, the new emphasis on human rights would have repercussions for all special groups but one of the most notable and necessary affects of the human rights movement would occur for the native peoples. While the post-war era was a time of dramatic rebirth for the native peoples changes did not occur overnight. In the post-war years native peoples in Canada existed in a state of submission that had been established gradually over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the early nineteenth century the loss of bargaining tools such as military and trade alliances impacted the power of native influence in British North American affairs. During the subsequent century of widespread economic development native peoples were gradually moved onto Indian2 reserves as a way to both protect them from and keep them out of the way of Canada’s course of economic progress. This process placed native peoples in a vulnerable position where their cultural traditions and their livelihoods were undermined. Poverty abounded and populations dwindled as the native peoples, who by the end of the nineteenth century were legally the wards                                                                                                                                        1  Charter  of  UN,  1945,  Article  1.3.  2  The  term  ‘Indian’  was  used  to  designate  one  of  the  three  classes  of  Aboriginal  peoples  in  Canada  (Indian,  Métis,  Eskimo)  during  the  time  period  I  am  studying.  In  my  effort  to  avoid  confusion  of  categorization  I  will  be  using  this  term  throughout  my  paper  in  conjunction  with  the  term  ‘Native.’  I  do  not  intend  offense  by  my  use  of  the  term  in  a  twenty-­‐first  century  setting.        4    of the Canadian state, were tucked away from Canadian affairs in the isolation of Indian reserves. Through this process native peoples lost the capacity to act on their own behalf, becoming reliant on government welfare and falling into the social destructiveness of alcoholism as native customs and traditions were methodically prised away. Indians were encouraged to Enfranchise, to give up their status in order to become civilized citizens of Canada; Enfranchisement was the final goal of assimilationist policy-makers who viewed the native peoples as a disappearing race. As Canadian Anthropologist Diamond Jenness stated in his 1932 book The Indians of Canada, “doubtless all the tribes will disappear … Some will merge steadily with the white race, others will bequeath the future generations only an infinitesimal fraction of their blood. Culturally they have already contributed everything that was valuable for our own civilization.”3 Yet, exceeding all expectations, the native peoples continued to exist as a distinctive people in the mid-twentieth century. In 1945 Canadian census figures reported a total Indian population of just under 126,000.4 By 1950 this number had increased marginally to a population of just over 136,000.5 That in mind, the total population of Canada for the census year (1944) was 11.9 million and by 1950 it had risen to 13.7 million.6 So, though D.M. Mackay, Director of the Indian Affairs Branch in 1950, was pleased with “the vigor of this, the oldest, Canadian                                                                                                                                        3  Diamond  Jenness,  The  Indians  of  Canada,  second  edition,  (Ottawa:  Printer  to  the  King,  1932),  264.    4  Canada  Department  of  Mines  and  Resources,  Report  of  Indian  Affairs  Branch  for  the  Fiscal  Year  Ended  March  31,  1945,  Indian  Affairs  Annual  Reports,  1864-­‐1990,  last  modified  January  1,  2004,  http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/indianaffairs/001074-­‐119.01-­‐e.php?page_id_nbr=33634&PHPSESSID=klokes4vgt0vprtlqdpeniuis2,  (accessed  December  11,  2013),  4.      5  Canada  Department  of  Citizenship  and  Immigration,  Report  of  Indian  Affairs  for  the  Fiscal  Year  Ended  March  31,  1950,  Indian  Affairs  Annual  Reports,  1864-­‐1990,  last  modified  January  30,  2004,  http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/indianaffairs/001074-­‐119.01-­‐e.php?page_id_nbr=33815&&&&&&&&&PHPSESSID=klokes4vgt0vprtlqdpeniuis2,  (accessed  December  11,  2013),  4.  6  Statistics  Canada,  Estimated  Population  of  Canada,  1605  to  Present,  last  modified  March  20,  2013,  http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/98-­‐187-­‐x/4151287-­‐eng.htm  (accessed  December  12,  2013).          5    racial group and its proven ability to perpetuate itself,”7 the native population accounted for barely one per cent of the total population in Canada at this time. In accompaniment to the lowest numbers ever recorded for the native population in Canada conditions on reserves remained poor and opportunities for self-improvement almost non-existent. While the native condition was improving, progress remained limited. Complicating matters for the Government of Canada was the uncertainty of how to respond to this ‘Indian problem.’ With the establishment of the United Nations and its accompanying Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 the conditions within which the native peoples existed were increasingly difficult to ignore. In response to these poor living conditions the Canadian government increased welfare payments exponentially between 1945 and 1950: just over $766,000 was allocated to native peoples in 19458 and by 1950 this number increased to an astonishing $3.1 million.9 In the meantime band revenues remained in trust by the government and hardly any native incomes came from paid labour and native business enterprises, a fact which helps to illustrate the Government’s uncertain response to native conditions. Old attitudes die hard, as the saying goes, and while the Federal Government retained its attitudes of racial inferiority and its policies of assimilation it struggled to assert the basic human rights of which native peoples were guaranteed. While living conditions were marginally improved through government interventions native well-being remained dependent upon government spending and native lifestyles remained dependent upon the Indian Act which in spite of major revisions in 1951 continued to support assimilation rather than co-existence. An                                                                                                                                        7  Canada  Department  of  Citizenship  and  Immigration,  Report  of  Indian  Affairs,  1950,  2.    8  Canada  Department  of  Mines  and  Resources,  Report  of  Indian  Affairs  Branch,  1945,  14.    9  Canada  Department  of  Citizenship  and  Immigration,  Report  of  Indian  Affairs,  1950,  32.        6    apt example can be found in Canadian schools. In 1950 only five schools existed in all of Canada that would educate white and Indian students together and in these schools only 107 native children were enrolled.10 Comparatively, an astounding $6.2 million was spent by the Canadian Government in 1950 to run residential and day schools for a total of only 23,409 native children.11 It is clear that the government was willing to spare no expense in improving conditions for native peoples but attitudes of native inferiority, the need to keep them separate until civilized, persisted. A half-century later, Canada’s First Nations hold a noteworthy position in Canadian affairs. 1.4 million people identified as Aboriginal in 2011, a dramatic improvement from the low-point of the mid-twentieth century. Aboriginal treaty rights are recognized and guaranteed in the Canadian Constitution, amended in 1982, and First Nations are guaranteed to have representation if and when applicable constitutional amendments take place.12 The Assembly of First Nations is a national organization through which First Nations conduct “nation-to-nation discussions, consultations and deliberations and … collaborate on any matter within the jurisdiction of First Nations.”13 Issues affecting the rights, survival or jurisdictions of First Nations proceed through the assembly’s Executive Committee and are held to high speculation.14 If any policy is considered threatening to the well-being or rights of any First Nations people activism ensues and can have affect both locally and nationally. Examples can be found in the politics surrounding the proposal for the Site-C Clean Energy Project in Prince George, British Columbia and anti-fracking protests in New Brunswick as well as in the Idle-No-More                                                                                                                                        10  Canada  Department  of  Citizenship  and  Immigration,  Report  of  Indian  Affairs,  1950,  34.  11  Ibid,16.  12  Canadian  Constitution,  section  35.    13  “Charter  of  the  Assembly  of  First  Nations,”  Assembly  of  First  Nations,  last  modified  April  2003,  accessed  January  7,  2014,  http://www.afn.ca/index.php/en/about-­‐afn/charter-­‐of-­‐the-­‐assembly-­‐of-­‐first-­‐nations,  Article  7.1.  14  Ibid.          7    movement, Chief Theresa Spence’s well-known hunger strike, and most recently in response to the conditional approval of the Northern Gateway Pipeline. The Assembly is the national representation of the native voice that was lacking in the mid-twentieth century, the voice which has allowed native interests to be better recognized in contemporary Canadian affairs. Clearly, between the mid-twentieth century and the twenty-first century a dramatic change has occurred for the native peoples in Canada. Native peoples whose lifestyles were defined and dictated by the assimilationist policies of the Indian Affairs Branch, whose presence in Canadian affairs went only so far as politicians’ interests were concerned, and whose eventual assimilation into Canadian society was the ideal goal with regards to government interests, have proceeded in the twenty-first century to play an influential and defining role in Canadian affairs. Though many problems and challenges remain, against all odds the native peoples have, as D.M. Mackay stated, proven their ability to perpetuate themselves. While this transition was gradual rather than immediate, the rebirth of the native peoples can be attributed to a few notable events in Canadian history, and few events are more important than what proved to be the catalyst for native action in the late twentieth century: in April of 1969 the right honourable Jean Chretien, then the Minister of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, presented what is now an infamous white paper on Indian Policy. This proposal and the reactions which followed permanently altered the nature of native-white relations in Canada. The purpose of this paper is to explore and analyze the events surrounding that crucial period in native history. In many ways the White Paper reflected the persistently unilateral nature of the native-white relationship for it was a policy that sought to define the best solution for the ‘Indian      8    problem’ but it was essentially crafted on white assumptions alone. The complexities of precedential events in the 1960s, and particularly that of a series of Indian Act consultation meetings between 1968 and 1969, contributed to a universal native reaction that caused the first major break in native-white relations. This break, in turn, catalyzed a movement that has brought the native peoples out of the periphery and into the spotlight, consequently changing the nature of their influence in Canadian affairs. Literature Review Research into native history in Canada has expanded over the last number of decades. That being said, the majority of research tends to focus on the settlement period and colonial relations between Canada’s Indigenous populations and European Settlers. Olive Patricia Dickason has written one of the best known works, a groundbreaking narrative entitled Canada’s First Nations: a History of Founding People from Earliest Times (1992). The book is now in its fourth edition and has been updated by David T. McNab. The other major work is by J.R. Miller and is entitled Skyscrapers Hide the Heavens: a History of Indian-White Relations in Canada (1991). This comprehensive study is most useful for my topic because Miller’s research covers important historical native-government confrontations and an entire section of the book is dedicated to national aboriginal politicization with specific focus on the White Paper. The Indian Act, for obvious reasons, is a particularly important document with regards to native-government relations. John F. Leslie has written a number of pieces on the Indian Act particularly in Historical Development of the Indian Act (1978, second edition) with Ron Maguire. In 1991 J.R. Miller edited a collection entitled Sweet Promises: a Reader on Indian-White Relations in Canada in which two articles discussed the Indian Act. John L. Tobias outlined the history of Canada’s Indian policy by separating government intentions into three      9    stages: ‘Protection, Civilization, Assimilation.’ The Indian Act fell into each category at one point or another. Similar to Tobias, John S. Milloy argued in his article that the developmental strategy of the Government of Canada moved from attitudes of diplomacy to, by the mid-nineteenth century, attitudes of civilization by assimilation. Milloy adds that due to the continued assertion of native autonomy the government established the Indian Act to disturb Indian self-government so as to forward federal plans of assimilation. In 2002 John F. Leslie added to Milloy’s conclusions, arguing that the Act was originally a consolidation of pre-Confederation legislation that became a tool to be altered when progress towards civilization required a jurisdictional push. As for the White Paper, historians agree in a general sense that the proposal plays a key role in historical Indian-Government relations. However, the subject remains relatively unstudied. Sally M. Weaver is one of the only scholars to have looked at this subject in detail in her ground-breaking work Making Canadian Indian Policy: the Hidden Agenda 1968-70 (1981). Weaver introduces the White Paper on Indian Policy through the perspective gained by looking at the consultation meetings that led up to the White Paper itself. Weaver argues that the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development was under great pressure to find a workable Indian policy. Furthermore, progress was generally halted due to confusion and disorganization of ministry roles, disagreement of ideology, and general issues of cooperation which contributed to the unilateral (non-consultative) foundations of the White Paper. Peter McFarlane approaches the White Paper from the perspective of the National Indian Brotherhood – a native organization that played a key role in the native reactionary movement – in his book Brotherhood to Nationhood: George Manuel and the Making of the Modern Indian Movement (1993). Though this is a biography, McFarlane writes with the organization as a      10    whole in mind thereby providing an important perspective to the White Paper. Alan C. Cairns takes a different approach to the White Paper in Citizens Plus (2000) in which he looks at assimilationist policies such as the White Paper, among other topics, from the broader perspective of the native position in Canadian society. Cairns writes a progressive history, concluding in the twenty-first century with impasse between the Canadian Government and native peoples. Finally, in 2009 Bryan D. Palmer provides a chapter entitled “The ‘Discovery’ of the ‘Indian’” in his book Canada’s 1960s: the Ironies of Identity in a Rebellious Era. Palmer argues that due to the increasingly public and politicized nature of Indian-white relations, particularly regarding the White Paper, Canada effectively rediscovered the Indian who had been expected to blend fully into Canadian Society before the 1960s. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, native peoples have been responsible through much of the modern era for protecting themselves from poor treatment, a factor that has contributed to the largely polemical nature of various published works on the period. Some key works that come to mind are Harold Cardinal’s The Unjust Society (1969) and The Rebirth of Canada’s Indians (1977), George Manuel’s The Fourth World: an Indian Reality (1974), and Frank Cassidy and Robert L. Bish’s Indian Government: its Meaning in Practice (1989). It is worth mentioning that the big political biographies to come out of this period of Canadian history, particularly those of Pierre Trudeau (Towards a Just Society: the Trudeau Years, ed. Thomas S. Axworthy (1990); Against the Current: Selected Writings, 1939-1996, ed. Gerard Pelletier (1996)) and Jean Chretien (Straight from the Heart (1994)), make little mention, if any, of both the White Paper of 1969 and more generally of native-government relations in this period.      11    Chapter One – Past and Precedence: the Indian Identity in Canada Assimilationist policy in Canada was first established in the early nineteenth century. It was a paternalistic solution that promoted socio-economic development of the native peoples of Canada. At this time the Indian role in Canadian society was gradually declining as agriculture and industry took over the trade systems which had, in the past, characterized much of the Canadian economy. Assimilationist policies reflected the recognition that as agricultural settlement altered the geographic landscape of Canada development would inevitably impinge upon tribal lands and therefore the native way of life. Assimilation was the supported means to prevent the costly and tragic warfare that had characterized American expansion; it would re-orient a population whose way of life was being uprooted as a result of the inevitable course of progress. Indian livelihood truly declined over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a result of dwindling populations – and by and large due to a dwindling political voice – allowing imposed assimilationist policies to cause a shift in the native-white balance of power which favoured white policy makers. Widespread ethnocentric assumptions about the decline of native civilization and the inevitable triumph of western European structures could only be managed by moving native peoples out of the way of development. The humane manner with which to achieve this feat was to give Indians new opportunities by teaching them to be like ‘us.’ As Lt. Governor G. Adams Archibald of Manitoba said during an 1871 treaty negotiation, “Your Great Mother wishes the good of all races under her sway. She wishes her red children to be happy and contented. She wishes them to live in comfort. She would like them to adopt the habits of the whites, to till land and raise food … Your Great Mother, therefore, will lay aside for you ‘lots’ of land to be used by      12    you and your children forever.”15 This paternalistic ideology characterized Indian policy and persisted in various forms through much of the twentieth century: the Euro-Canadian lifestyle was considered superior and Indians were expected to assimilate into that lifestyle. This Euro-Canadian ideology continued to exist in the years following World War Two and played a significant role in defining Indian policy, just as it had for over a century. However, a reinvigoration of the Indian identity and a favourable alteration of native systemic and legal precedents occurred in the post-war years to challenge the long-persisting ideology of assimilation and Indian submission; these alterations challenged the balance of power that had developed in Canada. Conflicting interests between the Canadian Government and native peoples grew more prominent than ever before in the context of the radical 1960s. By 1969 and the presentation of the Liberal Government’s White Paper on Indian Policy a shift in the power balance had occurred once again, giving native peoples the confidence to drive a recognizable break from compliance that continues to effect relations today. Extended contact between nations inevitably translates into complex power structures that develop over time and set precedents for both relations and policy. The ever-developing nature of the economy of Canada was a major contributing factor in determining the balance of power that came to define Indian-white relations well into the twentieth century. At points the relationship was balanced or near balanced, when trade and military alliances between nations were a necessity for the survival and prosperity of both parties involved. However, inevitably these alliances shifted over time. “As capitalism sank its roots,” Indian livelihoods were judged as primitive by white settlers who no longer relied upon the traditional Indian way of life for                                                                                                                                        15  Gerald  Friesen,  The  Canadian  Prairies:  A  History  (Toronto:  University  of  Toronto  Press,  1984),  139.          13    their own means of survival.16 Racism prevented Indians from adapting to the new economic context as they “made less money than whites, worked more irregularly, and were confined to the worst-remunerated and least-appreciated employments.”17 Quickly it became clear that the Indian lifestyle was an obstacle to superior Euro-Canadian development. Efforts by Indians to adapt were limited, the Indian who continued to subside on a traditional lifestyle was driven away by development, and eventually dependency upon the government became the common form of maintaining the majority of native life in Canada. In 1830 the first reserves were established in Canada removing native peoples from valuable agricultural lands while also irrevocably disturbing native ties to land, an element that was irremovable from their culture and lifestyle. Through education programs and agricultural aid the Indian department hoped to establish “civilized, Christianized, and self-governing native communities seated securely on reserves protected by the British imperial government.”18 Such an approach, it was believed, would allow the government to avoid conflict and adapt the native population to the new reality of ‘civilization.’ But civilization was defined by more than an adaptation to a new lifestyle; it required the denial of Indian culture and tradition and as long as Indians continued to assert their culture the Indian department could not leave them to their own devices. As a result, Indian forms of self-government were, like their cultures, consistently undermined through Department intervention and amendments to the Indian Acts. Assimilatory policies grew out of paternalistic and ethnocentric ideologies, contributing to the Indian-white                                                                                                                                        16  Bryan  D.  Palmer,  “The  ‘Discovery’  of  the  ‘Indian,’”  in  Canada’s  1960s:  The  Ironies  of  Identity  in  a  Rebellious  Era  (Toronto:  University  of  Toronto  Press  Inc.,  2009),  372.    17  Ibid,  374.  18  John  S.  Milloy,  “The  Early  Indian  Acts:  Developmental  Strategy  and  Constitutional  Change,”  in  Sweet  Promises:  a  Reader  on  Indian-­‐White  Relations  in  Canada,  ed.  J.R.  Miller  (Toronto:  University  of  Toronto  Press,  2009),  148.        14    power imbalance that both caused and justified Euro-Canadian supremacy and Indian submission. The inclusion of an Indian clause in the British North America Act of 1867 placed struggling Indian populations under the Euro-Canadian hand. Indian welfare would be taken care of on Euro-Canadian terms to forward what was viewed as best for Indians in the long run, civilization. Dependency was the product of encouraged idleness and the inability of native peoples to control their lives on reserves: “the system was, quite simply, that Indian Affairs did a lot of work and the Indians did nothing.”19 Even the agricultural projects set up on reserves were insufficient to provide Indians with a sustainable livelihood and constant government intervention created a framework within which the inferiority of native cultures was amplified. As population levels dwindled in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century government welfare became the primary sustainer of Indian life. The Gradual Civilization Act (1857) was an early introduction of enfranchisement, an assimilationist policy that is a telling illustration of ideologies surrounding Indian affairs in the late nineteenth century. Enfranchisement was encouraged to help Indians achieve the level of development deemed appropriate by white Euro-Canadian policy makers. Enfranchisement in its early form was achieved when an Indian could prove he was educated, debt-free and of good moral character. Only then could he drop his status and take up twenty hectares of reserve land as a reward.20 The implication, of course, was that Indians could no longer identify culturally with their own people. It was a policy which assumed that Indians would become Canadian citizens by shaking off their own traditions and cultures. The tragic conditions of Indian bands                                                                                                                                        19  Heather  Robertson,  Reservations  are  for  Indians,  second  edition,  (Toronto:  James  Lorimer  &  Company  Ltd.,  1991),  21.  20  J.R.  Miller,  Skyscrapers  Hide  the  Heavens:  a  History  of  Indian-­‐White  Relations  in  Canada,  revised  edition,  (Toronto:  University  of  Toronto  Press,  1991),  110.        15    limited their ability to voice their own opinions and their resources to do so were limited. The natural by-product of Indian dependency on government resources was to do as policy dictated: assimilate. Indian traditions continued to be undermined as a result of assimilationist policies like the Civilization and Indian Acts. In the West, traditional practices such as the ‘Sun Dance’ and ‘Potlatches’ were prohibited because they promoted cultural beliefs that opposed integration into Canadian society.21 Elements were also introduced that deliberately limited any challenges to the paternalism and control inherent in the Indian Act. Thus, for example, in 1927 the Act was amended to make it illegal for an Indian nation to hire a lawyer for advancement of land claims, making it virtually impossible to forward claims at all.22 Amendments were also made in the 1920s and 30s to the Indian Act in order to limit the protective qualities of the reserve and to make Enfranchisement compulsory in various cases so as to increase rates of Indian assimilation.23 Policy in this period was designed specifically to limit the number of Indians claiming rights on reserves and to drive them towards Enfranchisement. There were some efforts on the part of Indians to voice their opinions. In 1919, for example, a League of Indians was established to accomplish what native activist Lieutenant F.O. Loft demanded: a “power to be heard and their demands recognized by governments.”24 Additionally, various Indian nations developed united groups throughout the 1930s and 40s: the                                                                                                                                        21  John  L.  Tobias,  “Protection,  Civilization,  Assimilation:  an  Outline  History  of  Canada’s  Indian  Policy,”  in  Sweet  Promises:  a  Reader  on  Indian-­‐White  Relations  in  Canada,  ed.  J.R.  Miller  (Toronto:  University  of  Toronto  Press,  2009),  135.  22  Chief  Joe  Mathias  and  Gary  R.  Yabsley,  “Conspiracy  of  Legislation:  The  Suppression  of  Indian  Rights  in  Canada,”  BC  Studies,  no.  89  (1991):  35,  http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/bcstudies/article/view/1383/1427.      23  Tobias,  136.  24  Loft,  as  cited  by  Stan  Cuthand,  “The  Native  Peoples  of  the  Prairie  Provinces  in  1920s  and  1930s,”  in  Sweet  Promises:  a  Reader  on  Indian-­‐White  Relations  in  Canada,  ed.  J.R.  Miller  (Toronto:  University  of  Toronto  Press,  2009),  381.          16    Native Brotherhood of British Columbia (1931), the Indian Association of Alberta (1939), and the Federation of Saskatchewan Indians (1944) represented a uniting of Indian interests on the provincial scale.25 However, both the League and the provincial organizations experienced little success due to the social conditions and geographic isolation that defined native lives in the early twentieth century. Conditions on reserves in almost every essence continued to disintegrate during this time: social services, health, education, and living facilities had deteriorated greatly since the conclusion of the treaty negotiations and aboriginals were in no position to sufficiently organize on a national scale.26 Perhaps most note-worthy is the fact stated by Sally M. Weaver that “the term ‘Indians’ incorrectly implies a collectivity: that Indians act together in an organized fashion, or, at the very least, that they are aware of the conditions and concerns of other Indians in different regions of Canada.”27 While the effort to create a unified native voice is evident such a movement required that Indians begin to act as one nation. This was simply infeasible before the transformative events of the 1960s. The tides began to turn in the post-war years when the lens through which Indians were viewed was irrevocably changed. During World War Two, native peoples had, as in The Great War, volunteered in large numbers (estimates say around 6000 native men and women).28 Additionally, the war had momentously affected national and international social perspectives. Genocide had revealed the dark side of institutionalized racism and had sparked world decolonization making it increasingly difficult to continue to justify Canadian Indian policies                                                                                                                                        25  Miller,  219.  26  Cuthand,  391.    27  Sally  M.  Weaver,  Making  Canadian  Indian  Policy:  the  Hidden  Agenda  1968-­‐70,  (Toronto:  University  of  Toronto  Press,  1981),  15-­‐18.    28  Olive  Patricia  Dickason,  Canada’s  First  Nations:  a  History  of  Founding  Peoples  from  Earliest  Times,  (Norman:  University  of  Oklahoma  Press,  1992),  329.        17    that were overtly paternalistic.29 As a result of their service, and owing to newly developing post-war ideologies, the Indian position in national affairs was strengthened, awakening public interest in Indian affairs “to an unprecedented degree.”30 Not only was the Indian voice becoming noticeable in the public sector, but white activists began to speak up as well. For example, in 1950 an article appeared in The Native Voice, a newspaper run by the Native Brotherhood of British Columbia, entitled “Aged Indians Should Have Pension, Cannot Trap at 70, Says Friend of Crees.”31 The ‘friend of the Crees’ was a white Cochrane Magistrate named E.R. Tucker, a well-known voice for the native peoples in Canadian media. His work in fighting for Indian welfare appeared in white and Indian publications alike, exemplifying the widespread effect he had. In addition to this type of support, the war years had seen minimal Indian policy implementation and planning, a factor which left Canadian Indian policy out-of-date at war’s end. Attitudes towards Indians were evidently changing and there was a policy vacuum to be molded by post-war ideologies.32 If there was ever an opportunity for Indians and activists to drive change it was in the years following World War Two. By the post-war years it was abundantly clear that Indian isolation, whether in the form of reserves or residential schools, was an ineffectual tactic for forwarding the objectives of both parties. To combat this problematic approach to Indian policy, a Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Commons met between 1946 and 1948 to discuss revisions to the Indian Act.33 In 1951 the new Indian Act was presented with at least fifty sections and subsections removed for                                                                                                                                        29  Miller,  223.    30  Milloy,  149.    31  The  Native  Voice,  “Aged  Indians  Should  Have  Pension,  Cannot  Trap  at  70,  Says  Friend  of  Crees,”  April  1950,  http://nativevoice.bc.ca/wp-­‐content/uploads/2011/08/5004v04n04.pdf.      32  Tobias,  138-­‐9.    33  Diane  Persson,  “The  Changing  Experience  of  Indian  Residential  Schooling:  Blue  Quills,  1931-­‐1970,”  in  The  Native  Imprint,  Volume  2:  From  1815:  The  Contribution  of  First  Peoples  to  Canada’s  Character,  ed.  Olive  Patricia  Dickason,  (Athabasca:  Athabasca  University,  1996),  231.          18    being too restrictive, antiquated or aggressive.34 Though the end goal of this Indian Act, like the one before it, was assimilation, the aggressive tactics to force assimilation on the native peoples were significantly reduced.35 For example, at this time the clauses banning the Sun Dance and the Potlatch were removed. The revision of the Indian Act symbolized a recognition by the Canadian Government that forceful and coercive tactics for assimilation were intolerable and that adaptation to the hegemonic social order of Canada would need to be a native prerogative, not a Canadian one. In 1948 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights had sparked the interest of Canadians who wished to see a workable bill of rights enter Canadian legislation. This was accomplished by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in 1960. Though at the time there was great debate about the level of application that this bill could achieve in practice, its passage nonetheless sent clear signals to Canadians: Canada would recognize that certain rights, regardless of “race, national origin, colour, religion or sex”36 would be protected under law. To Indians, who had for a century lived under the dictatorial laws of the Indian Act, such an expression of equality under the law was significant. In practice, the passage of the Canadian Bill of Rights had direct implications for the 1969 precedent setting court case Drybones v Regina. In 1967 an Indian man, Joseph Drybones, was charged under section 94 of the Indian Act for being found intoxicated off of a reserve in Yellowknife.37 The Indian Act, however, varied significantly in its degree of punishment for such an offense with comparison to the territorial liquor laws. When this case went to the court                                                                                                                                        34  Tobias,  140.    35  Ibid.  36  The  Canadian  Bill  of  Rights.    37  Peter  Kulchyski,  Unjust  Relations:  Aboriginal  Rights  in  Canadian  Courts,  (Toronto:  Oxford  University  Press,  1994),  48.          19    of appeal it was found that to charge Drybones under the Indian Act would be to infringe upon his rights to equality established by the Canadian Bill of Rights. As a result, Drybones was acquitted and a new precedent in Indian-white relations was set. This was no simple amendment to the Indian Act as had occurred in 1951. Rather, it was exemplary of Canada’s commitment to the Bill of Rights in practice. And so, the amended Indian Act protected the rights unique to native peoples and the Canadian Bill of Rights seemed to guarantee that Indians were protected from the policies which restricted their rights as Canadian citizens. The greatest precedent for native identity was set with the publishing of A Survey of the Contemporary Indians of Canada (1966-7), the first major national study on the conditions of Indians. In 1959 a Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Commons was instructed to look at problems that were evident in native administration.38 The study was finally commissioned in 1963 by the Canadian Government and was compiled by a team led by Harry Hawthorn, the person from which the study takes its nickname ‘The Hawthorn Report.’ Hawthorn had in 1958 completed a similar study on British Columbia Indians which had impressed Branch officials39 who then invited Hawthorn to complete the study that Bryan D. Palmer considers to be a “landmark in the ‘discovery’ of the ‘Indian.’”40 Hawthorn’s findings revealed a novel vision: At the present time a postwar version of egalitarianism is responsible for a very desirable attempt to see that Indians are brought within the framework of all normal public programs which are not inherently incompatible with their unique status. The position we strongly hold is that Indians are citizens plus; that in addition to the normal rights and duties of citizenship they also possess certain rights simply by virtue of being Indians.41                                                                                                                                        38  Weaver,  12.    39  Ibid,  20-­‐1.    40  Palmer,  389.    41  Harry  Hawthorn  et  al.,  A  Survey  of  the  Contemporary  Indians  of  Canada:  Economic,  Political,  Educational  Needs  and  Policies,  http://caid.ca/HawRep1b1966.pdf,  396.          20    It was a loaded statement to say the least. To declare in a government commissioned document that Indians should be considered ‘citizens plus’ was an indirect confirmation of Indian culture and identity, at least for Indians. The notion of assimilation that had been preached and dictated to Indians for over a century suddenly no longer seemed the be all and end all of Indian-white relations in Canada. With these new precedents came also a reinvigoration of the native voice in Canada and Indians began to assert their voices in the national socio-political arena. Change was on the horizon in the late 1960s though it was not yet clear what form that change would take. Prior to his retirement, Lester B. Pearson’s Liberal Party stated its commitment to revise the Indian Act.42 Additionally, the Hawthorn Report had revealed the need to considerably rework Canadian Indian Policy. When the Trudeau Liberals were victorious in the 1968 federal election they remained committed to the promises made by Pearson. A new era of bilateral policy discussions seemed imminent with Trudeau’s promises of ‘participatory democracy’ as a means to achieve his vision of a ‘just society.’ The relationship that had for so long been dictatorial held promise of increased valuation of the Indian voice. However, in spite of these expectations the ethnocentric and paternalistic ideologies which had influenced Indian policy from the very beginning continued to exist. That being said, following the many precedents set by the events of the 1960s Canadian Indians were capable by the end of the decade of demonstrating their unwillingness to lose their newly-named standing as ‘citizens plus.’                                                                                                                                        42  Weaver,  48-­‐9.        21    Chapter Two – From Consultation to Coercion: the 1968 Consultation Meetings and the White Paper   On 25 June 1969 Jean Chretien, minister for the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development under Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s Liberal Party, presented a white paper on Indian Policy to the House of Commons. He stated that To be an Indian is to be a man, with all a man’s needs and abilities. To be an Indian is also to be different … It is to be someone apart – apart in law, apart in the provision of government services and, too often, [apart] in social contacts. To be an Indian is to lack power … Special treatment has made of the Indians a community disadvantaged and apart.43 The White Paper proposed to end its policy of ‘special treatment’ of the native peoples by rearranging the legal structures that had defined Indian-government relations since Confederation and earlier. By scrapping the Indian Act and transferring the varied responsibilities of the Indian Affairs Branch to corresponding departments of the provincial and federal governments it was believed that social isolation could give way to full Canadian citizenship for all Indians. Grateful Indians would participate in the same social, economic and political structures as all other Canadians, free at last from their impoverished reserves and the discrimination that accompanied their separate status. In this context the native peoples could be free to develop their cultures on their own terms. The proposal, if anything, was an idealized vision of what Canada could be if the native peoples were complacent and finally willing to melt into the pot of mainstream Canada. Given the reaction of the native peoples to the proposal it is clear that this vision was not shared by all.                                                                                                                                        43  Department  of  Indian  Affairs  and  Northern  Development,  Statement  of  the  Government  of  Canada  on  Indian  Policy,  1969,  28th  Parliament,  1st  session,  June  25,  1969,  ‘Preamble.’        22    The proposal was the result of the Government’s interpretation of a series of Indian Act consultation meetings that had taken place across Canada from the summer of 1968 to the spring of 1969. The meetings came about in the hopes of solving the increasingly pressing and publicized ‘Indian Problem,’ one that, after various failed attempts to find a solution, was becoming a major point of contention in Canadian politics. The meetings were also a mark of the newly inducted Prime Minister Trudeau’s policy of ‘participatory democracy,’ a policy which insinuated that the native peoples would have their say in the Canadian affairs which affected them but which, as it would turn out, did not live up to expectations. The consultation meetings contributed to a political context that saw the comments and concerns of Indian representatives influence policy decisions. However, those decisions were made without Indian knowledge and without meaningful Indian input. In many ways the creation of the White Paper on Indian policy, which occurred simultaneously with the consultation meetings, reflected one more instance of many in which bureaucratic decision-making, rather than democratic processes, defined the Indian lifestyle in Canada. The ‘Indian Problem’ was a persistent feature of 1960s politics in Canada and it was not one easily solved, nor ignored. The 1960s saw studies such as the government commissioned Hawthorn Report, among many other publications, reveal to the general public the extent to which Indians suffered from impoverished conditions and sub-par government treatment with comparison to the non-Indian people in Canada. In reaction to the new-found public awareness of the ‘Indian Problem,’ and in the context of the civil rights atmosphere of the sixties, an opinion piece from February 1962 written by a Mrs. Harry Rosenberg expressed outrage at the lack of dignity in the Indian existence:      23    Canadians are so piously shocked at the treatment of the American Negro, yet these same Canadians have insulated their minds against the knowledge that, by comparison to the Canadian Indian, the American Negro’s life is enviable … Our Indian is shackled first, by his poverty, and second by the picture we have created of him – a picture based not on what we know about him, but rather one we have concocted so that we can mentally excuse our treatment of him, on the grounds that he doesn’t deserve better.44 Poverty, lack of opportunity for work, and social prejudices were all publicly recognized in the 1960s as contributing factors to the plight of the Indians in Canada. The situation could hardly be ignored when infant mortality rates on reserves were double the national average, life expectancy was almost half the national average, and overall mortality rates on reserves increased by an astounding 8 per cent in the three years leading up to the consultation meetings.45 Reserves truly were what Heather Robertson has described as “Darwinian experiment[s] where only the fittest survive[d].”46 Beyond the ethical push that these deplorable conditions gave to officials to drive change, widespread public awareness, and more importantly public indignation, regarding the social and ethical issues of the ‘Indian Problem’ turned the issue increasingly into a matter of political self-interest. Outside of ethical, social and political interests, the ‘Indian Problem’ also required a solution due to financial necessity. In 1966 Indian Affairs spent $46.9 million alone on development and maintenance projects, grants, and annuity payments – this excludes the $57.7 million of additional expenditures on administration and education – with total revenues for the entire Indian Affairs Branch at only $1.4 million.47 By the end of the 1960s Branch expenses                                                                                                                                        44  Mrs.  Harry  Rosenberg,  “Canada’s  Indian  Problem,”  The  Globe  and  Mail,  Feb.  2,  1962,  http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/1284536096.      45  Palmer,  381.    46  Robertson,  xi.    47  Department  of  Indian  Affairs  and  Northern  Development,  Annual  Report  Fiscal  Year  1966-­‐67,  Indian  Affairs  Annual  Reports,  1864-­‐1990,  last  modified  January  30,  2004,  http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/indianaffairs/001074-­‐119.01-­‐e.php?page_id_nbr=35485&PHPSESSID=klokes4vgt0vprtlqdpeniuis2,  109.          24    were running at a total of $175 million with an addition of $100 million on health expenditures.48 When compared to the total expenditure for 1949-50, which was just under $12.4 million,49 it becomes clear that expenses were increasing at a significant rate, a point particularly problematic since services were not also being meaningfully improved as expenditures rose. Significantly, the Branch’s unique authority over the Indian populations of Canada had developed into a system that was financially inefficient by the late 1960s, a situation that encouraged the application of a novel approach to the financial aspect of the ‘Indian Problem.’ The Hawthorn Report, which was first published in 1966, revealed a number of components of the ‘Indian Problem’ that needed to be addressed and offered potential solutions to the problem in the process. Significantly, the Hawthorn Report declared that the historical trend of Indian-government relations had seen the special status granted to Indians as not only a cause for different treatment but also “as a justification for providing them with services inferior to those available to the Whites who established residence in the country which once was theirs.”50 With ethical, socio-political, and economic pressures building for the Indian Affairs Branch, diplomacy was advocated as the way of the future: “Ideally Indians should be able to articulate their own demands, direct their own pressures, and so mobilize their own political resources and skills that they will no longer have to rely on the benevolence of powerful others located within and without government.”51 This is not to say that the Indian Affairs Branch did not have a role to play in the future of Indian-white relations but simply that unilateral decision-making ought to give way to diplomatic consultations and concessions. Such a dramatically different political relationship could not be achieved overnight, but nevertheless the goal was                                                                                                                                        48  Palmer,  381.    49  Canada  Department  of  Citizenship  and  Immigration,  Report  of  Indian  Affairs,  1950,  32.  50  Hawthorn  et  al.,  253.    51  Ibid,  401.        25    clear. The committee who compiled the Hawthorn Report recognized that the native peoples and provincial and federal governments would have to work together in order to achieve the status of ‘citizens plus’ which the report envisioned. In this context, it seems to be no coincidence that Pierre Trudeau ran in the 1968 election on a campaign that promoted both a ‘just society’ and ‘participatory democracy.’ Reflecting on his years in office Trudeau wrote in 1990 that “In my thinking, the value with the highest priority in the pursuit of a Just Society had become equality. Not the procrustean kind of equality where everyone is raised or lowered to a kind of middle ground. I mean equality of opportunity.”52 Participatory democracy was a policy designed to open avenues to a broader spectrum of people in the decision-making process.53 Through this process of cooperation Canadian national unity, which Trudeau tied so closely to equality of opportunity, could be achieved. It is worth mentioning that while Indian policy was a key feature of Trudeau’s first term in office, particularly due to his interest in creating a just Canadian society, due to his particular focus on the federal government’s shaky relationship with Quebec there existed from the very beginning an unavoidable fundamental paradox for Indian Affairs policy-makers. On the one hand the Hawthorn Report, backed by popular support, had recommended that diplomatic avenues be utilized so as to create conditions that no longer placed Indians on an unequal socio-economic footing in Canada, a policy which complemented Trudeau’s goal for a Just Society. On the other hand, however, the report had concluded that Indians must also be treated as unique citizens, differently from the rest of Canada. This latter idea entirely conflicted with Trudeau’s emphasis that individual rights to equality should always supersede that of a specific group.                                                                                                                                        52  Pierre  Trudeau,  “The  Values  of  a  Just  Society,”  in  Towards  a  Just  Society:  the  Trudeau  Years,  ed.  Thomas  S.  Axworthy,  (Markham:  Viking,  1990),  358.    53  Lorna  Marsden,  “The  Party  and  Parliament:  Participatory  Democracy  in  the  Trudeau  Years,”  in  Towards  a  Just  Society:  the  Trudeau  Years,  ed.  Thomas  S.  Axworthy,  (Markham:  Viking,  1990),  263.          26    More pragmatically, the idea of treating one group as ‘citizens plus’ conflicted with Trudeau’s interests in Quebec, that is, in preventing the federal grant of any sort of different treatment for this single group of individuals – he did not believe that this was the way to create national unity. Due to the BNA Act’s clause that Indian Affairs be managed only by the Federal Government, Indian rights were, until 1968, always determined unilaterally. From the time the Indian Act was first created the government determined who could be defined as an Indian and what laws to which he or she was specifically subject. In addition, the Indian department was able to control its own affairs due to the fact that it was bound only by three pieces of formal legislation: the BNA Act, which granted the department’s capacity as the only body to oversee Indian Affairs; the Indian Act, which laid out the privileges and laws that were recognized as unique to the Indian people; and the numbered treaties, which contracted the exchange of mediocre and vague native privileges in return for the price of Indian land claims. The Indian Affairs Branch had therefore produced for itself the capacity to not only define who it cared for but also to limit its own obligations to those people through various interpretations of Indian Act and Treaty materials.54 The new approach by Trudeau and the long-standing operations of the department created a potential for misunderstanding. So too did the fact that the review of Indian policy began under different leadership and under different assumptions. The call for a policy review of Indian Affairs had first been made by the Privy Council Office (PCO) in 1967 in response to growing public criticism of the Government’s Indian Policy and reflecting PCO interests to fight the ‘War on Poverty’ that was very much related to the ‘Indian Problem.’55 In the midst of a Liberal                                                                                                                                        54  Hawthorn  et  al.,  150.    55  Weaver,  51.          27    leadership race brought on by the retirement of Prime Minister Pearson late in 1967 the cabinet decided to revise the Indian Act as a way to solve the ‘Indian Problem’ and began to arrange a series of consultation meetings that would take place throughout 1968-9.56 When Trudeau came to office, however, he understood that a policy review was as important as any Indian Act revisions in solving the ‘problem.’57 What developed from this political goal was the establishment of one public arena, the consultation meetings that would lead to Indian Act revisions, and one private arena, where a bold and novel approach to Indian Policy was hashed out beyond the view of the public.58 As it turned out, participatory democracy had its limits and Indian representatives, like the Canadian public, were not invited to take part in these private discussions. The result was that upon the publication of the White Paper, that document created as a result of the private discussions, the proposal “hit a solid wall of [Indian] opposition.”59 In the summer of 1968 the consultation meetings between Indians and department officials officially began. The consultations were approached with good intentions, but were more idealistic than realistic in their nature. Indians were given the opportunity to determine the direction that the Indian Act would take, a form of ‘self-determination’ and ‘self-help’ that was preached by the government as utterly important to the future of the Indian position in Canada.60 That in mind, the department was unwilling to fully open up discussions and indicated to native delegates that the focus for discussion should be on Indian Act revisions and not on treaties, claims or aboriginal rights.61 In spite of these efforts, these topics came to the forefront on numerous occasions, mostly owing to the simple reality that these were the topics of greatest                                                                                                                                        56  Weaver,  53.  57  Ibid.  58  Ibid.    59  Dickason,  386.  60  Miller,  225.    61  Weaver,  60.          28    concern for Indian participants. Unfortunately, frustrations abounded throughout the consultation process due to instructions given to department officials to adopt a sit-back-and-listen attitude so that Indian opinions could be heard.62 As a result, department officials could not control the direction of conversation and so when issues of concern inevitably came up the officials could only respond with vague, non-committal answers. These frustrations are evidenced by comments made at the national consultation in May of 1969 stating that “many delegates expressed annoyance at what they called Government efforts to restrict the range of topics they could discuss.”63 Delegates at this meeting passed a resolution for the establishment of a national committee that should “study treaty and related problems before agreement is reached to amend the Indian Act.”64 The lack of willingness to discuss the matters of major importance to Indian delegates had led to an impasse on the Indian Act by the end of the process. Compounding the issue of communication frustrations was the sense of distrust that developed out of moments of high tension when it seemed that the government officials were not telling Indian representatives the whole story: “Indian spokesmen suspected that decisions were being made before their opinions were heard, although they had no direct evidence to confirm their suspicions.”65 As it would turn out, these suspicions were founded in reality because while the consultation meetings were occurring across Canada in the public sphere with the end goal of Indian Act revisions in mind, privately the Indian Affairs Branch was developing a new Indian policy that would impact Indian-government relations far more than the Indian Act revisions ever could.                                                                                                                                        62  Weaver,  61.    63  William  Morris,  “Ottawa’s  Plans  Upset,  Indian  Act  Talks  Set  Up  Permanently,”  The  Globe  and  Mail,  May  2,  1969,  http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/1242408474.    64  Ibid.  65  Weaver,  95.          29    Behind closed doors the department had adopted a view that rejected the Hawthorn philosophy of ‘citizens plus,’ claiming that the report was “an important point of reference in the conceptualization of policy” but that a full implementation of its recommendations would be far too costly to justify.66 Policy decisions were therefore to be influenced by an alternative adaptation of the Hawthorn philosophy and while ministry officials locked horns over policy decisions in the private sphere the drama leaked into the public conscience in subtle ways. The best example of this confrontation is the break that occurred between Jean Chretien and Minister without Portfolio, Robert Andras, who clashed regarding the reorganization of the department to place Indians and Eskimos under the same departmental jurisdiction. Andras was angry that he had not been informed of this change and spoke disapprovingly about the department, and by association Chretien, on a television interview. The rift that developed between the two men roused public attentions to changes occurring in the department which seemed to prove to Indian activists that they were indeed not being consulted.67 One of the best expressions of both the nature of native-government miscommunications and the distrust that existed between the two parties occurred during the Toronto discussions, from January 20-24 in 1969. The first order of business at this meeting dealt with municipal taxation on reserve lands that were being leased to non-Indians. Though the land was a valuable asset to Indians, they lost an advantage when their lessees had to pay the same taxation on reserve lands as they would on non-reserve lands. Additionally, one band claimed to be paying $48,000 a year to the municipal government while none of that money was being returned for                                                                                                                                        66  Weaver,  79.    67  Ibid,  71-­‐4.        30    improvements to the land which, it was argued, should have been the case under the Indian Act.68 The crux of the issue was that the Ontario Assessment Act allowed municipal taxation to occur because, as proclaimed in sections 4 and 34, reserve lands occupied by a person other than an Indian could be taxed as if it were not reserve land at all.69 The Indian argument reasoned that reserve lands were protected by both the treaties and section 2 of the Indian Act. Despite this protection, provincial laws were superseding the federal measures put in place though owing to the singular position of the Indians under federal jurisdiction the provinces should not have had jurisdiction to make such a claim. The department’s rebuttal was vague, repetitive, and generally unhelpful as officials claimed that under the BNA Act the provinces were guaranteed certain tax rights, just as the federal government was guaranteed their own rights – the federal government could not challenge provincial rights without a constitutional amendment.70 Perhaps this answer would have been satisfactory if this complaint was simply an economic issue of what lands could and could not be taxed by whom. However, this was more importantly an issue of ambiguity regarding what historical assumption of rights the native peoples could fully count on. The issue goes much deeper than taxation. To fully understand the gravity of this ambiguity in jurisdictions let us return for a moment to the Hawthorn Report and its conclusions regarding treaty obligations and welfare services. One of the two determinate factors of special rights for Indians can be found in the numbered treaties – the other being the Indian Act – and while the Hawthorn report recognized that the treaties in contemporary use were important symbolically for the self-identity of the                                                                                                                                        68Department  of  Indian  Affairs  and  Northern  Development,  Report  of  the  Indian  Act  Consultation  Meetings,  Toronto,  1.    69  Ibid,  1-­‐2.  70  Ibid,  4.          31    native peoples and should therefore be respectfully treated, they were not useful sources for determining formal social or economic service obligations required of the government. In fact, the treaty contracts were filled with vague wording which the Canadian Government was able to use to its advantage, drawing incrementally from these agreements to develop policies which provided Indians with inadequate levels of care, creating conditions designed to drive Indians to Enfranchisement. As the Hawthorn Report suggested, On the whole, the existing welfare expenditures of the Indian Affairs Branch reflect neither constitutional, treaty, nor statutory responsibilities. They simply reflect historical decisions continuously sanctioned by parliamentary approval of the appropriations required for the Branch to play a minimal welfare role. The existing welfare activities of the Indian Affairs Branch are thus voluntarily assumed.71 In essence, the Indian peoples had become disadvantaged because their specific social and economic needs were not met by the Indian Affairs Branch which provided aid on a voluntary rather than an obligatory basis and therefore were not bound by specific standards. At the same time, in the post-war decades Canada had developed into a formalized welfare state. Yet Indian Affairs policy rather than legal requirement prevented the department from passing on Indian welfare responsibilities to the provinces where an “extensive array of services and benefits [were] now routinely provided by governments to all the citizenry.”72 Essentially, “the federal government has done more than it had to, and less than it might have done.”73 A lack of interest by the provinces to take on this monetary responsibility and a lack of willingness by the Indian Affairs Branch to hand over this essential strain of their bureaucratic power prevented the social and economic needs of Indians from being met.                                                                                                                                        71  Hawthorn  et  al.,  314.  72  Ibid,  247.    73  Ibid,  248.        32    It becomes clear in light of this conclusion by the Hawthorn Report that inconsistencies existed in the assertion of provincial and federal rights over Indians. The provinces claimed rights to tax reserve lands occupied by non-Indians and the federal government justified that right on the grounds that the BNA Act enshrined the provincial right and duty to do so. However, in the same breath the provinces did not extend their BNA Act duties to include the provision of welfare programs to Indians. The provinces claimed that Indian welfare was a federal jurisdiction under the responsibility of the Indian Affairs Branch, though of course formal welfare requirements were not laid out in any legislation. Such an inconsistency could hardly foster positive attitudes, particularly when the rights of Indians and their designation as ‘citizens plus’ were under review by a department that Indians did not trust. The national meeting in Ottawa saw the participation of over fifty Indian delegates and was the first meeting in Canadian history to bring together Indian delegates from all over Canada.74 Jean Chretien opened the conference with a speech which briefly expressed his promise to take “bold new initiatives” in his approach to crafting the new Indian policy.75 Beyond this speech, however, the senior officials of the Branch withdrew themselves from the meetings, allowing discussion to be driven, unhindered, by the Indian delegates while the ministry officials reviewed the transcribed content later.76 This was both a good and bad tactic. On the one hand, the content and the conclusions reached by the Indian delegates were completely their own, representing the interests and goals of Indians without interference from government officials. The delegates even hired lawyers of their own to help the proceedings                                                                                                                                        74  Weaver,  146.  75  Cited  by  Weaver,  147.    76  Weaver,  147.          33    move along without any department interference.77 This was a form of political autonomy that they had not yet experienced and an important step towards the effective national unification that would come later. On the other hand, this tactic of withdrawal used by the ministry officials also created an environment in which consultation no longer, if it really ever had, included a two-sided discussion. The delegates laid out a scheme of their interests which included recognition of treaty obligations, special Indian rights, and a Claims Commission, all of which, it was resolved, would be determined by a government-funded National Committee of Indian representatives. This committee would investigate and decide upon the specific rights of the Indian people of Canada and create the new draft of the Indian Act to be presented to the delegation at Ottawa upon a future reassembly.78 When Chretien agreed to organize a second round of consultations it was viewed as the beginning of a new era of Indian-government relations, one that would see a bilateral partnership driven by Indian initiatives replace unilateral decision-making with regards to Indian policy.79 However, Chretien’s agreement to continue to consult with Indian delegates was a misleading commitment that was interpreted differently by the two parties involved: on the government’s side it was a minimal commitment, set to focus on the Indian Act alone at a later date; on the Indians’ side the commitment was one of greater inclusion in all discussions regarding their future in Canada. Due to these conflicting interpretations, any elated feelings of cooperation were short-lived, abruptly dissolving in June when the White Paper on Indian Policy was publicly presented for the first time.                                                                                                                                        77  Weaver,  147.    78  Ibid,  147-­‐8.    79  Ibid,  149.        34    The White Paper was a document that took both Indians and government officials by surprise, Indians by nature of its secret development and government officials by nature of the Indian uproar that came about in response. During the last leg of the consultation meetings Branch officials had begun work on a white paper – a public proposal – to spell out the new Indian policy, one which would reflect the interests of the Indians as discussed in the consultation meetings but which ultimately was a bureaucratic creation, developed outside of the scheme of participatory democracy that had been a fresh but ultimately limited departure for the Indian-government relationship. The government’s seeming unwillingness to work with the native peoples to develop the policy which would affect them, the avenue promised by the idea of participatory democracy, and the lack of government interest in securing for Indians the ‘citizens plus’ status to which they felt they were entitled, meant that the policy proposal was most certainly doomed to fail in lieu of strong opposition from a freshly nationalised group primed with an awareness of their right to make political demands. Beginning with the statement cited at the beginning of this chapter, Jean Chretien echoed the Hawthorn Report in stating that the special treatment of the Indians in Canada had led to their becoming a disadvantaged people, lacking power to change their state of life and lacking the amenities to live a life acceptable in Canada. However, in expressing that the special treatment supplied by the government had created a situation in which Indians were separated from the rest of Canadian society, Chretien did not express the second, equally important, element of the Hawthorn argument which stated that the special treatment was only a problem because it was voluntarily sub-par treatment. Hawthorn had argued that inequality had developed out of this key aspect of the Indian-government relationship and he concluded that the inadequate care provided by the Indian Affairs Branch could be replaced by adequate care from logical sources while the      35    department continued to play an active role in preserving the unique rights of Canada’s first people, ‘citizens plus.’ The White Paper did not support this tactic, and instead recommended the closure of the Indian Affairs Branch and the repeal of the Indian Act to create legislative equality that could then translate into socio-economic equality over time. The policy did not suggest that the unique cultures of Indians should pay the price for equality. According to Chretien, “Canada is richer for its Indian component.”80 And yet, due to the power imbalance created by the special treatment that had been the cornerstone of the Indian-government relationship from the very beginning, Indians had suffered culturally, socially, economically and politically, unable to better their position because of the limitations placed on them as wards of the government. According to the White Paper, Indians “are entitled to an equality which preserves and enriches Indian identity and distinction … [but] the goals of the Indian people cannot be set by others.”81 The praise received by the Indian community following the Ottawa consultation meeting was evidence enough that the newly founded bilateral relationship was one that they were pleased with; it was a relationship that created compromise. However, the White Paper proposed the destruction of the Indian-government relationship to be replaced by a standard citizen-government relationship. Suggestions for the new policy were not entirely abrasive in any immediate sense. In fact, they were rather reasonable with comparison to previous Indian policies. They called for the removal of legislative and constitutional bases of discrimination, that Indian cultures be recognized as a unique aspect of Canadian society, that services be provided by the same agencies for all Canadians, and that lawful obligations be recognized while transferring control                                                                                                                                        80Department  of  Indian  Affairs  and  Northern  Development,  Statement  on  Indian  Policy,  1969,  ‘preamble.’    81  Ibid,  ‘Background.’          36    of Indian lands over to Indian peoples. The framework proposed to see these goals through, however, was the cause of Indian complaints particularly because it envisioned the repeal of the Indian Act and the extinguishment of the Indian Affairs Branch so as to remove all traces of special treatment of the Indian peoples. The White Paper goals to, for example, transfer certain responsibilities to the provinces and allocate extra funding for Indian economic development were reasonable avenues to consider with regards to a new relationship. However, the key structures that guaranteed the unique rights of the native peoples were to be taken away as a bureaucratic initiative to purposely limit the special status of the Indian peoples. And so, the government department with which the native peoples had finally established a relationship that appeared to work for both sides was now to be extinguished, not only without the consultation of Indians, who had expected a new era of consultation between the two groups, but with the added insult of claiming that: The new policy looks to a better future for all Indian people wherever they may be. The measures for implementation are straightforward. They require discussion, consultation and negotiation with the Indian people – individuals, bands and associations and with provincial governments. Success will depend upon the co-operation and assistance of the Indians and the provinces. The Government seeks this cooperation and will respond when it is offered.82 The White Paper preached an Indian-government relationship built on discussion and cooperation when the relationship had historically been filled with events in which promises were misleading or not kept, in which all policies had preached assimilation, and which now actively sought the demise of the relationship entirely. This proposal was no less than insulting to Indians who were aware of their rights to equality but also willing to fight for their rights to retain their special status.                                                                                                                                        82  Department  of  Indian  Affairs  and  Northern  Development,  Statement  on  Indian  Policy,  1969,  ‘The  New  Policy.’        37    Chapter Three – Breaking the Bonds of Bureaucracy: Reactions to the White Paper To this point it has been argued that a power imbalance existed between the Canadian Government and status Indians that gradually deepened throughout the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. This was the result of assimilationist policies which limited or completely undermined Indian cultures and the Indian way of life with the hopes of making ‘them’ like ‘us.’ This imbalance was particularly noticeable in the years following World War Two when post-war ideologies led to a new focus on human rights and dignity rather than assimilation for minority peoples. In this context, the Canadian government had little option but to address the compounded ‘Indian Problem,’ that is, the ethical, social, political and economic inconsistencies that for a long time kept status Indians in a state of submission to the Indian Affairs Branch. Through the course of the 1950s and 60s the native voice grew as new precedents were set that seemingly protected the rights inherent in their double status both as Indians and as Canadians. Furthermore, government attitudes appeared altered as they offered the chance in 1968 for Indians to have a say in the legislation that affected them under the Liberal party’s policy of participatory democracy. While a new Indian-government relationship formed over the course of the 1968-9 Indian Act consultation meetings, however, privately the Branch developed a white paper on Indian Policy that, when presented, undid this work with its plans to topple the very foundations on which the new relationship had been built. The response to this proposal by Indians led to the creation of a united, national Indian voice, one which had never before existed in Canada, and it proved to be a turning point for Indian-government relations. The response by the media was of primary importance in establishing a reaction. In the wake of the 25 June announcement a variety of critical responses are evident in the media, both internationally and domestically. On 26 June The New York Times indirectly questioned the      38    Canadian government’s motives, reporting that since the government was aware that they and the Indians “disagree on such questions as legal status and land rights” that “as if anticipating political difficulties, the Government went to unusual lengths to publicize this view.”83 On 27 June, The Washington Post reported the Indian response in stating that “An Indian representative said today they fear ‘destruction by legislation’ and ‘cultural genocide’” and quoted National Indian Brotherhood President Walter Dieter as saying “the policy proposals put forward by the minister of Indian affairs are not acceptable to the Indian people of Canada.”84 In Canada, William Morris of The Globe and Mail reported on 26 June that “the sweeping changes [Chretien] proposed were not anticipated. Nor was he expected to confirm the suspicion of many Indians that the Government would not renegotiate Indian treaties.”85 As days and weeks progressed following the release of the White Paper, “the wording and generalities of the White Paper became more fully digested by Indian leaders and the public alike, press coverage became more sceptical and critical.”86 These initial reports sparked a greater conversation among the North American public that expressed suspicions of the Canadian Government’s motives. On 9 July a letter to the editor of the Times written by Stephen K. Levine stated “The decision of the Canadian Government to terminate the special status of the Indian peoples is a tragic one … The only help Indians need is help in building up their own communities. They don’t need a ‘justice’ which is really another name for theft.”87 To this, Canadian Consulate                                                                                                                                        83  Edward  Cowans,  “Ottawa  to  End  Separate  Legal  Status  for  Indians,”  New  York  Times,  June  26,  1969,  http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/118476321.    84  The  Washington  Post,  “Canada  Indian  Decries  Ottawa  Plan,”  June  27,  1969,  http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/147640784/pageviewPDF?accountid=14656.    85  William  Morris,  “Ottawa  Plans  to  Abolish  Treaties,  Move  Out  of  Indian  Affairs  in  5  Years,”  The  Globe  and  Mail,  June  26,  1969,  http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/1242423944.    86  Weaver,  176.    87  Stephen  K.  Levine,  “Justice  for  Amerinds,”  New  York  Times,  July  9,  1969,  http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/118594450/9EFCC68411544B12PQ/1?accountid=14656.          39    General G.V. Beaudry responded with his own letter to the editor, published in the 10 August edition of the Times, stating that the consultations intended by the White Paper between federal and provincial governments and Indian representatives would give the Canadian Indian “a greater voice in his country’s affairs and in his own destiny than may be possible at present.”88 The White Paper had sparked a conversation that progressed across the country and, evidently, also progressed across the Canada-US border. Specifically, terms like ‘greater voice’ and ‘greater participation’ seemed to be the justification for many of the questions asked of Chretien in the aftermath of the White Paper announcement. During question period on 27 June, Chretien responded to inquiries regarding the “very grave concern expressed by a number of representatives of the Indian people” by stating that he had the previous afternoon reached an agreement with the National Indian Brotherhood, stating that it “is obvious that we will have consultations at the national and regional level in the future, and I am convinced that the Indians will understand that this policy is meant to offer them greater participation in Canadian society.”89 Chretien’s confidence appears, in retrospect, rather unfounded considering that the very day he claimed to have reached an agreement with the NIB, the organization made a public statement firmly rejecting the White Paper, stating that “We view this as a policy designed to divest us of our aboriginal, residual and statutory rights. If we accept this policy, and in the process lose our rights and our lands, we become willing partners in cultural genocide. This we cannot do.”90 While this early statement is respectfully critical, the NIB became the fiercest opposition to both the White Paper and Chretien as time went on.91                                                                                                                                        88  G.V.  Beaudry,  “Canada’s  Indians,”  New  York  Times,  August  10,  1969,  http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/118450012.      89  Canada  House  of  Commons  Debates,  28th  Parliament,  1st  Session:  Vol.  10,  June  27,  1969,  10705.    90  “Statement  on  the  Proposed  New  ‘Indian  Policy’/  June  16,  1969.  -­‐  Press  Release,”  Our  Legacy,  accessed  February  28,  2014,  http://scaa.sk.ca/ourlegacy/solr?query=ID%3A24989&start=0&rows=10&mode=view&pos=0&page=1.    91  See  Weaver,  173-­‐189.          40    Significantly, in July the NIB decided collectively to refuse to meet with any task-forces regarding the White Paper “‘until the Indian people made their own studies and drew up a set of concrete policy proposals of their own.’”92 Evidently the two parties did not see eye to eye on the policy proposal or the use of further conversation and Indians now developed a national organization that was capable of planning a counter-proposal. The government could do little but wait. In the first few months after the proposal was read in the House of Commons, Canadian government officials continued to disregard Indian concerns by arguing that this was the best solution for all. Certainly officials were confused by the native response to the White Paper – even frustrated – as their traditional Western perspective of liberty clouded their abilities to comprehend why the native peoples were unhappy. In July Chretien met with the Union of Ontario Indians in Toronto to discuss the White Paper and expressed his frustrations that “They don’t like the department and I proposed to phase out the department and then they want to keep it.”93 His argument for the White Paper was not unfounded, stating that 115 of the 135 clauses in the Indian Act required that decisions be made by the minister of the department rather than by Indians themselves.94 A move away from this policy would indeed improve Indians’ abilities to drive their own interests but it would simultaneously destroy clauses of the Act which gave Indians special rights in Canada. Across the country, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau stated in Vancouver in August that “it is inconceivable that one section of a society should have a treaty                                                                                                                                        92    Cited  in  Peter  McFarlane,  Brotherhood  to  Nationhood:  George  Manuel  and  the  Making  of  the  Modern  Indian  Movement,  (Toronto:  Between  the  Lines,  1993),  112.    93  Ross  H.  Munro,  “Be  Consistent,  Indians  Told,”  The  Globe  and  Mail,  July  5,  1969,  http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/1242428714.    94  Ibid.          41    with another section of a society.”95 His fierce belief in individualism led him to the conclusion that Indians must gain their voice in Canadian affairs not through special status, but through the same avenues as all other Canadians. As Chretien asserted at his meeting with the Ontario tribes, “You’re a Canadian citizen; Canada is your country and you’re a part of it.”96 The government tried very hard to convince Indians that this policy was not only a good idea but that it was the only way to achieve equality fairly. What neither Chretien nor Trudeau seemed willing to admit was that they had fundamentally insulted the Indian peoples, not necessarily in their reasoning for the White Paper but in their process of writing it. Indians were a people, after all, who had been directly promised by the Pearson administration that full equality for Indians would be sought “without loss of aboriginal, hereditary and usufructory rights.”97 The Hawthorn Report had confirmed for Indian peoples that a ‘citizens plus’ status was something to which they were entitled. The National Indian Council, and many other Indian groups, had stressed in the later 1960s that they “remained committed to the twin goals of advancement and retention of their identity,”98 and this commitment had been demonstrated often throughout the course of the consultation meetings. The process of consultation itself had given Indians the understanding that their interests were being heard by the government and that their participation was actually making a difference. In June of 1969, however, it became clear that native contributions were, like those contributions from the Hawthorn Report, largely ignored, with the White Paper representing only small portions of what both parties had said, portions that happened to fit the government’s                                                                                                                                        95  The  Globe  and  Mail,  “No  Aboriginal  Rights,”  August  11,  1969,  http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/1242424125.      96  Munro,  “Be  Consistent,  Indians  Told.”  97  Native  Voice  cited  by  Weaver,  37.  98  Miller,  225.          42    prerogative. It was utterly clear that the Indian-government relationship, after all the seeming progress during the consultations, remained one of “the same governmental arrogance and arbitrary top-down politics of rule by directive as well as the seeming continuity of state efforts to deny Indigenous identity.”99 Given this, it is small wonder as to why Indian representatives reacted as they did. The NIB press release denouncing the White Paper was only the beginning of a flurry of responses from Indian representatives across the country. One of the most prominent and telling responses came from Harold Cardinal, the young chief of the Indian Association of Alberta, who published a book late in 1969 entitled The Unjust Society. In his critique of the White Paper and the Indian-government relationship, Cardinal stated that “The government attempts to argue, quite falsely, that the poverty of Indians as an ethnic group is caused by their legal and constitutional status and that if only they would become Canadians instead of Indians their poverty would magically end.”100 Cardinal recognized the unilaterally pragmatic foundations of the White Paper and understood the implication: regardless of any successes this solution might have in reducing poverty for First Nations peoples it would also have the result of removing the requirement that the government view them as a separate unit with a unique history. The denial of their separate status as Indians would be a denial of the history of relations between Indians and the Government of Canada that had brought Indians to the socio-economic position in which they now stood. As Alan C. Cairns has pointed out in his adaptation of Edward Spicer’s concept of ‘cultural blindness,’ the dominant majority (the Canadian Government) seemingly held hegemonic power that allowed them to ignore the identity and vision held by the dominated minority (the Indian peoples). The government could justify this ‘blindness’ by claiming that                                                                                                                                        99  Palmer,  395.    100  Harold  Cardinal,  The  Unjust  Society,  updated  edition,  (Vancouver:  Douglas  &  McIntyre,  1999),  115.          43    ideal changes for the majority would benefit all parties involved in the long run.101 However, the reaction to the White Paper by Indians suggested otherwise. Indians believed their cultures and traditions as a people could not survive if they were subjected to equality of opportunity on the terms of individualism proposed by the government. The government had stated in the White Paper that change would have to occur through Indian self-determination but the question remained as to how capable Indians were of preserving their cultures if they were cut off from all those structures and resources that had come to define their lives as Indians. In ‘Citizens Plus,’ otherwise known as the Red Paper and produced by the Indian Chiefs of Alberta in 1970, it was stated that “the only way to maintain our culture is for us to remain as Indians.”102 Cardinal was equally vehement that: Before we can take our place in a larger society, we must regain our own confidence and self-respect. To do this we must be allowed to rebuild our own social institutions, torn down by their white counterparts … Our people are now in the process of discovering what they are in a positive sense; Canadian society must accept us in a positive way before there can be an identification of common purpose and before true citizenship can develop.103 In this sense, Cardinal agreed with the government’s suggestion that continuation of the Indian identity would have to occur on Indian terms; he did not wish to see Indians continue to remain subject to the government. However, Cardinal disagreed that this could occur if Indians became full Canadian citizens. First Nations confidence was on the rise in the 1960s, but it was by no means strong enough to survive the removal of the rights that had come to define their identity.                                                                                                                                        101  Alan  C.  Cairns,  Citizens  Plus:  Aboriginal  Peoples  and  the  Canadian  State,  (Vancouver:  UBC  Press,  2000),  64.    102  Indian  Chiefs  of  Alberta,  “Foundational  Document:  Citizens  Plus,”  Aboriginal  Policy  Studies  1,  no.  2  (2011):  194,  file:///C:/Users/Katy/Downloads/11690-­‐30418-­‐2-­‐PB%20(1).pdf.    103  Cardinal,  22.          44    In terms of identity, while the Indian Act remained one concern of Indians, the true concern remained, as it had been throughout the consultation meetings, the fear of losing the rights associated with the numbered treaties, those agreements that Harold Cardinal named the “Indian Magna Carta.”104He was concerned that these treaties were unappreciated by the government for what they were, agreements made between Indians and government officials that stated plainly that Indians deserved special rights. Furthermore, Cardinal believed that these rights were still very relevant in the contemporary context, particularly with regards to the services that should be provided. The Red Paper went into more detail, claiming that because of these treaties, “The Federal Government is bound to provide the actual services relating to education, welfare, health and economic development.”105 The Alberta Chiefs stated that “these benefits are not ‘handouts’ because the Indian people paid for them by surrendering their lands.”106 Cardinal stated that “As far as we are concerned our treaty rights represent a sacred, honourable agreement between ourselves and the Canadian government that cannot be unilaterally abrogated by the government at the whim of one of its leaders unless that government is prepared to give us back title to our country.”107 Here, Cardinal pointed out the fundamental issue of the White Paper: it was a unilateral approach to Indian policy that was simply no longer acceptable to Indians. In this context, it was particularly important that the White Paper was introduced in the late 1960s. Once Indians had gained enough confidence and were backed by notable precedents they were capable of fighting against a policy that very likely would have passed in an earlier time. Now, however, “The old way of presenting the Indian people with a series of agreements                                                                                                                                        104  Cardinal  24.  105  Indian  Chiefs  of  Alberta,  “Citizens  Plus,”  195.    106  Ibid.    107  Cardinal,  25.          45    already arrived at by one or both levels of government is dead. Such procedures say to the Indian, ‘Here, approve our plan for your good.’ We no longer will accept that.”108 Interestingly, there are examples of Indian support for the White Paper, perhaps the best example of which comes from William I.C. Wuttunee, a Saskatchewan man and former chief of the National Indian Council. Wuttunee supported the White Paper proposal, claiming in his book Ruffled Feathers: Indians in Canadian Society (1971) that the Red Power movement was faulty in its seeming efforts to continue Indian segregation and calling “the terms of the White Paper a dramatic breakthrough for the Indian people.”109 He reasoned that Indians should not be reliant on treaties and ‘the white man’s money’ and should instead shake off this dependency by focusing on individual economic development as members of Canadian society. This was, clearly, not the reasoning of the majority as Wuttunee was disowned by the chiefs of Saskatchewan and was not allowed to enter many reserves across the country.110 The truth of the matter was obvious, Indians knew the identity they wished to have and the rights they were willing to fight for in order to preserve that identity. Furthermore, they simply would no longer allow changes to take place without their agreement. A great many examples exist of Indians taking the initiative of nationalizing their own movement and involving Indian peoples all across Canada in the issues that affected them. First and foremost was the evolution of the National Indian Brotherhood. In mid-July of 1969 the NIB met for their annual meeting and chose to rework the organization’s constitution. At this point the NIB adopted the role of “‘national spokesman for the PTO’s [provincial and territorial                                                                                                                                        108  Cardinal,  51.    109  William  I.C.  Wuttunee,  Ruffled  Feathers:  Indians  in  Canadian  Society,  (Calgary:  Bell  Books  Ltd.,  1971),  23.    110  McFarlane,  111.          46    organizations] throughout Canada’”111 From this moment on, the NIB, an elected body of Indian representatives, would officially act as the national voice of the Indians of Canada and would lobby the government for treaty and aboriginal rights. It was a major step, one made fundamentally important by the organization’s adoption of the Alberta Chiefs’ Red Paper, turning the localized response into a national Indian ideology.112 The NIB later replaced President Walter Dieter with George Manuel, a Shuswap Indian of British Columbia whose efforts to unite BC Indians at the grassroots level made him the perfect candidate to legitimise the NIB as the voice for all First Nations across the country. These changes marked a very important step towards a strong and united Indian voice in Canada. National unity was sought through better forms of communications by the Indians and for the Indians. In November of 1969 Indian representatives lobbied the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for more service dealing with the issues that concerned Aboriginals, including Métis and Eskimos, and they requested to run their own small stations that would provide service wherever large numbers of Aboriginals presided.113 That December, representatives from the National Indian Brotherhood, the Indian-Eskimo Association of Canada, and the Canadian Métis Society met with a special Senate committee to request job opportunities and more focus on minorities in Canadian public media.114 They presented a brief to the committee which claimed that the middle-class focus of Canadian broadcasting had led to a situation in which programs dealing with Indians, Métis and Eskimos were fragmentary, acting “as an emotional catharsis to the troubled conscience of the affluent and serv[ing] as a substitute for action. They are not                                                                                                                                        111  Cited  by  McFarlane,  112.      112  McFarlane,  117.    113  The  Globe  and  Mail,  “Indians  Set  Out  Aims  for  Broadcasters,”  Nov.  18,  1969,  http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/1242178741.    114  The  Globe  and  Mail,  “Native  Peoples  Group  Asks  Job  Opportunities  and  Voice  in  Canada’s  Press,  Radio,  Television,”  Dec.  18,  1969,  http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/1242177643.          47    designed to promote social change. To do so, they would have to be produced on a regular basis.”115 The demand by Indians, Métis and Inuit to play a larger role in national media represents the extent to which they wished to see their issues brought to national attention, firstly for the sake of public knowledge, and secondly to better spread their message to Aboriginal communities all over Canada. Finally, two publications by Indians and for Indians further indicate the extent to which Indian representatives wished to spread knowledge and understanding to communities throughout Canada in order to strengthen their movement. In 1970, a pamphlet entitled “Red Paper vs. White Paper” was written by Terry Lusty, president of the Indian and Métis Historical Club in Calgary, which condensed the arguments made in response to the White Paper so that they could be spread to all interested parties. The document was catalogued in the library of the University of British Columbia in 1975, indicating that it spread beyond the province of Alberta and that it experienced a fairly long run of publication. Additionally, in 1975 the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs produced a booklet entitled The Indian Act and What it Means which interpreted the Indian Act in plain language so that it could be understood by Indians around Canada. The National Indian Brotherhood sought at this time to make meaningful changes to the Act and the only way to get meaningful feedback from the grassroots Indians of Canada was to first educate them in what the Act currently meant for their lives. The booklet went into its sixth printing in 1982, again indicating that the document was well-used and distributed. Not all of these tactics were immediately or hugely successful. Menno Boldt, for example, speaks of the struggle for political mobilization remaining an issue in his 1981 study of                                                                                                                                        115  The  Globe  and  Mail,  “Native  Peoples  Group  Asks  Job  Opportunities  and  Voice  in  Canada’s  Press,  Radio,  Television.”        48    Indian nationalism. The efforts to nationalize Indians clearly produced a challenge: “Indian leaders are currently undergoing a severe test of their diplomatic and political skills as they guide the transition of Indian identity from numerous traditional, culture-based, tribal-groups to a unified self-conscious minority group.”116 The transition from geographic and cultural isolation to national solidarity was evidently not an immediate, nor a simple, task to achieve. However, the measure of the success of the Indian rights movement is not necessarily just in its immediate effect, whose main success was in causing the Prime Minister to formally back down on the White Paper in 1973. Rather, the success of the movement is evident in its role as the spark for a novel Indian-government relationship in Canada that has continued to evolve in its longevity.                                                                                                                                            116  Menno  Boldt,  “Social  Correlates  of  Nationalism:  a  Study  of  Native  Indian  Leaders  in  a  Canadian  Internal  Colony,”  Comparative  Political  Studies  14,  no.  2  (1981):  209,  http://cps.sagepub.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/content/14/2/205.full.pdf+html.        49    Epilogue The debate around the White Paper was an important event in the evolution of the native movement in Canada. It galvanized the native community and brought home the complex interaction between equality, special status, the Indian Act, the treaties, and preservation of native culture. As J.R. Miller notes, “the 1969 statement became a benchmark against which every initiative or proposal was measured … this distrust helped to embitter Indian-government relations during the 1970s.”117 Native distrust has continued since 1969 – with good reason – to be aggravated by government motives that largely stall on progress towards native rights. The Indian rights movement has had some successes to show for its efforts, though one cannot be overly optimistic about these developments. In the very least, progression seems inevitable in the changing social landscape of Canada. The native peoples’ success in bringing education under the purview of native communities is one example of the slow progression towards Indian sovereignty that has developed since the 1970s.118 However, the goal of Indian sovereignty has been complicated by the very document that preserves Indian rights and treaty agreements: the 1982 Constitution. Indians expressed their newfound national unity during the patriation debates in the 1970s and Roger Gibbins has argued that they were “well-equipped” to do so.119 However, while the native presence in the 1982 Constitution has granted them the protection and participation they sought, their presence in the constitution and its accompanying Charter of Rights and Freedoms has also fundamentally limited their ability to seek the ultimate goal of Indian sovereignty. Owing to the constitution’s amending formula any changes would                                                                                                                                        117  Miller,  232.  118  For  more  information  regarding  Aboriginal  education  see  John  W.  Friesen  and  Virginia  Lyons  Friesen,  Aboriginal  Education  in  Canada:  a  Plea  for  Integration  (Calgary:  Detselig  Enterprises,  Ltd,  2002).  119  Roger  Gibbins,  “Canadian  Indian  Policy:  the  Constitutional  Trap,”  Canadian  Journal  of  Native  Studies  4,  no.  1  (1984):  4,  http://www3.brandonu.ca/library/CJNS/4.1/gibbins.pdf.            50    have to be agreed to by the Federal Government as well as seven of ten provincial governments, thereby limiting the potential to pass any additional clauses for Indian self-government.120 Since the constitution was signed without Indian consent, it is also a fundamental symbol of the continued impasse between the Federal Government and Indians. Events at Meech Lake and Oka between 1987 and 1990 exemplify this point, specifically illustrating how the Federal Government’s lack of willingness to recognize natives’ distinct status ultimately was a factor in the failure of the Meech Lake Accord. Native peoples were capable of stopping the Accord from being ratified but this move created rifts in the native-government relationship that only deepened with the violent events at Oka in the summer of 1990. The Oka Crisis revitalized the native rights movement to such a form that it had not been since the White Paper reaction and native efforts seemed to give the government an option: “they could deal with the quiet man holding an eagle feather or with the Warrior brandishing a rifle.”121In both cases, native rights were protected but only insofar as to deepen the rift between the native peoples and the Government of Canada. The Constitution of 1982 limits the fundamental alterations that can be made to Canada’s governmental operations and the Meech Lake Accord – as well as its aftermath, the Oka Crisis – represent two instances in which the government prerogative was favoured over recognition of natives’ distinct status. Government priorities are further exemplified by the Penner Report, a proposal compiled by a special parliamentary committee and published in 1983 that would have given native peoples full rights to self-government but which was stalled upon for three full                                                                                                                                        120  Gibbins,  7.  121  Miller,  307.        51    years until it fizzled out in the wake of Meech Lake.122 Finally, in 2006 Prime Minister Stephen Harper effectively backed out of the Kelowna Accords, an agreement reached in negotiations from 2004-5 in which the Government pledged over $5 billion to improve the socio-economic conditions of Aboriginal people.123 British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell stated the importance of the Kelowna Accord as “the product of an unprecedented government-to-government collaboration” that was signed as “an article of good faith and as a compact to restore trust, hope and confidence with Aboriginal Peoples across Canada.”124 Harper’s move to renegotiate the terms of the agreement echoed the Trudeau White Paper in that it signalled once again the unilateral designs of the Government with regards to native rights and cultures. Evidently the native-white relationship remains an imperfect one, and the impasse continues, though native interests continue to be exemplified through native voices regarding recent projects of development such as, most notably, the Northern Gateway Pipeline. This last example suggests that the native voice will continue to play a meaningful role in the politics of Canada, though whether that role will be in opposition to or in partnership with the Government remains to be seen.                                                                                                                                        122  Dickason,  408.    123  Lisa  L.  Patterson,  “Aboriginal  Roundtable  to  Kelowna  Accord:  Aboriginal  Policy  Negotiations,  2004-­‐2005,”  Library  of  Parliament,  May  4,  2006,  http://publications.gc.ca/collections/Collection-­‐R/LoPBdP/PRB-­‐e/PRB0604-­‐e.pdf.    124  Prince  George  Citizen,  “Harper  Must  Stick  to  Kelowna  Accord:  Campbell:  [Final  Edition],”  May  5,  2006,  http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/361754571.          52    Bibliography Beaudry, G.V. “Canada’s Indians.” New York Times, August 10, 1969. http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/118450012. 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Yabsley. “Conspiracy of Legislation: The Suppression of Indian Rights in Canada.” BC Studies, no. 89 (1991): 34-45. http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/bcstudies/article/view/1383/1427. Marsden, Lorna. “The Party and Parliament: Participatory Democracy in the Trudeau Years.” In Towards a Just Society: the Trudeau Years, ed. Thomas S. Axworthy, 262-281. Markham: Viking, 1990. McFarlane, Peter. Brotherhood to Nationhood: George Manuel and the Making of the Modern Indian Movement. Toronto: Between the Lines, 1993. Miller, J.R. Skyscrapers Hide the Heavens: a History of Indian-White Relations in Canada, revised edition. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991.      54    Milloy, John S. “The Early Indian Acts: Developmental Strategy and Constitutional Change.” In Sweet Promises: a Reader on Indian-White Relations in Canada, edited by J.R. Miller, 145-154. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009. 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Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy, 1969. 28th Parliament, 1st session, June 25, 1969. Patterson, Lisa L. “Aboriginal Roundtable to Kelowna Accord: Aboriginal Policy Negotiations, 2004-2005.” Library of Parliament, May 4, 2006. http://publications.gc.ca/collections/Collection-R/LoPBdP/PRB-e/PRB0604-e.pdf. Persson, Diane. “The Changing Experience of Indian Residential Schooling: Blue Quills, 1931-1970.” In The Native Imprint, Volume 2: From 1815: The Contribution of First Peoples to Canada’s Character, edited by Olive Patricia Dickason, 224-241. Athabasca: Athabasca University, 1996. Prince George Citizen. “Harper Must Stick to Kelowna Accord: Campbell: [Final Edition].” May 5, 2006. http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/361754571. Robertson, Heather. Reservations are for Indians, second edition. Toronto: James Lorimer & Company Ltd., 1991. Rosenberg, Mrs. Harry. “Canada’s Indian Problem.” The Globe and Mail, Feb. 2, 1962. http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/1284536096.      55     “Statement on the Proposed New ‘Indian Policy’/ June 16, 1969. - Press Release.” Our Legacy. Accessed February 28, 2014. http://scaa.sk.ca/ourlegacy/solr?query=ID%3A24989&start=0&rows=10&mode=view&pos=0&page=1. Tobias, John L. “Protection, Civilization, Assimilation: an Outline History of Canada’s Indian Policy.” In Sweet Promises: a Reader on Indian-White Relations in Canada, edited by J.R. Miller, 127-144. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009. Trudeau, Pierre. “The Values of a Just Society.” In Towards a Just Society: the Trudeau Years, edited by Thomas S. Axworthy, 357-385. Markham: Viking, 1990. The Washington Post. “Canada Indian Decries Ottawa Plan.” June 27, 1969. http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/147640784/pageviewPDF?accountid=14656. Weaver, Sally M. Making Canadian Indian Policy: the Hidden Agenda 1968-70. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981.  """@en ; edm:hasType "Graduating Project"@en ; edm:isShownAt "10.14288/1.0076020"@en ; dcterms:language "eng"@en ; ns0:peerReviewStatus "Unreviewed"@en ; edm:provider "Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library"@en ; dcterms:rights "Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada"@en ; ns0:rightsURI "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/"@en ; ns0:scholarLevel "Undergraduate"@en ; dcterms:isPartOf "University of British Columbia. HIST 499"@en ; dcterms:subject "Indigenous history"@en ; dcterms:contributor "Owram, Doug"@en ; dcterms:title "Nationalization of the native voice : The White Paper of 1969 and the growth of the modern native movement"@en ; dcterms:type "Text"@en ; ns0:identifierURI "http://hdl.handle.net/2429/46630"@en .