For Nation-to-Nation Relations and an End
to
Genocide of Indigenous Peoples
May 27 National Day of Action
First Nation chiefs from Treaties 6, 7 and 8 are
organizing a national day of action on May 27 to oppose genocidal
attacks against the Indigenous peoples, following regional protests.
One form this takes is the
Trudeau government's Bill C-92, which is legislation to overhaul the
Indigenous child welfare system. The bill is currently before the
Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples, which tabled its
report on May 13.  The bill is promoted as a
means to tackle the
overrepresentation of First Nations, Métis and Inuit children in
foster care ostensibly by handing over control of services to
Indigenous
governments. But First Nation chiefs from British Columbia,
Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario say the bill does not respect
First Nations' sovereignty and future generations. One of the problems,
they say,
is that funding under the new legislation will still be given to
provinces rather than First Nations.
"Until the provinces are out of the picture, nothing
will
change," said Chief Craig Makinow of Ermineskin Cree Nation,
south of Edmonton. "It should be a bilateral process with the
federal government, and the province shouldn't be involved at all
in this whole drafting of this legislation," he said.
Demonstration against Bill C-92 in Winnipeg, May 10, 2019.
Related to this, on May 16, APTN released a 2012 video
which
highlighted the issue of sexual abuse suffered by young people,
particularly Indigenous girls, in the foster-care system. The
video shows an officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
interrogating a young Indigenous woman disclosing sexual abuse in
BC foster care. In the video, the officer can be heard asking her
questions, including whether she was "at all turned on [...] even
a little bit" during the abuse she is describing.
At least 109 girls were victims of sexualized violence
while
in government foster care, 74 of them Indigenous, a 2016 report
by BC's then-child representative Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond said.
The case of the teen in the 2012 video released by APTN was among
them. Following the video's release, Turpel-Lafond said the
video is far from an isolated case, noting that provincial and
federal politicians know well there has been "major difficulty"
with this issue for some time.
"The heinous way in which this young person was treated,
being
alone in an interrogation room, being treated as though she was a
criminal, not a victim, and also the poor training, the
suggestion that somehow a victim of sexualized violence is
enjoying the sexualized violence, this is so fundamentally
offensive but is a pattern I've seen again and again," she
said.
Trudeau's White Paper 2.0
Rally outside Assembly of First Nations policy conference in Edmonton,
May 1, 2019, demands
the Assembly involve all Indigenous peoples in any discussion and
decisions on any proposed federal government legislation which will
impact their rights.
The National Day of Action called for May 27 and related
regional events also oppose what has been dubbed "Trudeau's White
Paper 2.0." This includes Bill C-86, an omnibus budget
implementation bill that contains amendments to legislation,
including the First Nations Land Management Act and the First
Nations
Fiscal
Management
Act. With the changes the government is introducing come plans to
replace policies dealing with modern treaties (which it refers to as
comprehensive claims) and self-government (which it calls its Inherent
Right Policy). Due to the opposition expressed by First Nations chiefs,
Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett backed down from
the scheduled June introduction of these changes, which are a blatant
violation of the hereditary rights of all Indigenous peoples.
APTN News reports:
 "Canada won't be
introducing new comprehensive land
claims and
inherent rights policies just yet, Crown-Indigenous Relations
Carolyn Bennett told the Assembly of First Nations (AFN)" on May
2.
"The announcement comes a day after hundreds of
grassroots
people, chiefs and Elders marched on an AFN policy forum to
demand their involvement in any changes to federal policies
impacting their rights.
"Demonstrators condemned a June deadline by which
government
previously indicated to some First Nations it wanted to have the
two key policies replaced.
"The comprehensive claims policy applies to cases where
Indigenous rights and title haven't been addressed by treaties,
while the inherent rights policy addresses the right of
Indigenous peoples to govern themselves in their own communities
and nations."
Referring to the announcement by Bennett, another APTN
report
informs:
"Instead, she announced, the Liberals will issue a
cabinet
directive to federal officials by the end of June, 'in which we
would ensure that cede and surrender and extinguishment are no
longer part of the conversation as we work on the path of
self-determination.'
"She said the directive will respect the United Nations
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and that
government will support a process 'that is led by First Nations
rights and treaty holders [to] co-develop rights-based policies
that can replace the comprehensive land claims policy and
inherent right policies.'"
Speaking about the national day of protest and regional
protests, Okimaw Henry Lewis, Chief of Onion Lake Cree Nation on
the Saskatchewan-Alberta border, said: "We are working with a
network of nations chiefs across the country to alert our people
about what's happening, and to tell the government that they
can't continue to proceed unilaterally in the development of law
policies and agendas that directly attack our inherent and treaty
rights, and sovereign jurisdiction."
Lewis clearly set the record straight: "Canada has never
stopped trying to implement their 1969 White Paper policy, which is
meant to domesticate our international
treaties, turn us into municipalities and remove us from our
lands," adding "We must stand in unity as chiefs and peoples to fight
off this agenda for our children and future generations."
This is all the more true given the irony that today
even the
authority of municipalities is being wiped out so that they no
longer have any say over the matters currently under their
jurisdiction.
 The first White Paper
introduced in 1969, by the
then-Prime
Minister Pierre Trudeau and his Justice Minister Jean Chrétien
sought to abolish the Indian Act in the name of high
ideals but, in effect, sought to expunge hereditary right. The
Indigenous peoples find the Indian Act an
abhorrent racist piece of legislation that maintains the
colonial relations which place sovereignty in the Crown. Their
just demand is for nation-to-nation relations that hold Canada
and the provinces fully accountable for the crimes of genocide
committed against them in a manner which provides redress for
all the abuse the Indigenous peoples have suffered and continue
to suffer. Canada's plan is to disarticulate the opposition of
the Indigenous peoples to such an extent that the narrow private
supranational interests which have usurped state power can get
phony consent from private interests which claim to represent
First Nations, along with the consent of those who are
representatives of the Crown on reservations which were
established on "Crown Lands." But no matter what fraud
governments try to pull off, rights cannot be given, taken away
or forfeited in any way. They belong to the holder as a matter of
right grounded in the holder's being.
CBC News reports that, in an e-mail, "officials with the
Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada said the
government is continuing to work on the recognition and
implementation of Indigenous rights and the path to
self-determination in close partnership with First Nations, Inuit
and Métis rights-holders.
"Our First Nations partners have been clear that the
Comprehensive Claims, Specific Claims and Inherent Rights
Policies pose major barriers to communities fully exercising
their inherent rights to self-determination, including
self-government," the statement reads.
"We agree. That is why we [are] working in close
partnership
with
First Nations partners to replace these policies, based on
timelines and processes designed by First Nations."
The email also stated that the Assembly of First Nations
has
drawn up a proposal for a First Nations-led process, and the
government is working with the group to help implement it, CBC
reports.
This, of course, does not take into account that the
Assembly of First Nations itself receives most of its funding from the
federal and provincial governments and is beholden to them. It does not
speak for the Indigenous title holders based on hereditary right. Try
as it might, on the basis of the current constitution which vests
sovereignty in the Queen of England, not the people of Canada, no
government of Canada will manage to get acquiescence for the robbery of
Indigenous territories.
This article was published in
Volume 49 Number 19 - May 25, 2019
Article Link:
For Nation-to-Nation Relations and an End
to
Genocide of Indigenous Peoples: May 27 National Day of Action
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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