As a background for this column, the following information was found on the website indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca.

“In 1969, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and his Minister of Indian Affairs, Jean Chrétien, unveiled a policy paper that proposed ending the special legal relationship between Aboriginal peoples and the Canadian state and dismantling the Indian Act. This white paper was met with forceful opposition from Aboriginal leaders across the country and sparked a new era of Indigenous political organizing in Canada.”

The white paper proposed to:

• Eliminate Indian status.

• Dissolve the Department of Indian Affairs within five years.

• Abolish the Indian Act.

• Convert reserve land to private property that can be sold by the band or its members.

• Transfer responsibility for Indian affairs from the federal government to the province and integrate these services into those provided to other Canadian citizens.

• Provide funding for economic development.

• Appoint a commissioner to address outstanding land claims and gradually terminate existing treaties.”

The white paper was hotly debated at the time and continues to be debated to this day.

Harold Cardinal, who headed the Indian Association of Alberta and acted as a vocal opponent to the white paper was quoted as saying, “We do not want the Indian Act retained because it is a good piece of legislation. It isn’t. It is discriminatory from start to finish. But it is a lever in our hands and an embarrassment to the government, as it should be. No just society and no society with even pretensions to being just can long tolerate such a piece of legislation, but we would rather continue to live in bondage under the inequitable Indian Act than surrender our sacred rights. Any time the government wants to honour its obligations to us we are more than happy to help devise new Indian legislation.”

I think that the words above from Harold Cardinal lays condemnation on the Indian Act, and so it should. Countless Indigenous leaders have spoken out against the Indian Act and I believe rightly so. Cardinal lays out a self condemnation when he states, “we would rather continue to live in bondage under the inequitable Indian Act than surrender our sacred rights.”

I think that “live in bondage” statement speaks volumes. When people refuse to change for fear of perceived loss, their loss is even greater.

Under the Indian Act, it’s difficult for people to own property on the reserve. Under the Indian Act, it seems that there is constant turmoil in many Indigenous communities.

There is also the perception that Indigenous people “get everything for free”, but that isn’t true, they don’t. But, in Canada, it’s hard to tell who all gets stuff for free. Electric car buyers get a government grant. Car manufacturers get promised billions in subsidies for battery factories. Many businesses get government subsidies.

We, all of us, Indigenous and nonIndigenous Canadians, labour under acts like the Indian Act. That’s because, for centuries in Canada, powerful people truly believe that they know better than the average citizen. In Manitoba, first it was the Hudson Bay Company, then the federal government, then the CPR. When Manitoba became a Province, it was a typical federal botched process; they didn’t tell the citizens of Manitoba it was going to happen until the surveyors arrived. Through most of the 1900s, it was the Liberal Party of Canada and it’s still the Liberal Party and the Laurentian Elite that dominate Canada with a smug holier-than-thou attitude.

Canada is a great country but I think the future of all Canadians could be a lot better if there was more realistic thinking and common sense applied.

Indigenous people chose to stay under the oppression of the Indian Act, but we are all under the smothering blanket of the Laurentian Elite. What’s your opinion? Please email me at kwaddell@neepawabanner.com.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are the writer’s personal views and are not to be taken as being the view of the Rural Alberta Report