Louis Riel Day

While in most of Canada February 21st is a holiday called Family Day and in the U.S. it is President's Day in the province of Manitoba it is Louis RielLouis Riel Day. Louis Riel negotiated the Manitoba Act that brought Manitoba into Confederation on the 12th of May 1870. The holiday celebrating Riel is celebrated on the third Monday of February.

Actually it should be celebrated across Western Canada because Manitoba was the official capital for Alberta, Saskatchewan and the NWT until 1905.

And just to piss off my Tory MP Peter Goldring who denounced Riel as an Anarchist and murderer. Must have confused him with Gabriel Dumont, whom George Woodcock, the Canadian Anarchist author, wrote a biography of.

Ironically my neigbourhood which Goldring represents has a large Metis community....hope they remember his stupid racist colonialist comments come election time.

In the late 1870s, Gabriel realized that with the dwindling numbers of
bison, the Métis would need government assistance for their survival. He
chaired meetings, in 1877-78, to draw-up petitions asking for representation
on the North-West Territories Council, to confirm Métis ownership of alreadyoccupied
lands and to ask for farming assistance, schools and new land
grants. In 1880, he led a successful protest against paying a fee on wood cut
on crown land. The following year, he petitioned for land grants and Scrip.
However, the Métis’ grievances were being ignored in Ottawa.
In 1884, frustrated with the federal government’s inaction, Gabriel
called a meeting to suggest bringing Louis Riel to Batoche from the Montana
Territory to help the Métis with their grievances against the federal
government. The other Métis leaders agreed: therefore, on May 19, Gabriel,
Michel Dumas, Moise Ouellette and James Isbister left for St. Peter’s Mission,
Montana Territory in order to bring Riel to Canada. By July 5, they were
back on Gabriel’s farm along with Louis Riel and his family.
During the early winter of 1885, Gabriel and Louis Riel concluded that
negotiations with the government had failed. Therefore in a secret meeting
on March 5, it was decided that Métis would resort to taking up arms, if
necessary. At this meeting, Gabriel was appointed the “Adjutant-General of
the Métis Nation”. He soon organized, along the lines of the bison hunt,
approximately 300 men for potential military action.
On April 24, the next Métis battle during the 1885 Resistance occurred
at Fish Creek, or as the Métis knew it “coulée des Tourond”. The Canadian
militia, commanded by General Middleton, outnumbered the Métis by a ratio
of five-to-one. However, under Gabriel’s leadership the Métis still managed
to drive-off the inexperienced Canadian soldiers. However, the victory was
costly for the Métis: they lost many horses and used much of their
ammunition. Once the battle was over, the Métis headed back to Batoche to
set up a defensive position.
The Battle of Batoche (May 9-12, 1885) followed two weeks later.
After four days of fighting, the Métis, who ran out of ammunition, could no
longer fend off the much larger and better-equipped Canadian militia. A few
days after the battle, Louis Riel surrendered. At this point, Gabriel and
Michel Dumas went into political exile in the United States – arriving across
the border on May 27. The American authorities arrested them
immediately; however, they were released two days later on orders from
Washington. Gabriel had relatives in the Montana Territory with whom he
stayed until he decided upon his future. Madeleine arrived that fall at Fort
Benton, Montana Territory. Unfortunately, she died in the spring of 1886
from tuberculosis – a disease that killed many Aboriginal people.
In June 1886, Gabriel joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show as a trickshot
artist with Annie Oakley and others. After that, he discovered a large
community of French Canadians living in New York and in New England and
spoke to them of the Resistance, which led to contacts with French-Canadian
nationalists in Québec. He was asked to begin a lecture tour by Laurent
Olivier David, president of the Société Saint-Jean Baptiste de Montréal. The
first speech went badly because Gabriel was highly critical of the clergy’s lack
of support for the Métis during the Resistance. The rest of the tour was
cancelled because Gabriel’s anticlerical outbursts upset French Canadians
who at the time were strongly Roman Catholic.
In 1893, after he was granted an amnesty for his role in the 1885
Resistance, Gabriel returned to his homestead at Batoche. He let his
relatives farm his land and moved into a small cabin on his nephew, Alexis
Dumont’s farm. It was here, on May 19, 1906, that Gabriel Dumont died
suddenly while visiting Alexis.

See my posts on Riel:

Why Isn't Today A Holiday?

Remember Riel

Rebel Yell

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Louis, Riel, Dumont, Poundmaker, NorthWest, Rebellion, execution, Conservatives, Canada, Manitoba, prairies, metis, indians, NWMP, RCMP, history, martyr, franco-phones, Quebec

Rebel Yell

Louis Riel and the Northwest Rebellion

The origins of Western Alienation, embraced today by the Conservative Right in Alberta, was in the Northwest Rebellion.

And it was the Conservative government of MacDonald that imposed it's colonial, read Ontario, domination over Western Canada to avoid the creation of an autonomous government. In short to stop the creation of a Quebec in the prairies.

Ironic isn't it, that the loudest voices crying out that 'West Wants In', are the heirs of the Ontario Imperialists of the Conservative party of MacDonald.

Those who supported an autonomous West were the Quebecois. Not out of spite over the loss of independence after the battle of the plains of Abraham, but out of a belief that Canada was a federation of peoples.

1867: Four provinces choose to sign the new federation project; Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Lower Canada that will now be known as the province of Québec. The vote is very close, but finally, the federation passes in Québec (27 for, 22 against). But George-Étienne Cartier, one of the fathers of this federation along with MacDonald, originally saw this as a pact between two people: the French-Canadien and the English. In truth, the deal offers nothing of the sort, and the people of Québec are absolutely not recognised as an equal partner in this deal. Québec is nothing more than a province among four. These two visions of what Canada should be still clash today. It's the "Québec is a people and a nation different from the rest of Canada" vision versus the "Québec is just a province like the others" one. The new dominion of Canada will know a new age of prosperity, but the people now referred to as "French-Canadians" do not benefit much from the great games of finance and commerce, and remain a largely exploited work force. To boot, they are now nothing more than a minority in an officially "bilingual" country, where in fact, practice imposes English. Quebec First Era: from Federation to the Quiet Revolution (1867-1960)

The Quebecois viewed Quebec as one region, Ontario as another, and that the West was itself an autonomous region that should determine for itself, it's role in Confederation. That was not to be as the Ontario mercantilists, with their support from the British Crown and its monopoly corporations like the Hudson's Bay Company declared the West theirs, and used the North West Mounted Police and colonialist property owner militas to exert its rule .

The result was the Riel Rebellion, the great North West Rebellion where the West declared itself an autonmous region with its own government of the peoples by the peoples, including Metis and Natives, as well as settlers.

Métis Bill of Rights

PROVISIONAL GOVERNING COUNCIL BILL OF RIGHTS This is the formal List of Rights drawn up by the Provisional Governing Council of the Metis Nation, as the formal conditions for the entry of Rupert's Land into Confederation on December 1, 1869. That the people have the right to elect their own legislature. That the legislature have the power to pass all laws local to the Territory over the veto of the Executive by a two-thirds vote. That no act of the Dominion Parliament (local to the Territory) be binding on the people until sanctioned by the Legislature of the Territory. That all Sheriffs, Magistrates, Constables, School Commissioners, etc., be elected by the people. A free Homestead and Preemption Land law. That a portion of the public lands be appropriated to the benefit of schools, the building of bridges, roads and public buildings. That it be guaranteed to connect Winnipeg by rail with the nearest line of railroad, within a term of five years; the land grant to be subject to the Local Legislature. That for the term of four years all military, civil and municipal expenses be paid out of the Dominion funds. That the Military be composed of the inhabitants now existing in the Territory. That the English and French languages be common in the legislature and courts and that all public documents and acts of the legislature be published in both languages. That the Judge of the Supreme Court speak the English and French languages. That treaties be concluded and ratified between the Dominion Government and the several tribes of Indians in the Territory to ensure peace on the frontier. That we have a fair and full representation in the Canadian Parliament. That all privileges, customs and usage existing at the time of the transfer be respected. This meeting took place in Fort Garry on Wednesday, December 1, 1869.

Photograph of Gabriel Dumont at Fort Assiniboine,
May 1885; Glenbow-Alberta Institute.

This was the peoples charter that Gabriel Dumont, and the Metis Council crafted and invited Louis Riel out of exile in the U.S. to join them in a Metis reistance in Western Canada. The demand for self government spread through out the West from Winnipeg to the Saskatchewan Alberta border.

Dumont impressed George Woodcock, 'the gentle anarchist' of Canadian letters, who wrote a biography of Ghandi as well as Dumont. As a pacifist anarchist Woodcock, a transplanted Brit, living and teaching in Victoria, saw Dumont and the Northwest Rebellion as a struggle for an indigenous form of self government that was completely different from the parilmentary system imposed on Canada by the Conservatives and their British masters.

From his birth at Red River (now Winnipeg, Manitoba) in December of 1837 to his death in 1906 at Batoche, 100 kms (60 miles) north of Saskatoon on the South Saskatchewan River, Dumont saw the bison go from a seemingly unlimited renewable resource to near extinction. He observed Saskatchewan change from a teeming and wild land of grasses, rivers and forests - a land without boundaries - to a tamed, measured-out patchwork of farmland tended by sod-busters from somewhere else. And he witnessed a freedom-loving people become subjugated to a fiefdom in the faraway, insensitive capital of Ottawa, a place whose foreign laws were carried out by the disciplined, military-like Redcoats of the North-West Mounted Police.

"Though illiterate, Dumont's first request to the territorial government was for education for Metis kids," Woodcock writes in Gabriel Dumont. "His next request was for land. It's the Conservative government of Sir John A. Macdonald's unheeding of injustice and unresponsiveness to land claims that led to revolt."

Dumont's background as an Indian fighter and buffalo hunter made him a formidable foe for the North-West Mounted Police and federal forces. A true guerrilla fighter, he used the element of surprise and his knowledge of the land to great effect.

Riel was a martyr, perhaps with messianic delusions. But Dumont, writes Woodcock, was a Canadian hero in the "high romantic vein," like a Homerian protagonist, the "greatest Metis buffalo hunter, who had no superior when it came to the wisdom of the wilds." Gabriel Dumont by Gordon McIntyre


1869 and 1884-85 : Ottawa plans a new Canada "from coast to coast" and wants to send new settlers in the lands between Ontario and British-Columbia. In doing so, the MacDonald government ignores the presence of the Natives that already live there, like the French-speaking Manitoba Métis. Louis Riel takes the lead of a rebellion that will oppose him to Ottawa. The Canadian government has absolutely no intention of seeing a second Québec emerge in the west and sends the army to crush the rebels. Riel and eight Native chiefs are sentenced to death by an exclusively English-speaking jury. Québec strongly denounces the verdict and Montréal is on the verge of ethnic war. MacDonald declares "Even if all the dogs of Québec bark, Riel will be hanged!" (approximate translation). In Québec, all wear black armbands in memory of the "lost brother". Once more, one's hero is the other's enemy.
Quebec First Era: from Federation to the Quiet Revolution (1867-1960)



Poundmakers Surrender Speech (exerpt)

"When you came, we treated you well. What did you do in return? You stole our land. You shared a little food with us. And you said you paid for it. You killed off our buffalo for no useful purpose for you. We did not destroy the buffalo. We know they are useful. Everything we needed came from them. What will you destroy next?

When I was a young man, I often went on a war party. We rode all day. And all day we passed through herds of buffalo. The plains were black as far as one could see with herds of buffalo. We killed one only for food.

After the whites came, the buffalo became fewer and fewer. We all know that. We began to hate the white persons. They were robbing us of our birthright. We became very poor. We wandered to the south. The buffalo were not coming back. We were told, "the land is not yours anymore. We were to stay only on our small patches of land that were leftover (iskonikana). Our grandfathers travelled on these great plains and called it their own.

Why do I have to live on a small patch like the white persons? I only want my freedom."

The general's reply to Poundmaker's speech was that the Indians had defied the government by taking up arms; that their members had killed farmer instructors and Indian agents. "These men must be given and tried and punished." Poundmaker, as chief, would be taken hostage and remain a prisoner for the good behaviour of his people.

Ah yes hostage taking, like concentration camps and homelands in South Africa modeled on Indian Reserves in Canada, were all introduced by the British. Hostage Taking was introduced into into the Middle East by T.E. Lawerance, where it is still a popular tactic today.

The Northwest Rebellion is known in the United States as the period of the Plains Indian Wars, as American settlers, and robber barons move westward. Had the Riel Rebellion succeeded, like the failed rebellion of farmers and artisans in 1837 in Upper and Lower Canada, then the history of North America, not just Canada would have been different.

The alternative would have been a Metis, White, Native nation from Manitoba across the Prairies, south to the Dakotas and West to the Pacific Nothwest.

"Poundmaker and the legendary Big Bear, who was forced by starvation of his people to finally take treaty in 1882, were leaders in the fight for fair treatment. "The principle strategy of the Indian leaders was to build a widespread political movement," says Stonechild, "like the political lobbying type of thing you see today.For their roles in the rebellion, Poundmaker and Big Bear were sentenced to three years each in Manitoba's Stoney Mountain Penitentiary. As a sop to Crowfoot, whom Ottawa did not wish to anger, Poundmaker's hair was not cut and he was released after serving only seven months of his sentence. Still, his health suffered in prison and he died just months after his release, while visiting his adopted father Crowfoot. The year was 1886. He was 44." Poundmaker by Dave Yanko

In 1887 Louis Riel is hung as a traitor against the Conservative Government in Ottawa. In Quebec the people take to the streets to protest the political execution of Riel, in Ontario the ruling class and its Conservative Party clinks glasses and celebrates the death of the 'traitor' Riel with the comprador politicians from Quebec..

November 22 1885, to the March Field, Montréal

The emotion is at his height. Louis Riel has just been hung to have dared to claim the rights of its compatriots. While Ontario celebrates, the Quebecois are completely dismayed. The shops are closed, the tocsin resounds. November 22, on the March Field, takes place one of the more moving gatherings of the history of the Quebec. Fifty thousand persons attend the event, carrying to the arm the black armband of the mourning.

On the tribune, several speakers succeed themselves to denounce the federal government of the Conservatives, but the one that book the words more memorable Is Honored Haberdasher. Here the transcription of this that again today is considered as the one of the bigger speeches of the history of the Quebec. Note that to this era, one used the term "race" for done reference to the "populates".

Riel, our brother, dead east, victim of his devotedness to the cause of the Hybrid one of which it was the boss, victim of the fanaticism and treason; fanaticism of Sir John and of someone of its friends; treason three of the ours that, to keep their wallet, sold their brother.

While killing Riel, Sir John did not only hit our race to the cœur, but it especially hit the cause of justice and humanity that, represented in all the languages and sanctified by the whole beliefs religious, required grace for the prisoner of Regina, our poor brother of the North-Ouest…

We here fifty thousand citizens, met under the protective aegis of the Constitution, in the name of the humanity that screams vengeance, in the name of two millions of French in pleurs, to launch to the federal minister in escape a last malédiction that, passing on itself echo in echo on the shores of our big river, will go to attain it the moment it will lose view the earth Judicial.

As for those that remain, as for the three that represented the Quebec province in the federal government, and that do not there represent more than the treason, bend the head in front of their failure, and cry their sad one goes out; for the blood spot than they carry to the forehead is indelible, as to remember it of their cowardice. They will have the goes out of their brother Caïn.

Opposite this crime, in the presence of these failures, which is our duty? We have three things to do: we to unite to punish the guilty ones; break the alliance that our representatives did with the orangisme; and look for in a more natural alliance and less dangerous the protection of our national interests.

We to unite! Oh, that I feel comfortable while pronouncing these words! There are twenty years that I ask the union of all the lively forces of the nation. There are twenty years that I say to my brothers to sacrifice on the altar of the fatherland in danger the hates that we blinded and the divisions that we killed. […] it was necessary the national misfortune that we deplore, it was necessary the death of the one of the ours for that this rallying cry fût understand. […]

And then, do not forget, we liberal, that if the nation in mourning because of the assassination of Riel, the conservative ones our brothers are damaged in a deeper pain than the ours. They cry Riel as us, but also they cry the fall and the treason of their bosses. Them that were if proud and with reason, of Chapleau and of Langevin, that see in the the one eloquence and in the skillfulness of the other the good day country, are obliged to bend the head and to curse today those that they blessed yesterday. […]

Chapleau refused the hand of a brother to keep the one of Sir John; it preferred the screams of some fanatics to the Canadian French one the whole nation blessings; it preferred the death to life; the death for him, the death for Riel; his career is broken as the one of Riel, only this one fell in man, that one in traitor!

For an good political analysis of the Northwest Rebellion and its importance in defining the West read Beal, Bob; Macleod, Rod. - Prairie fire : the 1885 North-West Rebellion. - [Rev. ed.] - Toronto : McClelland & Stewart, 1994. - 384 p.

And thus began the histoirc annexation of the Canadian West by the mercantilist monopolies of the CPR and Hudson's Bay Comapny under the armed rule of Conservative Party hacks in Ottawa, British colonial governors like the Selkirk family in Manitoba, and their colonial military force the NWMP.

McLean, Don. - 1885 : Metis rebellion or government conspiracy? - [S.l.] : Pemmican Publications, 1985. - 137 p

• Claims that the Conservative government forced the Métis into rebellion in order to save the Canadian Pacific Railway financially.
• Rea, J.E. - "The Hudson's Bay Company and the North-West Rebellion". - The Beaver. - Outfit 313, no. 1 (Summer 1982). - P. 43-57

With Indian lands ceded to the railway, the CPR needed farmers and workers to open up the West. They invited immigrants to come and farm on homestead land, adjacent to the railway. Winnipeg boomed as the grain capital of North America, directly linked to the Chicago Grain Exchange, today the castles of capital still stand in the wind swept streets of a depressed Winnipeg. The great banks that Wobbly Joe Hill sang about, stand empty and dead, where they once ruled the Western expansion of eastern capitalism.

The second wave of Western alienation came with rise of a militant labour and socialist movement in the West. The west was RED before it was Red Neck. The IWW and the Socialist Party of Canada with its militant industrial union, the One Big Union (OBU) were active across the Prairies. The OBU itself was created in 1919 in Calgary, on the eve of the Winnipeg General Strike. Ukrainian, Scots, Irish, Icelandic, Finns, Germans, and Jews from Eastern and Central Europe homesteaded the land and took jobs in the mines and forests. They created their own socialist organizations and newspapers, like the Ukrainian Labour Farmer Temple.



During the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike, and its brutal repression by the RCMP, many immigrants were deported as enemy aliens and Bolsheviki, by the Conservative Party and the ruling class in Ottawa.

After the boom of the 1920's farmers and workers organized across the prairies into political parties, in Alberta the United Farmers of Alberta was a coalition of farmers and labour activists. The platform included recall of MLA's and referendums. Ideas that today have been taken up by the Right Wing.

The CCF, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, (later to become the NDP) was founded in the Grain Exchange building in Calgary in 1932. It was the original Western Reform Party. It then came out with a socialist declaration entitled the Regina Manifesto, in 1933. A fitting tribute to the original Prairie populist Lous Riel , who was imprisoned and hung in Regina.

During the Depression out of the West came the On to Ottawa Trek that the Left in Canada challenged the Borden Conservative government to end the concentration camps for the unemployed, and called for a living wage at the time, unemployment insurance and a social safety net.

The complaints of those in the West were always the same, we had a different vision of Canada, one that like the original Metis declaration called for autonomy, and direct government.

Today those socialist bashers on the right who identify with U.S. Republicanism and equate their wanna be Americanism with Alberta Seperation, or with right wing populism of the Reform/Alliance/Conservative party, or even cheer on Ralph Klein as he bashes Ottawa, would do well to learn their history lessons of Western Canada's past. It is a libertarian socialist history not a right wing one.

Sure the West wants in, but we want a new confederation as do the peoples of Quebec. This is not about giving right wing governments in the provinces more power, this is about creating a new federation, which was the original vision of Papineau, Mackenzie, Dumont, Riel, Poundmaker, Carl Berg, Pritchard, and J.S.Woodsworth. A peoples confederation, a federation of the self governed, a Cooperative Commonwealth, not a Conservative or Liberal government in Ottawa, but proportional representation, that cedes decision making to local levels of govenment, whether it is muncipalities, or native self government.

The provinces of Alberta and Sasksatchewan are celebrating our centennials but so are the IWW and the Socialist Party of Canada, equally founders of the West . The provinces are creatures of Ottawa, our muncipalities are founded by the peoples who live here. Their power was taken away despite ancient British traditions that recongized the autonomy of cities and their aldermen, in order for the State to expand its empire in the West. Provincial autonomy is tyranny of the State over the popular political insitiutions of the people:

1. That all Sheriffs, Magistrates, Constables, School Commissioners, etc., be elected by the people.
2. That a portion of the public lands be appropriated to the benefit of schools, the building of bridges, roads and public buildings.

In the West our history has been shaped by the British Colonialists of Canadian Confederation and their mercantilist partners the HBC and the CPR. In our history lessons we learn little of the Native, Metis or immigrant struggles, settling instead for the history of the victors. We are not taught that Quebec supported the West and it's struggle to be an autonomous self governing region, an equal partner in Confederation. Instead we are taught all that rebelious Quebec wanted was French speaking rights, and their support of Riel was to spite the English rulers in Ottawa.

I believe the speech reprinted below by Louis-Joseph Papineau exposes the lies of the origins of Confederation as a common agreement between regions. His is an alterantive history of Canada, that has not been available in the West in our social studies classes in school.

Papineau was no mere Quebec Nationalist, he was a Canadian, who saw this as a new country, one like the United States, offered a new land, and a new federation of peoples, in his Speech to the Institut Canadien he preciently predicted Canada would become not just a home to European Immigrants but Asian immigrants as well. This is his speech on Confederation, a Quebec ideal that was usurped by the familial and mercalintalist interests in Ontario. His idealism and his vision of Canada fits well with those of us in the West.

Papineau led the 1837 rebellion for a government of the people, for a constiuent assembly against the vested interests of the Family Compact. Papineau passed legislation, the first in Canada, giving Jews the vote.

During the Spanish Civil War, the left in Canada who joined the international Brigades named their Brigade the Mackenzie-Papineau Brigade, the Mac-Paps, in honor of the heros of the 1837 Rebellion.


Alberta politicians have always aligned with Quebec, for their own political and provincial interests against the Ottawa power brokers for sure, but Quebec's view of history is little revealed to the average person in the West. Instead these same politicians invoke Quebec's vision of Canada, as the 'selfish aggrandizment of special powers and intersts', which of course they should get as well.

The people in the West have always wanted a different kind of Confederation, but our own ruling class uses this 'alienation' as a cheap trick to maintain their own power base, which has moved from Winnipeg in the 19th and early 20th Century, to Calgary in the 21st Century.

I would advise that reading this whole speech would be revealing of the half truths and lies that have shaped English Canada's version of what Quebec wants for Canada. And indeed the real history of Canada and Confederation as the betrayl of legislative authority and its usurption by the landed aristocracy of British mercantilism. As it is I have exerpted portions I feel are pertinent to this article.

1867 Speech of Louis-Joseph Papineau at the Institut canadien

Among the most important and useful truths, those that pertain the the better political organization of a society are at the forefront. They are among those of which it is a shame to have not studied carefully, and cowardly to dare not proclaim, when we believe that those we possess are true and therefore useful.

The good political doctrines of modern times, I find them condensed, explained and delivered for the love of peoples and for their regeneration, in a few lines of the 1776 Declaration of Independence, and the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

The true sociological doctrines of modern times can be summed up in a few words: Recognizing that, in the political and temporal order, the only legitimate authority is the one to which the majority of the nation has given its consent; that are wise and beneficial constitutions only those for which the governed have been consulted, and to which the majorities have given their free approbation; that all which is a human institution is destined to successive change; that the continuous perfectibility of man in society gives him the right and imposes him the duty to demand the improvements which are appropriate for new circumstances, for the new needs of the community in which he lives and evolves.

It is not the precipitated acceptance of the butched Quebec Act of confederation that can prove the wisdom of the statesmen of England. It is not their work; it was prepared in hiding, without the authorization of their constituents, by some colonists anxious to stud themselves to the power that had escaped them. The sinistre project is the works of badly famed and personally interested men, it is the achievement of evil at the British Parliament, surprised, misled, and inattentive to what it was doing.

At first sight, the act of confederation cannot have the approval of those who believe in the wisdom and the justice of the Parliament and the excellency of the English constitution, since it violates its fundamental principles, by taking control over the sums of money belonging to the colonists alone and not to the metropolis nor to any authority in the metropolis. It is guiltier than any of the preceding acts. It has the same defects, and it has new ones, which are unique to it, and which are more exorbitant against the colonists than were those of the parliamentary charters granted or imposed before. The others were given in times and conditions that were difficult and exceptional. The transfer of a new country, with a majority whose religious beliefs and political education differed deeply from those of the minority, could have let us fear that the latter be exposed to denials of justice. Full religious tolerance, the most important of the rights which belong to men in society, had not been understood nor allowed at the time. England was persecuting at home, insane and unjust; she was insane and unjust here, here more than elsewhere, because the public law was supposed to protect us from evil. She ignored it. If she had restricted herself to protective measures for the minorities, she would have been praised; but she exceeded the goal, she oppressed the majority, she did wrong. But it was then a common error which misled her and which excuses her. The odious laws of intolerance are repudiated by all of the civilized world today, except for Rome and St. Petersbourg. There too however, sooner or later it will be necessary to render justice at the sight of the benefits which it pours on the States which respect it.

The concision in the word of Cavour: "The free Church in the free State", is one of the most beautiful titles given to respect, love and admiration, justly acquired by this famous statesman. These happy words, which once stated can never be forgotten, which, in a short sentence, contain a complete and perfect code on the subject they expose and explain, in one moment, -- as if all the tongues of fire of the Coterie had touched all those which tried to retain them -- allow us to understand, love, and proclaim the full truth which was only obscurely perceived and timidly loved before. And yet this revelation, sudden for a lot of people, is already codified, since a long time, for all, in the thirty-six States of the Union next door.

The free, independent Churches, separated from the State, do not require anything from it in presence of one another, are the happiest and become most useful, because of this separation from the State and the proximity of their rivals. They rely on their knowledge and their virtues, they do not require nothing else. They as nothing of what they consider useful to the promotion of their cult, all to the benefit of all their ministers, their charity, and their benevolent organizations. Watching one another, they are eminently moral, because the exposure and publicity would punish each fault they commit. No fault being able to go by unpunished, one will rarely occur. Where only one Church rules, it is not useful, it represses heresies, schisms and witches. Its adversaries claim: "it must necessarily be that it is wrong, if it is so cruel." and its friends say: "it must necessarily be that it is divine, if it obtains support in spite of these cruelties."

When the right to freethinking, whether religious, political or scientific, is as generally proclaimed as it is it by the laws, the values and the practice of our days, it cannot be lost. Judicious people will not need to demand it later.

Other parliamentary acts against Canada were acts of rigour, following disorders which would have been prevented by a tiny portion of the concessions that were granted much too late. The merit of these concessions is small and has little value, because they were made only after executions which were murders.

The present act was inflicted to provinces which were peaceful, where there no longer existed animosities of race or religion to calm down. Where nobody was guilty, all were punished, since they received a law for which they were not consulted.

This new governmental plan reveals, more than the others, the violent animosity of that the aristocracy feels towards elective institutions. It was only after long years of ceaseless efforts that the Legislative Councils were made elective. Did those who had been morally glorified by tearing off this important concession to the colonial and metropolitan authorities glorify themselves much today by ravishing it to their compatriots? On the contrary, they felt and they knew that they would not escape the contempt that these tergiversations deserved. They fought among themselves with eagerness to obtain nobility titles from overseas. They defrauded on the one hand their country and other the other they were even defrauding among themselves for the superiority of the rank; and they found ways to associate many accomplices to their shame, as if it was less dark because it was shared! They promised the elected counsellers to have them counsellers for life. They created themselves a fake aristocracy, that became such by their participation in an obvious violation of the law. All these intrigues were immoral enough to please the English cabinet and to push it to adopt an act even worse than almost all its past wrongs. These reactionaries were asking the institutions of the Middle Ages back at the very moment the noble English people was demolishing them.

No, it is not true that the political discussions, which were as sharp in both Canadas, were a fight between races. They were as rough in Upper Canada, where there was only one nationality, than here, where there were two. The majorities of both of them were uninterested friends of rights freedoms, and privileges due to all the English subjects. They were voluntarily exposing themselves to liefull slanderings, to dangerous angers, to sanguinary revenges sometimes, from egoistic minorities, by themselves weak, but supported by the strenght of the bayonnettes paid with the gold of the people, but everywhere directed against the people.

The privileged people always think that the prayers and the complaints against the abuses which benefit them are an invitation to repress them by violence. Proud, just and enlightened men, whose convictions are intense because they are the result of strong studies and long meditations, have faith in the empire of reason, and it is for reason alone that they ask the correction of the abuses. Their efforts are addressed to all, to the powerful ones initially, to inspire them sympathy for the people that are suffering and that were impoverished by the abuses. They present them with glory and happiness to conquer, if they know how to render the society of their time more prosperous and more moral that it was it in the times which preceded. They address them initially and preferably, because their mind being more cultivated, they would be better prepared to be able to consider questions of general interest under all their various aspects, and to solve them quickly and correctly when selfishness does not blind them. They address the masses after, to say them that the sabre is not in their hands, but that reason is the richest and most invaluable of divine gifts and that it was separated almost equally amongst all, that the culture of the mind can centuplicate its fruitfulness and strength; that to clear the land one needs physical strenght enlightened by experience, but that in order to make good constitutions and good laws, and to apply them wisely, it is necessary to have before all a strong reason, enlightened not only by serious studies, but above all by a real devotion to the country, and the absence of any personal covetousness of ambition or interest. Here is what could seen before, here is what has since become so rare, now that fortunes acquired at the expense of the public and personal honor, have become so numerous! How badly do these reproaches of propensity to violence come from those who constantly have recourse to violence to prevent the free discussion of political or social questions, physical violence by means of the law, moral violence by the anathema!

Papineau was 81 years old when he appeared at the Institute in 1867

Canada's
Trudeau exonerates Cree chief wrongly imprisoned in 1885

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has been criticized by some indigenous communities, on Thursday apologized and posthumously exonerated a Cree chief unjustly imprisoned for treason more than 130 years ago.

The Liberal prime minister received widespread support from Canada's First Nations when he ran for office four years ago promising to reconcile Canada with the native peoples wronged during the country's colonial past.

Chief #Poundmaker, or #Pihtokahanapiwiyin, was a #Cree leader during #Canada's #NorthWestRebellion*** of 1885. Historians have said he helped prevent a massacre of federal soldiers during a battle with the primarily French speaking rebels, who were descendants of First Nation and European settlers, was a Cree leader during Canada's North-West Rebellion of 1885.

Historians have said he helped prevent a massacre of federal soldiers during a battle with the primarily French speaking rebels, who were descendants of First Nation and European settlers

THE FRENCH SPEAKING REBELS HAVE A NAME THEY ARE THE #METIS PEOPLE, MANY ALSO SPOKE ENGLISH THEY HAVE RIGHTS IN CANADA AS FIRST PEOPLES AS WELL AS FIRST NATIONS 

THEY WERE REBELLING FOR PROVINCIAL RIGHTS SEPARATE FROM OTTAWA AND IN RECOGNITION OF AUTONOMOUS PARLIAMENTARY STRUCTURE AKA #RIELREBELLION ***, FOR WHICH RIEL WAS HANGED IN REGINA SASK, AT NWMP/RCMP HQ

WE HAVE NO FEDERAL TROOPS, THAT IS MEXICO
WE HAD THE #NWMP THE PREDECESSOR TO THE #RCMP

FOR MORE SEE MY REBEL YELL 
http://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2005/07/rebel-yell.html
AND THE GREAT CANADIAN METIS LEADER 
GABRIEL DUMONT WHOM GEORGE WOODCOCK CALLED A PRAIRIE ANARCHIST https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=GABRIEL+DUMONT 

Fate of Métis scrip lawsuit in doubt after 17 Alberta plaintiffs ask to withdraw


The future of a lawsuit seeking to hold Canada accountable for the loss of Métis lands is in doubt after about a third of the plaintiffs asked to withdraw from the action when their legitimacy was questioned.


© Provided by The Canadian Press

METIS FLAG, LOUIS RIEL (L) GABRIEL DUMONT(RIGHT) 

The Métis Nation of Alberta says the move proves that it speaks for Alberta's Métis and that the provincial government's dealings with breakaway groups should stop.

"These are the same groups that the current provincial government props up and consults with to the exclusion of the vast majority of Métis in Alberta," vice-president Dan Cardinal said in a release.

The so-called Durocher case, filed in 2019, was brought by 17 Métis groups and individuals in Alberta and another 39 similar plaintiffs from Saskatchewan on behalf of all Métis in the area. It sought compensation for the loss of a vast amount of land in the northern reaches of the two provinces through the issuance of scrip certificates to Métis around the turn of the last century.

The scrip was supposed to be redeemable for land.

The available land, however, was far from the Métis homelands. Much scrip was bought by speculators for pennies on the dollar from people who didn't understand the deal they were making.

The lawsuit sought damages, a declaration that Métis still hold title to the land and negotiations toward a land claim.

But that lawsuit is now on hold. The Alberta plaintiffs have asked to be removed from it after the Métis Nation of Alberta and the federal government challenged the legitimacy of their claim to represent all Métis.

In addition to 10 individuals, the groups withdrawing from the legal action are the Métis associations in Athabasca Landing, Fort McKay, Lakeland, Willow Lake, Owl River and Conklin. The 17th plaintiff, Chard Métis Dene Inc., has been dissolved.

"When the light of scrutiny is on them, it's telling that they say we'll just withdraw," said Jason Madden, lawyer for the Métis Nation.


Métis Nation president Audrey Poitras said in a news release that any scrip settlement must be negotiated with representatives of all Métis.

"Justice requires that any benefits that come from litigation or a negotiated settlement will be for the benefit of all of the descendants of Métis scrip, not just a few self-appointed individuals and private corporations they control."

The groups that brought the claim are only a few years old, said Madden. The Métis Nation of Alberta was founded in 1928.

The fate of the case is now uncertain, Madden said.

"All the parties have agreed to a three-month adjournment to give the Saskatchewan parties a chance to decide what they're going to do next."

Madden said the withdrawal of the 17 plaintiffs now makes it clear that the Métis Nation of Alberta has the right to speak for Métis in the province. He pointed out the United Conservative Party government has been eager to consult and work with the breakaway groups who have now backed off from Durocher.

That relationship should end, said Cardinal.

"We hope that the same judicial scrutiny will be applied to the backroom deals between the Kenney government and these self-appointed individuals and groups to ensure that all negotiations represent the interests of all Métis citizens."

Neither the lawyer for the breakaway groups nor their representatives could be immediately reached for comment.

In the release, Poitras acknowledges the issue of compensation for loss of land through the scrip program needs more urgency. She said her group signed a deal with Ottawa in 2019 that included negotiations over scrip, but little has happened since then.

"Little progress has been made with Canada," she said. "We will be consulting with our citizens as well as our democratic governance structures at the local and regional levels on what we should do next.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 4, 2022.

-- Follow Bob Weber on Twitter at @row1960

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

ABOLISH MONARCHY
Damaged Queen Victoria statue is beyond repair, Manitoba government says

WINNIPEG — A statue of Queen Victoria that was toppled and beheaded by protesters last year outside the Manitoba legislature is beyond repair and will not be restored.


© Provided by The Canadian PressDamaged Queen Victoria statue is beyond repair, Manitoba government says

"It's gone through a lengthy assessment process and is not repairable," Justice Minister Kelvin Goertzen said in an interview.

Trying to replicate it is also out of the question, Goertzen said, because it would cost at least $500,000.

"I know it will be disappointing to many people — it won't be recast — but that's the decision."

The statue, a prominent monument on the front lawn of the legislature, was tied with ropes and hauled to the ground on Canada Day last year during a demonstration over the deaths of Indigenous children at residential schools. It was covered with red paint. The head of the large statue was removed and found the next day in the nearby Assiniboine River.

While the statue was toppled in an area covered by many security cameras, no one was charged with causing the damage.

A smaller statue of the Queen, on a side lawn next to the lieutenant-governor's house, was also toppled but suffered less damage. That one of Queen Elizabeth II is being repaired and will be put back in place, Goertzen said.


Discussions with Indigenous groups are ongoing about what might replace the Queen Victoria statue, he added.  

TRIPTICH OF LOUIS RIEL, GABRIEL DUMONT 

AND POUNDMAKER

There is no word yet on what is to become of the broken Queen Victoria statue. In online discussion forums, some people have suggested the statue be installed in a museum as-is to commemorate last year's protest.

The decision to not restore or replicate the statue comes amid a public debate over how to mark Canada Day this year, at a time when the country is still coming to grips with the legacy of residential schools. Winnipeg is home to the highest concentration of Indigenous people among major cities in Canada.

Organizers of the city's big annual Canada Day celebrations at the Forks — the downtown junction of the Red and Assiniboine rivers — have renamed the event this year "A New Day," cancelled fireworks and promised events that will be reflective as well as celebratory.

That has led to accusations that organizers have cancelled Canada Day, which they deny. Jenny Motkaluk, a candidate for the city's mayoral election in October who finished second in the last race in 2018, blasted the decision and said she would go elsewhere because she loves the country unconditionally.

Other mayoral candidates are supporting the renamed event and have said acknowledging the country's history, including its flaws, is important.

Wab Kinew, Manitoba's Opposition NDP leader, said there are ways to mark the holiday while acknowledging the wrongs.

"I think it could mean things like marking Canada Day, attending a Canada Day celebration, but wearing an orange shirt in honour of the (residential school) survivors," Kinew said.

"I am a patriot, but I'm a patriot who is also the son of a residential school survivor, and my dad shared a bunk with a child who never came home from that residential school."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 22, 2022.

Steve Lambert, The Canadian Press

Ed Sez: Gun Ban Useless

NDP Candidate and former GG, Ed Schreyer laughed out loud over the suggestion that the Liberals ban on handguns will solve crime in Canada. "They have been banned since 1934, its not a solution to a complex problem like crime." He told Craig Oliver on CTV's Question Period.

Nice to know that another Western Canadian NDP candidate running in a rural riding recognizes how out of touch the gun control lobby and the Toronto Liberals are. He actually said the Liberals had blown it over the Firearms registry and gun control. "I have represented Selkirk before you know, and I know what I am talking about."

I was waiting for him to pull a Charlton Heston though. Would love to see that. Ed Schreyer brandishing a long rifle belonging to Gabriel Dumont from the Riel Rebellion quoting him; "That we have a fair and full representation in the Canadian Parliament". See the Dippers support legal responsible gun ownership, now back off Blogging Torys.

Feds shortchanging First Nations on operating cash for water systems, PBO says

OTTAWA — The parliamentary budget officer has put a price tag on providing clean drinking water in First Nations, saying in a new report that the federal government still has a shortfall to make up

.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Yves Giroux’s report on Wednesday said the government has set aside more than enough money to meet the expected capital costs to build water and wastewater systems over the next five years.

Where the government falls short is on financial help to First Nations to operate the systems, which Giroux's office estimates would need $138 million more annually in federal funding.

Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu said the government intends to close that gap and is working with First Nations to understand what is standing in the way after the Liberals promised to fund all operating costs.

The budget officer's report warns that not spending enough, and not spending it on time, could increase the bill to provide water and wastewater services on reserves comparable to non-First Nations communities of the same size.

The report said "a low investment rate or a significant delay in the investment completion" could mean systems deteriorate faster than expected, "costing more money and risking service disruption."

The Liberals had promised in their successful 2015 election campaign to end all boil-water advisories in First Nations within five years of taking office, a timeline that was supposed to be met this year.

But the government last year said the target wouldn't be met, pointing to the pandemic among a variety of other factors in its way.

Hajdu didn't set a new deadline when asked on Wednesday.

"We'll be working with First Nations communities to understand how we can make sure that we expedite the work and give them the tools that they need to move forward in this planning," she said outside the House of Commons.

"This isn't something the government unilaterally can impose on a community. This is something that we do together with communities."

The latest federal figures show that 119 long-term drinking water advisories have been lifted since November 2015, with 43 remaining in 31 communities with federally supported systems.

The government says many of those remaining should be lifted over the next 12 months based on plans in place for each community. Hajdu's office said some project scopes have changed or construction schedules have been complicated by pandemic measures that shifted timelines.

"We have to be truthful with our timelines to Canadians who are looking for answers," said Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller. "But behind all that is the resolve of this government to continue investing in essential water and essential assets in communities."

He also said homegrown solutions to train local Indigenous people to run water plants and working with First Nations on plans are as important as funding.

The PBO report also noted that the share of water systems deemed to be "high" or "medium" risk — meaning they are unlikely to manage through any problems — has remained virtually the same since 2015 despite annual federal spending more than doubling during that time.

The government says it takes time to improve systems, years in some cases to plan, design and build them, so changes to levels of risk may be more gradual than dramatic.

Jamie Schmale, the Conservative critic on the file, said the government should look at all solutions and alternative ideas to end long-term drinking water advisories, although his statement didn't provide any specifics.

"Success isn't measured by funding announcements and election promises, it's measured by outcomes," Schmale said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 1, 2021.

— With files from Erika Ibrahim

Jordan Press and Stephanie Taylor, The Canadian Press

Program aims to train First Nations water treatment operators

When Jerome McDonald flew south to help provide safe drinking water for his community, he left his newborn behind.

This year, McDonald left his life and family in Fond du Lac to join the kanātan nipīy (the water is clean/clean water) program at Saskatchewan Polytechnic in Saskatoon.

"Being away from them was hard. It was our first time," he said.

He's one of the First Nations students who joined the program’s inaugural run to ensure clean waters in their home communities.

That's not taken for granted. Last year, Fond du Lac was stuck dealing with a malfunctioning water treatment plant while grappling with new COVID-19 cases.

The kanātan nipīy program is a joint effort between the City of Saskatoon, Gabriel Dumont Institute, Radius Community Centre, Saskatchewan Polytechnic and Saskatoon Tribal Council.

It aims to train people to operate and maintain water and waste systems to provide clean drinking water needed in Saskatoon and First Nations across Saskatchewan, a news release said.

“As First Nations people, we are all protectors of water, and this training program provides the opportunity for our people to carry out this important work," STC Chief Marc Arcand said in a news release.

The program has already been renewed for another year, said Gerry Youzwa, academic chair for the Saskatchewan Polytechnic's School of Continuing Education.

The first year hosted 16 students; 12 are enrolled for the upcoming year.

Federal and provincial grants mean incoming students' tuition will be free, she noted, adding that graduates have an 80 per cent employment rate so far.

Youzwa said a placement at the City of Saskatoon's water treatment facilities contributes to those employment rates.

"There's not a lot of employment in (the field), and so it's fairly specialized," said Brendan Lemke, director of water and waste for the City of Saskatoon.

"This gives people a chance to be part of that."

Indigenous students can leverage their experience for work anywhere in the province.

McDonald hopes to put that into practice in his home community.

He started work at Orano around the same time the program began, so he spent his spare time during two weeks of full-time work studying for the program's exams.

That effort took a toll on him, but completing the program was rewarding, he said.

Now back in Fond du Lac, he hopes he can put his water treatment skills to work for his community.

His cousin works at the treatment plant at Fond du Lac; McDonald plans to join him one day.

"It opened quite a few doors for me," he said. "Getting noticed — it feels pretty good, actually."

Nick Pearce, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The StarPhoenix

Anarchy, Freedom, Native People & The Environment

GEORGE WOODCOCK

Interview by Alvin Finkel

Article originally published Fall 1990

George Woodcock is a Canadian treasure. Author of innumerable books and articles on subjects ranging from Canadian literature to Gandhi to the native peoples of British Columbia, Woodcock is always lucid and generally controversial. An opponent of systems of external authority both capitalist and communist, Woodcock's many works champion human desires for autonomy and for community. In this interview, he shares his insights on the possibilities of creating genuine freedom in complex modern societies. Mr. Woodcock, 78, has just finished writing a book on the history of British Columbia, and now is “between things”—doing a little poetry, a little translation. Winner of the Governor General's Award, he lives in Vancouver where he is contemplating his next book.

---

Aurora: You've published a great deal on anarchist theory and traditions. Are there lessons in this body of work for industrial societies, or have we passed the state where there are opportunities for organizing society without the overwhelming influence of state and corporate bureaucracies?

Woodcock: I think anarchism and its teachings of decentralization, of the co-ordination of rural and industrial societies, and of mutual aid as the foundation of any viable societies, have lessons that in the present are especially applicable to industrial societies.

The anarchists, unlike William Morris and John Ruskin, have never stood in opposition to industrialization. Indeed, as many modern sociologists recognize, the best-known anarchist theoretician, Peter Kropotkin, particularly in Mutual Aid and Fields, Factories and Workshops, was a pioneer in sketching out ways in which an industrial society could be humanized through the efficient use of new techniques.

Surely recent events have demonstrated very clearly the failure of state and corporate bureaucracies in organizing modern societies. State bureaucracies throughout the Communist world have shown the total inadequacy of centralized governmental production and distribution to provide for the needs of populations. In all these countries the recent relaxation of centralized state bureaucracies has demonstrated the extraordinary resilience of individual and co-operative as opposed to state-regulated enterprise.

I was in China three years ago to see the extraordinary revitalization of the economy as the peasants once again took control of the products of their fields and as small co-operatives began to operate local industries and even coal mines. Almost overnight, stubborn problems of consumption were solved by the willing and spontaneous activities of farmers and artisans. In the streets of Chinese cities one saw great markets springing up, controlled by voluntary agreement between the peasants and merchants who went there to sell. These markets had no queues like those which formed in Moscow at the same period; sufficiency of consumer goods had been achieved in a very short time once the state and its centralizing agencies did not interfere.

Since then, everywhere in the Communist world except for Albania, the dismantling of centralized state bureaucracies has begun, because everywhere these bureaucracies have shown their total incapacity to manage either national or local economies productively. Once the control of production was put back into the hands of the producers, the natural inclination of all societies towards mutual aid and co-operation went into action again and saved the situation.

The same criticisms apply to corporate bureaucracies. It is, to begin with, disputable how much benefit such bureaucracies have ever been to society as a whole. In the interests of profit, on the one hand they increase the cost and on the other they diminish the variety of consumer goods, even on the agricultural level with such products as apples and potatoes. At the same time, they work in collaboration with labour union bureaucracies to dehumanize the conditions of work through mass production techniques; most of the improvements union bosses claim to have gained are cosmetic ones.

These two tendencies combine to reduce the quality of life for individuals, a tendency that is increased by the fact that corporate bureaucracies also pollute and destroy the environment. This is dramatically revealed these days on an international scale by sensational oil spills and by the continued devastation of the Amazon basin.

On a more local scale we see this in the series of disputes between logging companies on the one hand and environmentalists and native peoples on the other regarding the practice of “clear cutting.” In all these situations, corporate bureaucracies show themselves to be irresponsible, antisocial and, because of their size, inefficient.

In consequence, many industries are now finding a decentralized form of production more efficient than Henry Ford-style centralized mass production; this is particularly the case in the automotive industry Ford helped to create.

At the same time, experiments in centralized agricultural planning in Soviet Russia, Communist China, and smaller countries ruled on so-called “Marxist” principles have universally failed on the most important level, that of the efficient production of consumer goods. Where they have been replaced by individual peasant holdings or by small locally controlled co-operatives, the increase in productivity has been strikingly large and almost immediate.

I think that experience has shown by now that bureaucracies—whether political, corporate, or labour—are efficient in inverse proportion to the area they control; and the lesson of this experience is that if we are to better our lives and save our environments, we must move away from centralized national or corporate structures and in the direction of decentralized confederal structures allowing much greater participation of the citizen as producer, consumer, and community member.

Aurora: Many of Canada's native peoples, about whom you've written extensively, can look to a past in which complex state organizations were unnecessary. Is there much in this past that can aid them in searching for a better future?

Woodcock: I doubt if any of the Canadian native peoples can look back on a complex state organization as we envisage such organizations in the modern world, whether totalitarian or soi-disant democratic.

What we mean by the state is a rigid authoritarian hierarchy of power in which the government always has the last say in determining not only matters of collective interest but also the lives of individuals. Though structures roughly approximating this definition may have evolved in a few places in the pre-Columbian Americas (Inca Peru and less certainly Aztec Mexico) there was no time in Canada when complex state organizations existed or were considered necessary.

The Inuit and the forest Indians of northern British Columbia had virtually no political organization beyond the wandering extended family. The Coast Indians of British Columbia, who had the most complex culture north of the valley of Mexico, possessed elaborate social ranking systems but virtually no political organization.

The man whom traders or explorers saw as the chief of a village was in fact no more than primus inter pares, the head of the most prosperous lineage in the village. He had no more than a moral influence over the rival house chiefs, based not on any political system but on his ability to gather the consumer goods necessary for the celebration of prestigious potlatches or giving feasts.

The only groups among whom some kind of political organization state existed were the Plains Indians of what we generally call the Blackfoot Confederacy, and the confederation of Iroquois tribes—the Six Nations of history—who appeared first in Canada as dreaded invaders and did not settle in what is now Canadian territory until late in the eighteenth century, after the war of American Independence. In neither case did anything remotely resembling a political state emerge. In both instances there existed a loose confederacy of tribes with common interests though not always with a shared language.

In both confederacies the tribes were autonomous groupings of lineages holding certain rights and organized under a concept of chiefly authority that Europeans always found puzzling since the chief had no more than his personal prestige to sustain his dignity, and he enjoyed no form of absolute power. He really projected the authority generated by councils of elders, warrior societies, and women's societies among the Iroquois in what were essentially systems of participatory democracy, not state hierarchies.

The tribes of the Blackfoot Confederacy would usually meet each summer in a common camp on the western plains, and there, matters of common interest—usually mutual defence and shared raiding enterprises— would be discussed without obligation on any side; there was never, so far as I have been able to ascertain, any permanent council of the Blackfoot Confederacy.

The Iroquois tribes during their pre-Canadian period did have a common council of sachems, in whose selection the women, whose influence derived from their control of agriculture, played a great role; but this council did not interfere in the internal affairs of the tribes, so that it remained the co-ordinating body of a true confederation rather than the government of the state.

It seems to me that this history of anarchic and federalist organization, based on the negation of centralized political authority, gives the Indians a position of special advantage in the modern world—once they can gain the economic basis of a fair land settlement. Then they will be in a marvellous position to reculer pour mieux sauter, to draw on the lessons of their own past to help them rebuild their societies.

We, the others, might learn a great deal about ways to solve our own problems by watching them. They have developed more political sophistication, and groups like the Inuit and the Dene, so disunited before, now consider themselves “nations,” though by this they do not mean “nation-states” but groups of people with their own languages, land, and traditions.

There is no Indian “nation” because the variety of native traditions leaves no room for one, and no thought of an “Indian” state exists. The aims of native people today lean rather towards establishing a number of small self-governing sovereignties with federal links with the rest of Canada. And why not, since Canada's destiny is surely a confederal one in need of experimental social and political forms?

Aurora: You've written recently rather positively about the evolution of the Canadian nation-state in the nineteenth century as a contribution to the development of a national identity. Do you believe generally that nationalism can be a positive force, and if so, how do you distinguish healthy and unhealthy nationalism?

Woodcock: Alas, how easily even a writer whose reputation rests so largely on his clear prose can be misunderstood!

I have never written, as you suggest, on the Canadian nation-state or on any other nation-state in a positive way, since my view of such political structures and their effects is entirely negative. They have been and still are responsible for most of the major disasters of the modern world, including of course two major wars and the outbreak of such totalitarian maladies as National Socialism in Germany and nationalistic Communism in Stalin's Russia. Modern communications have rendered them wholly obsolete, yet the survival of these outdated dinosaurs prevents us from creating effective international organizations; they have turned the United Nations into a mockery of what we need, and within countries they have prevented the development of effective systems based on the contemporary demand for participatory democracy and libertarian decentralism.

I may, as a historian, have at times objectively traced the development of a nationalist tendency in Canadian politics; who could fail to do so? But always, whether dealing with Sir John A. MacDonald and his National Policy (which was unashamedly structured to favour Central Canada and ruin the Maritime provinces) or Pierre Trudeau (with his undated Jacobinical centralism whose consequences may yet tear Canada apart), I have condemned any attempt to create a nation-state here. To do so would be out of keeping with the country's history and geography, its vast cultural variety, and its long-term inclinations towards regional autonomy and towards recreating in terms suitable for the twentieth century the sovereignties of the native peoples.

We have in this country a unique opportunity to take up the lead which the Swiss offered at the end of the Middle Ages and to present a true con-federal society to the world, a grand experiment that would help spell the end of the nation-state everywhere.

Like George Orwell, I believe patriotism (a love of one's land or community and not of its political system) to be a positive force. Patriotism at its best is cohesive. It leads us to respect others as we are able to respect ourselves; it is not divisive, as is nationalism, which is built on fear and resentment.

Aurora: Your work on Gandhi makes clear your admiration of pacifist principles. Do you think such principles have a greater degree of support now than early this century, or does the cooling of superpower tension, for example, simply reflect a lull in the world's continuous history of war-making?

Woodcock: I am sure that active pacifism has increased and that resistance to participation in warfare, i.e. conscientious objection, would be higher than ever before in the event of large scale wartime call-ups in the western countries. In themselves, such individual gestures are probably of little importance, but they do reflect a general dread of war and a general, though somewhat vague and diffused, resolution that major conflicts must not occur again. I think the awareness of this barely articulated feeling does weigh on the minds of politicians, but they are much more influenced by the sheer destructiveness of any foreseeable major war.

At the end of 1979 I was asked on a CBC panel show whether I foresaw a major war as a likely prospect in the 1980s. Not a major war, I answered, but a lot of nasty little wars. That of course is what happened, and some of the nasty little wars are continuing, in places like Angola, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Afghanistan, without much benefit to anyone and with a great deal of harm to millions. During this period even the major powers became involved only in “nasty little wars”—the Russians in Afghanistan, the British in the Falklands, the Americans in Grenada.

I think there will never again be a World War like those of the past. And only some horrifying miscalculation is likely to set off an atomic war. But there are powerful interests, both industrial and political, that are likely to encourage small wars in the hinterlands of the world, where ever-more-sophisticated conventional weapons can be tried out and consumed. There is still not a strong enough world opinion to prevent it. Even a country like Sweden, neutral by law and largely pacifist in sentiment, profits from selling the Bofors gun to potential belligerents.

What is needed is a grand gesture from a country of standing which would declare neutrality and transform its armed forces into a redemption corps dedicated to rehabilitating polluted and devastated areas of the country, tree planting, etc. Canada would be ideal for this role.

Aurora: The destruction of the environment is an issue that has recently assumed political importance. Is it possible to change the lifestyles that contribute to environmental degradation without extensive state regulations? In general, how easily can one reconcile notions of civil liberties and individual choice with reasonable limitations placed on our endeavours by the needs of the environment?

Woodcock: In principle I am opposed to attempts to save the environment by compulsion and by the kind of regulations that would reach into every home. Unless a great majority of the people is already convinced, such attempts to change behaviour by wholesale compulsion usually fail, and very often they have socially disastrous side-effects.

Think of prohibition in the United States, the popular resistance to which produced an era of organized and profitable crime. Think also of the pathetically unsuccessful attempts in recent years to suppress drug consumption, which again have heightened the profits of crime and encouraged its spread, accompanied by widespread corruption among politicians and public servants.

The approach to environmental issues—the most effective and least disruptive one—I suggest should be a double one. Most pollution still comes from the major industries (pulp mills, oil refineries, logging operations, chemical factories), and strict codes should be laid down for them, with heavy fines and eventually dispossession as the penalities for noncompliance. (Imprisonment should not be a penalty; that makes martyrs and is counter-productive.)

The general public, seeing the major polluters brought in line, would be encouraged to play their major part in recycling, and in avoiding petty pollutions, particularly if the municipalities were also penalized for non-treatment of sewage, perhaps by the withdrawal of federal and provincial grants.

Municipalities should also be held responsible for recycling depots and ensuring transport to them for the recyclable garbage people are persuaded to put out in their “blue boxes.” Certain products, like white toilet paper, should obviously be phased out, but that should not be difficult once the major polluters are dealt with and the public encouraged to make a habit of environmental carefulness.

Aurora: Do you think that increased trade has limited the ability of national governments to set their own economic agenda, as economists keep telling us? If so, is that likely to contribute to greater international harmony or to detract from it?

Woodcock: Economists are usually wrong. The point here surely lies in the question: “Why should governments set any economic agenda?” Surely that is ideally for the producers to decide, and in a true confederal society it would be easy, with each industry self-managed.

Self-managed industries are always more flexible in dealing with competition and with international trade situations than state-managed ones, because they are more flexible (as the economic crisis of Communist countries have shown). By self-managed, of course, I mean industries in which the workers have a fair share in ownership and management, which eliminates owner-worker dissent and leaves individual enterprises and whole industries more room to manoeuvre.

There is no real reason why industries in one country should not make their own terms with similar industries in others, without governments interfering. Indeed, they sometimes do that already. The great danger is not competition between parallel industries in various countries, but the elimination of competition by the growing power of the multinational corporations. It is that respectable but ruthless financial mafia that must be controlled and in the end destroyed.

Aurora: What issues generally will become the key ones for civil libertarians in the years to come?

Woodcock: 

The abortion issue will remain with us for a long time, though in terms of civil liberties it is a straightforward one, with women having a complete right to control their own bodies. I think in the decades ahead we have to make decisions on the vital issue of libertarian versus paternalistic government. Too often nowadays people are being controlled “for their own good,” instead of being allowed to go to Hell, if they wish, in their own particular handbaskets. This explains the current mania for stamping out smoking, with all its exasperating restrictions, and also, as I have already pointed out, our foolish policies on drugs. If freedom means anything, it means the freedom of people to harm themselves if that is their choice.

On more specific civil libertarian issues, I think we have to be alert to attacks on freedom of the press, which are now being made covertly, through the taxing procedures. The proposed extension of the Goods and Services Act to books is an obvious instance, especially since books have long been exempt from Customs duties in Canada.

So is the similar tax on periodicals, which will most affect the more outspoken and experimental papers, also hit by the Goods and Services Tax. This is a none-too-subtle form of censorship by elimination directed at the very publications and publishers most likely to bring out writing critical of the regime. To tax books is only a degree less atrocious than to ban or burn them.

Sometimes I am asked whether I foresee the danger of a totalitarian government in Canada. The danger does not have to be foreseen; it is here. Let us do our best to prevent this being realized.

Books by George Woodcock

Beyond the Blue Mountain. Toronto: Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 1987.

Introducing the Stone Angel. ECW Press, 1987.

Northern Spring: The Flowering of Canadian Literature. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1987.

Strange Bedfellows: The State and the Arts in Canada. Douglas & McIntyre, 1985.

A Place to Stand On: Essays by and about Margaret Laurence. Edmonton: NeWest Press, 1983.

Letter to the Past: An Autobiography. Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 1982.

The Canadians. Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 1979.

Gabriel Dumont: The Metis Chief and His Lost World. Edmonton: Hurtig, 1975.

Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements. Harmondsworth, England: Markham, 1962.

Article originally published Fall 1990

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An Aurora Update

George Woodcock died in 1995 at age 82. Prior to his death he was awarded the Freedom of City award on February 22, 1994 (Freedom of the City is the highest award given by the City of Vancouver. Reserved for individuals of exceedingly high merit, it is given only in exceptional cases, usually to someone who has gained national and international acclaim in the arts, business or philanthropy, and who has brought recognition to Vancouver through his or her achievements).

Further information on George Woodcock can be found at:

UBC: Canadian Litertaure

Updated July 2001

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Aurora Online

Citation Format

Finkel, Alvin (1990). Anarchy, Freedom, Native People & the Environment: George Woodcock. Aurora Online: