Chretien's opened a can of worms with his residential schools denial

Author of the article:Andrew Bear Robe
Publishing date:Nov 13, 2021 • 

Jean Chretien, the minister of Indian affairs, speaks during a dramatic meeting with the entire federal cabinet and a delegation of about 200 Indigenous leaders representing most provinces on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on June 4, 1970. 

PHOTO BY R. MAC /The Canadian Press file
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Jean Chretien was minister of Indian affairs from 1968 to 1974 and prime minister from 1993 to 2003. Incredibly, he denied any knowledge of the legacy of federal Indian residential schools while he was the minister in charge of those child abusive schools. In doing so, he opened a can of worms.

Those so-called schools were actually chambers of horrors for Indigenous children that operated within Canada from 1883 until that last one that closed in 1996. A total of 139 residential schools and residences were in operation across Canada and an estimated 150,000 Indigenous children, some as young as six years old, passed through that system.

The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada in 2015 concluded, “For over a century, the central goals of Canada’s Aboriginal policy were to eliminate Aboriginal governments; ignore Aboriginal rights; terminate the treaties; and, through a process of assimilation, cause Aboriginal peoples to cease to exist as distinct legal, social, cultural, religious and racial entities in Canada. The establishment and operation of residential schools were a central element of this policy, which can best be described as cultural genocide .”

Chretien could have intervened as the minister in charge of Indian residential schools but instead ignored the issue. He simply chose to carry on with the official Indian policy of eradicating Indigenous existentialism via assimilation, enfranchisement and benign neglect. Duncan Campbell Scott, deputy superintendent of Indian Affairs (1913-1932), said, “I want to get rid of the Indian problem. Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian Question and no Indian Department.”

There has been a long history of abusive treatment of Indigenous peoples at the hands of the government of Canada, starting with the Gradual Civilization Act of 1857, which was incorporated into the Indian Act of 1876. Thenceforth, government policy has always been marked by the denial of Indigenous rights, dispossession of Indigenous territories and domination by foreign federal and provincial laws.

Together with former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Chretien crafted the infamous federal Indian Policy of 1969, which sought to unilaterally terminate the sacred treaties made with the British Crown; unilaterally terminate the Indian Act (which is not a bad idea); unilaterally terminate special Indian constitutional status; unilaterally turn Indian reserve lands into individual land ownership; and unilaterally make status Indians into second-class provincial citizens.

Did Trudeau and Chretien consult First Nation peoples about the said federal policy? NO! Did they seek the input of First Nation peoples into the said policy? NO! Did they consult with the provinces concerning First Nation peoples becoming provincial citizens and adding to provincial burdens? NO! Chretien’s line of thinking and attitude pervades governments and other public institutions to this day. Call it systemic racism, which has been denied by government officials especially in Quebec, New Brunswick and by Nova Scotia fishermen.

Currently, Canadian governments are reluctant in fulfilling their sacred treaty obligations towards Indigenous nations and continue to treat them as wards of the government and not as treaty partners. Basically, Canada and the western provinces continue to look upon the Victorian Treaties (1871-1921) as land surrender agreements, whereas Indigenous nations do not. On the contrary, Indian nations look upon the treaties as securing their future livelihoods via reciprocity, mutual benefit and peaceful co-existence with the European settlers. If reconciliation is going to work, we collectively need to re-examine the basic purpose of those treaties, that is sharing the land and natural resources.

As treaty partners, there must be joint stewardship of the land and everything else that sustains the earth. There should be no more land and resource development without the input and consent of Indigenous peoples. The economic and industrial business leaders cannot be trusted with that public and moral responsibility because their sole focus is to create more individual wealth for their shareholders at the expense of the majority. Protecting the fragile natural environment and climate is a distant secondary priority for them. It is ironic that the wealthiest citizens pay the least taxes. Indigenous peoples pay all sorts of taxes.

As a minister of the Crown who signed legally binding treaties with Indian nations, Chretien failed miserably to uphold the Crown’s legal obligations. Neither he nor Trudeau understood the basic principles of peaceful co-existence with Indigenous peoples based on bilateral treaties, which are referred to as the Magna Carta of Indian Rights together with the Royal Proclamation of 1763.

As members of the federal cabinet, both men were primarily preoccupied with securing the privileged position of Quebec within Confederation as a distinct society or as a nation and it continues to receive a disproportionate share of the federal fiscal equalization transfers at 48.6 per cent in 2013-2014 and have remained at that level since. While Alberta, as a net contributor to the equalization program, contributes 50 per cent of its resource revenues into the fiscal transfers. That’s how Alberta pays Quebec’s bills. Such payments should legitimately be made to First Nations under the treaties as “Trusts” and “Interests” pursuant to Section 109 of the Canadian Constitution. Such revenues received would establish Indigenous economies, build infrastructure and housing within Alberta’s 138 impoverished Indian reserves. Alberta’s resource revenues must assist fiscally challenged Albertans first, especially First Nations as treaty partners.

We must be cognizant of the fact that the Victorian Treaties, which cover about 50 per cent of the Canadian landmass, are not settled issues. It is only a matter of time before First Nations will claim their just portions of the land and resources. Indigenous peoples should not have to litigate such entitlements. We can settle such matters via good faith negotiations as treaty partners.

We can all learn from the Manitoba Liberals who recently adopted a “land back” policy that would return land owed to First Nations as well as establishing natural resource revenue-sharing. Such policies were adopted at their two-day general meeting in October as part of its “single greatest priority” to Indigenous reconciliation. That would be the preferred option for all governments, instead of always going through the courts to seek delayed justice for Indigenous peoples.

After all, the Victorian Treaties involve 4.1 million square kilometres of resource-rich Indigenous territories that Indian nations agreed to share with European settlers to foster the latter’s development and prosperity. It is now payback time for Indigenous nations after waiting for 154 years for the fulfillment of their legal entitlements pursuant to the Victorian Treaties and as part of true and meaningful reconciliation.

Andrew Bear Robe, a member of the Siksika Nation, is an Indigenization consultant at Mount Royal University’s Bissett School of Business.