Constitution
[The
Gradual Civilization Act in 1857 meant that] Indians were now to be confined to
reserves until sufficiently civilized to be "emancipated from their Indian
status and assimilated into mainstream society."
Peter H. Russell, Canada's Odyssey
"The intent of the 1857 act and subsequent acts was that Indians
would disappear as a distinct cultural group . . . Indians would not
however, participate in a system that promoted assimilation."
Sara Carter, Lost Harvests
"We never sold these lands [Indigenous land] to you [Hudson's Bay
Company] and yet you sell these lands to the Strangers [Canadians] for much
money . . . How is it that you want to sell what is not yours."
Mahkesis,
1868
"Confederation
. . . represented a deliberate attempt to remove Indigenous peoples from
western lands and impose a new order based on agriculture and rooted in
Anglo-Canadian civilization."
Bill Waiser
"[When
Canada negotiated with the Hudson's Bay Company directorship in London to
acquire Rupert's Land] no representative from Rupert's Land, including Indian
and Metis peoples were invited to participate, let alone even consulted."
Bill Waiser
"It is vital that people understand how the utter failure and
betrayal of the treaties – nation-to-nation agreements First Nations signed
with the British Crown – worked in conjunction with a paternalistic piece of
legislation called the Indian Act to isolate Indigenous people on remote
reservations and to keep them subservient to Ottawa for more than one hundred
years. . . It was through the Indian Act that the Canadian government formed
policy surrounding residential schools, placed bans on religious ceremonies,
restricted access to courts and prohibited the formation of political
organizations."
Tanya Talga, Seven Fallen Feather
"The
Indian Act caused chaos in the lives and cultures of the Aboriginal people.
Despite all the assistance Aboriginal people had provided the newcomers,
despite all the Aboriginal contributions to the rest of the world, despite any
intelligence shown by any individual, through
the paternalistic Indian Act, "Indians" were put in the category of
children and the mentally diabled. . . It was
instituted without any input from Aboriginal people."
Bev Sellars, Price Paid The Fight for First
Nations Survival
SAVAGERY
TO "CIVILIZATION"
THE INDIAN WOMEN: We whom you pity as drudges reached
centuries ago the goal that you are now nearing.
WE, THE WOMEN OF THE IROQUOIS:
Own the land, the lodge, the children.
Ours is the right of adoption, of life or death;
Ours the right to raise up and depose chiefs;
Ours the right of representation at all councils;
Ours the right to make and abrogate treaties;
Ours the supervision over domestic and foreign policies;
Ours the trusteeship of the tribal property;
Our lives are valued again as high as man's.
Savagery
to "civilization", Puck, New York, Joseph Keppler, artist,
16 May 1914, LCCN97505624, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
"I
feel that in granting them the franchise, this Government has recognized a
principle which should have been invoked long ago. These new voters are the
only true Canadians; the rest of us came to this country from other lands."
Hon. Gordon Wisner, attorney general, 1949
"We'll
keep them [Indigenous peoples] in the ghetto as long as they want."
Pierre Elliot Trudeau [After the regection of his
White Paper.]
[Trudeau's
White Paper was intended to bring about] "the destruction of a
Nation of People by legislation and cultural genocide."
National Indian Brotherhood
"The federal government is not prepared to guarantee the
aboriginal rights of Canada's Indians. It is inconceivable that one section of
a society should have a treaty with another section of a society. The Indians
should become Canadians as have all other Canadians."
Pierre Elliot Trudeau, speech at a Liberal dinner, Vancouver, 11 August 1969
[The White Paper was "a thinly disguised program of extermination
through assimilation."
Harold Cardinal
"The
only good Indian is a non-Indian."
Harold Cardinal, The Unjust Society, 1969
"We
the Dene of the Northwest Territories insist on the right to be regarded by
ourselves and the world as a nation."
Dene Declaration, 19 July 1975
"Thousands
upon thousands of Indian Affairs bureaucrats have enjoyed a comfortable
lifestyle and retired to a healthy pension while the people they were well paid
to serve suffered in Third World conditions under their care."
Chief Clarence Louie, Rez Rules
"25.
The guarantee in this Charter of certain rights and freedoms shall not be
construed so as to abrogate or derogate from any aboriginal, treaty or other
rights or freedoms that pertain to the aboriginal peoples of Canada including
• (a) any rights or freedoms that have been recognized by the Royal
Proclamation of October 7, 1763; and
• (b) any rights or freedoms that now exist by way of land claims
agreements or may be so acquired"
35. The existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples
of Canada are hereby recognized and affirmed. (2) In this Act
, 'aboriginal peoples of Canada' includes the Indian, Inuit and Metis
peoples of Canada."
Charter of Rights and Freedom 1982
"In
my view, the entrenchment of Aboriginal rights in the Constitution Act was a moment of great opportunity for Canada. It
was then that we should have seen a return of lands, the negotiation of
resource-sharing agreements, and the end of government interference in Indigenoous self-determination."
Michelle
Good, Truth Telling
The
creation of Nunavut meant that Inuit people could have a say in government
decisions, including preserving their language and way of life.
"Indian
Act government . . . is not self-government . . . it is an impoverished notion
of government where the Chief and council are, for the most part, glorified
Indian Agents delivering federal programs and services on behalf of Canada . .
. "Reconciliation" means confronting and ending the legacy of
colonialism in Canada and replacing it with a future built on Indigenous
self-determination."
Jody
Wilson-Raybould, From Where I Stand, 2019