Renewed Effort by Quebec Premier to Criminalize the Struggle of the Indigenous Peoples
- Pierre
Soublière -
Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs pay a visit to Mohawks of
Kahnawà:ke to
express appreciation for their solidarity in defence of Indigenous
sovereignty and rights, February 22, 2020.
With his most recent declaration about dangerous
weapons on the Mohawk territory Kahnawà:ke, the Quebec
Premier
François Legault is continuing his rant.
He
seems to want to contribute at any cost to criminalizing
the just and courageous struggle of the Indigenous peoples. This is the
definitive modus
operandi
of what are called the democratic
institutions which cannot solve any of the historic social or
political problems. Solutions to these problems must be based on the
recognition of Indigenous rights and must give rise to the new
harmonious and respectful relations among us that everyone longs for,
as opposed to this hate-fueling and sowing of division, and
attempts to stop dissident voices.
 As the TML
Weekly of February
22 aptly pointed out, the
workers and people of Quebec have a lot of experience with such
criminalization of resistance and struggles for rights.
Exasperated, Legault claims that he "understands that there must
be dialogue." But this criminalizing of struggles is aimed
precisely at stopping all dialogue and discussion, and to
misrepresent the Indigenous peoples by claiming there are "extremist"
elements in their midst and thus divert attention from
the necessity to respect the hereditary rights of the
Wet'suwet'en and put an end to old colonial arrangements based,
among other things, on a racist and outdated Indian Act.
Legault and others probably have no interest in
recalling that
at certain moments in our history, Quebec missed opportunities to
forge an alliance with the Indigenous peoples in opposition to the
Anglo-Canadian state, such as the 1982 constitutional
repatriation from which the Quebec government and Indigenous nations
were excluded. At that time, Georges Erasmus, President of the
Assembly of First Nations, made a vibrant appeal to then-Premier of
Quebec René Lévesque, asking that
Quebec and the Indigenous peoples join forces and form a common front
against the
constitutional process taking place.
"We Indigenous peoples," he declared, "have been,
along with
Quebec, pushed under the rug of the country Trudeau and his
stooges from the English provinces have just constituted. I call
upon the Quebec government and people, and René
Lévesque in
particular, to react to this matter and speak out on the question
of the rights of the Indigenous populations to
self-determination. I am putting the Quebec people to the test --
if, in fact, the people believe in self-determination -- the time
is now to support the Indigenous peoples. It is not the time to
stay divided and to head individually towards defeat. The time to
act is now. The time has come. First Nations need the support of
Quebec in the hours to come. We need the support of the Quebec
people. The country is in a state of national emergency which
demands that First Nations and Quebeckers join in a common
force."[1]
At that time, the Quebec government refused its
support, and
decided against forming an alliance with the Indigenous peoples. Such
an alliance is needed once again. But rather than being created
by today's democratic institutions, it will be forged in the
unity in action of the Quebec workers and people and the Indigenous
peoples in the historical struggle for the renewal of the
democratic institutions and for constitutional arrangements that are
based
on, among other things, compensation for historical wrongs,
nation-to-nation relations, and a free union -- in other words,
principles in step with a modern society.
Note
1. As raised in Sur la piste du Canada
errant, Jean
Morisset (2018), p.355.
This article was published in
Volume 50 Number 6 - February 29, 2020
Article Link:
Renewed Effort by Quebec Premier to Criminalize the Struggle of the Indigenous Peoples - Pierre
Soublière
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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