Warrior Life Studios

Pam Palmater

Tag: reconciliation

  • Clearing the lands has always been at the heart of Canada’s Indian Policy

    *Originally published in Globe & Mail Feb. 27, 2020

    CANADA’S INDIAN POLICY HASN’T CHANGED MUCH

    After the events of the past few weeks in Canada, one thing remains clear: Canada’s Indian policy hasn’t changed much since its inception. Indian policy has always had two objectives: to obtain Indian lands and resources and to reduce financial obligations to Indigenous peoples acquired through treaties or other means. Its primary methods were elimination or assimilation of Indian

    Colonial governments had a long history of scalping bounties to kill specific groups of Indigenous peoples, using small pox blankets to increase death rates from disease and forced sterilizations to reduce the populations. Even Confederation did not dispense with the violent colonization of what would now become known as Canada. Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, told the House of Commons in 1882: “I have reason to believe that the agents as a whole … are doing all they can, by refusing food until the Indians are on the verge of starvation, to reduce the expense.” Canada was fully engaged in clearing the lands, by any means necessary.

    https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/aps/index.php/aps/article/view/22225/pdf_22

    RECONCILIATION: THE GOAL IS THE SAME

    Now referred to as Indigenous reconciliation, the goal is still the same: to clear the lands of Indigenous peoples in order to bolster settlement and extraction of resources. This singular focus formed the basis of the violent colonization of Indigenous lands and peoples and, ultimately, is why Canada has been accused of genocide by the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Canada’s complex set of laws, policies, practices, actions and omissions have created an infrastructure of violence toward Indigenous peoples and the continued dispossession of their lands.

    This is at the heart of the devastating socio-economic conditions of many Indigenous peoples today, including multiple health crises such as diabetes, heart disease and strokes, lower life spans, higher rates of mental illness and some of the highest suicide rates in the world. These genocidal policies also serve to remove Indigenous peoples from their lands through high foster care rates, killings and disappearances of Indigenous women and girls and the skyrocketing incarceration rates.

    Genocide in Canada

    APOLOGIES VERSUS LAND BACK

    Despite carefully worded apologies and promises of a better relationship, none of these conditions has changed and, in fact, most are getting worse. Add to this that First Nations have less than 0.02 per cent of all their lands left – mostly in tiny reserves controlled by the federal government. Political rhetoric about supporting Indigenous self-determination means very little when we are denied access to our lands and resources.

    We need to be honest about what is going on. There never was any real intention of recognizing Indigenous land rights – whether under Indigenous laws, Section 35 aboriginal and treaty right protections in the Constitution Act, 1982, or by implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It has been painfully clear, at every flashpoint in Canada’s history, that it is willing to starve Indigenous peoples into submission or imprison them to access their lands.

    This is at the heart of what is happening across Canada over the past few weeks. The Wet’suwet’en Nation, as represented by their traditional government, acting on Wet’suwet’en laws and decision-making protocols, have said no to pipelines on their traditional territory. While five of the six band councils within the Nation have allegedly agreed to the pipeline, their jurisdiction extends over their reserve lands. It is the hereditary leaders who have the legal jurisdiction over their traditional territory, to decide whether the pipeline can cross their pristine forests and rivers.

    https://soundcloud.com/pampalmater/molly-wickham-on-gitdimten-yintah-access

    CANADA BREACHS ITS OWN “RULE OF LAW”

    The Supreme Court of Canada had already acknowledged in the Delgamuukw case that these were the proper representatives to bring a claim of aboriginal title. Eight of these leaders have said no to the pipeline. Despite this, the RCMP invaded their territory and forcibly removed them from their lands – counter to Wet’suwet’en law, Canadian law and international law. UNDRIP, which is now implemented in British Columbia, prevents the forced removal of Indigenous peoples from their lands. This flagrant breach of Canada’s own rule of law is why the peaceful solidarity actions started all over Canada.

    https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/mikmaw-treaty-rights-reconciliation-and-the-rule-of-law

    This is also why these actions will continue. Every time law enforcement is sent in to the clear the lands of the “Indians” to make way for pipelines and extraction of resources, you will see more and more Indigenous nations and Canadian allies stand against this injustice.

    The real issue has always been about the land. The way forward is recognition of our right to be self-determining over our own lands and resources.

    Anything less is just the same old Indian policy that invites more uncertainty and social conflict. Canada can do better. It’s time to move past genocide and work toward respect for Indigenous land rights.

    #LANDBACK

    *This article originally appeared in The Globe and Mail on February 27, 2020 and updated on February 28, 2020 and can be found here:

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-clearing-the-lands-has-always-been-at-the-heart-of-canadas-indian/

    The blog version has been slightly edited for style and the addition of resources.

  • In Plain Sight: Widespread Racism in BC Healthcare

    In Plain Sight: Widespread Racism in BC Healthcare

    RACISM IN BC HEALTHCARE

    Imagine living in a country, where hospitals refused to treat you for a stroke, because the doctors and nurses assumed you were drunk? Imagine further, that the emergency room doctor refused to treat your young child for epilepsy, because they assumed she was on drugs? Well folks, that country is Canada.

    It doesn’t sound like the Canada you know. It doesn’t seem to reflect Canada’s world-renowned medical experts and hospitals. Nor does it seem to jive with Canada’s impressive array of human rights protections. Yet, if you are Indigenous in Canada, you can expect this kind of treatment and worse – even in Canada’s best hospitals in British Columbia (BC).

    Just before the holidays, a report was released which confirmed what most Indigenous peoples already knew – that racism against Indigenous peoples, especially First Nations peoples – is widespread in BC’s healthcare system.

    IN PLAIN SIGHT

    The report entitled – In Plain Sight: Addressing Indigenous-specific Racism and Discrimination in B.C. Health Care – was written by Dr. Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond who was the first, First Nations judge appointed to the Provincial Court of Saskatchewan; was the former Child and Youth Advocate in BC; and now the independent investigator for this report.

    She had been appointed by BC’s Minister of Health to conduct a review of racism against Indigenous peoples in BC’s healthcare system. Dr. Turpel-Lafond and her Indigenous-led team engaged in four months of investigations, which included:

    • talking to 9,000 people from BC;
    • reviewing 185,000 data sets including more than 900 studies; and
    • logging 600 cases via their 1-800 number and website.

    The report – which includes both its core findings and recommendations – contains numerous examples of Indigenous peoples given substandard medical treatment or no treatment at all in hospitals and healthcare facilities of all kinds. In some cases, individuals were treated so poorly, that they refused to go back for treatment and this was especially true for Indigenous women.

    In-Plain-Sight-Summary-Report.pdf

    FINDINGS

    There were 11 main findings divided into (a) the problem of Indigenous-specific racism and (b) the problem with current solutions – both of which provide significant insight into the lack of accountability for racism and the harm it causes Indigenous peoples in BC’s healthcare systems.

    Her main findings in relation to anti-Indigenous racism were as follows:

    1. Widespread Indigenous-specific stereotyping, racism and discrimination exist in the BC healthcare system;
    2. Racism limits access to medical treatment and negatively affects the health and wellness of Indigenous peoples in BC;
    3. Indigenous women and girls are disproportionately impacted by Indigenous-specific racism in the healthcare system;
    4. Current public health emergencies magnify racism and vulnerabilities, an disproportionately impact Indigenous peoples and
    5. Indigenous health care workers face racism and discrimination in their work environments.

    She also noted that talking about anti-Indigenous racism in healthcare can be very triggering for Indigenous peoples who have experienced the physical and mental harms associated with racist comments, substandard treatment or the denial of treatment. At the same time, she also stressed that the issue must be named, so that institutions can be held to account and the problems addressed.

    STEREOTYPES

    Dr. Turpel-Lafond shared the eight most common racist stereotypes held by BC healthcare workers about Indigenous peoples (primarily First Nations, and include that belief that they are:

    (1)   Less worthy of care;

    (2)   Drinkers/alchoholics;

    (3)   Drug-seekers;

    (4)   Bad parents;

    (5)   Frequent flyers – misuse health system;

    (6)   Irresponsible & wont do aftercare;

    (7)   Less capable; and

    (8)   Unfairly advantaged.

    RACISM CAUSES REAL HARM

    She also stressed that these racist stereotypes lead to real physical harm, mental harm and even death for Indigenous peoples, in the following ways:

    (1)   Unacceptable personal interactions – like racist comments;

    (2)   Long wait times/denial of service – more so than non-Indigenous patients;

    (3)   Lack of communication/shunning Indigenous patients;

    (4)   Not believing or minimizing health concerns – Indigenous peoples accused of faking;

    (5)   Inappropriate or no pain management – assuming patients are drug seeking;

    (6)   Rough treatment – like man-handling or physical harm;

    (7)   Medical mistakes & misdiagnosis – assuming patients drunk and not addressing underlying health issues; and

    (8)   Lack of respect for cultural protocols – intolerance of families or ceremonies.

    The significant harms experienced by Indigenous peoples on a regular basis are why the report’s recommendations on how to move forward to address anti-Indigenous racism in BC’s healthcare system are so important. At their core, the recommendations all work to confronting the legacy of colonialism in healthcare head on:

    “A basic awareness has grown that the current inequities and injustices faced by Indigenous peoples in Canada – such as those examined in this Review – are deeply rooted in an enduring legacy of colonialism, and that confronting that legacy requires substantive, transformative change.”

    MOVING FORWARD

    It is important that Canadians read this report and then push governments, hospitals, universities and all those working in the healthcare system, in any capacity to embrace their role in reconciliation and ensuring that the human rights of Indigenous peoples to healthcare are respected, protected and fully implemented. To do this, Dr. Turpel-Lafond believes that our collective path forward must be based on acknowledging and accepting three foundational principles:

    (1)   Racism in healthcare reflects a lack of respect for Indigenous rights to health;

    (2)   Racism in the healthcare system is integrated with racism in society; and

    (3)   While Indigenous voices must be centered in developing solutions, the responsibility to do this work rests with non-Indigenous people, communities, organizations and governments.

    Before anyone breathes a sigh of relief that this is only a BC issue – it isn’t.  Anti-Indigenous racism in healthcare is rampant in other provinces as well. It was only weeks ago, that Quebec came under fire when a video showed nurses saying racist and hateful comments to Joyce Echaquan before she died in the hospital. This was not an isolated incident but reflects a long-standing pattern of racism experience by Indigenous peoples in Quebec hospitals.

    Don’t forget the Brian Sinclair inquiry in Manitoba, which documented how the hospital staff ignored Brian – a double amputee confined to a wheel chair – for 34 hours until he subsequently died of a treatable urinary tract infection. And sadly, these are not exceptional cases. From the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples in 1996 to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report in 2015 and the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls report in 2019 – racism in healthcare is a national crisis and has been for decades. 

    HEALTHCARE IS A HUMAN RIGHT

    Racism in healthcare is a matter of life and death for Indigenous peoples and forms part of the ongoing genocide that the National Inquiry talked about in their report.

    It was important for the BC government to undertake this investigation and accept the findings. Every other province and territory should follow suit and conduct a similar investigation. While it is important that BC’s Minister of Health Adrian Dix apologized and committed to take action –  it is yet to be seen whether they will take the action needed to hold themselves accountable, make the required changes and make reparations to Indigenous peoples. Given the many reports sitting on government shelves gathering dust – it is incumbent on Canadians to do their part to ensure governments are held to account.

    Healthcare is a basic human right and we are all served when we take steps to make sure that all peoples – including Indigenous peoples – can enjoy that right.

    Warrior Life Podcast Interview with Dr. Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond

     

    (Picture credit: Taken from the front over of the report In Plain Sight: Addressing Indigenous-specific Racism and Discrimination in BC Healthcare, 2020).

  • Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples in Universities and Colleges

    Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples in Universities and Colleges

    Reconciliation has become the buzz word of the decade ever since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada published their report on residential schools in Canada.* The TRC, headed by (then) Justice Murray Sinclair, heard from residential school survivors, families and native communities from all over Canada about their experiences in residential schools and their lives afterwards. These schools lasted for over 100 years, with the last one only closing in 1996.

    Despite being called schools, residential schools were actually designed to separate native children from their parents, extended families and communities, for the express purposes of assimilating them into, what the TRC describes as “Euro-Christian society”. Thousands of children were starved, neglected, tortured, medically experimented on, mentally, physically and/or sexually abused or even murdered. Their experiences have had long-lasting, inter-generational impacts on many more thousands of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

    The TRC offered 94 Calls to Action directed to the federal and provincial governments, churches, businesses, the media, the public at large and, specifically, universities and colleges. The report went well beyond just the 94 specific Calls to Action – it also talked about reconciliation with native peoples generally. However, as is the case with many Royal Commissions, Public Inquiries and other similar reports, many Canadians never read them. The failure to read the TRC report, didn’t stop people from taking the word “reconciliation” and literally applying it to everything they do that touches on native issues and calling it “reconciliation”. I think reconciliation has gone off track.

    To my mind, the word reconciliation should have substantive meaning; not just in the residential school context, but in the entire relationship between native peoples and the Crown. Firstly, it should be about exposing the whole truth of the genocide committed in Canada beyond residential schools. The TRC concluded that what happened in Canada was cultural genocide, but more than that, it was also physical and biological genocide. Canada needs to come to terms with that. It needs to come to terms with genocide in all of its forms, both historic and ongoing.

    Secondly, reconciliation is about Canada taking full responsibility for this genocide.There should be no diminishing the experiences of survivors; no making excuses; no trying to justify what happened; no using semantics to try to downplay the atrocities committed; and no denying any of the harms suffered by native peoples. In any discussion about reconciliation, we should be centering the voices of the survivors and not the perpetrators, just like the TRC did.

    Lastly, we can never get to real reconciliation without Canada making a real apology – not a court ordered apology, or carefully worded political apology approved by Justice lawyers. I mean a real apology where Canada:

    (a) accepts responsibility for all of its actions and consequences; 

    (b) promises never to do it again, and in fact, doesn’t do it again; 

    (c) makes full amends for ALL of the harms done – which may include compensation, but is not               limited to compensation.

    Canada, in general, seems think that a political apology, coupled with meager monetary compensation and some commemoration is enough to ask all of us to move forward. There is a real problem with moving forward when the whole truth has yet to be exposed. If moving forward means skipping over the rest of the truth and focusing on superficial acts, like renaming National Aboriginal Peoples’ Day to National Indigenous Peoples Day, then we are very far away from reconciliation.

    It is also incredible that Canada could even fathom moving forward when it has failed to stop the harms from continuing. For example, while the last residential school closed in 1996, this was followed by the 60’s scoop forced adoptions of native children into white families all over the world. That was then followed by the crisis of of over-representation in foster care. There are more native children stolen from their parents, families and communities today, than at the height of residential schools. In fact, the crisis of over-representation in foster care has even been acknowledged as a “humanitarian crisis” by federal officials. 

    When I say Canada, I want to be clear that I am talking about federal, provincial, territorial and municipal governments for sure; but also churches, Canadian citizens, mainstream media, corporations, businesses, universities and colleges. Every single person and institution in Canada has benefited from the genocide and dispossession committed against native peoples  – either directly or indirectly. That makes lots of people uncomfortable to hear, but it is the reality. Most people have long thought that the so-called “plight” of native peoples was the responsibility of government alone – often willfully blind to their own roles.

    Universities, colleges and training institutes in particular, have benefited directly from the dispossession of native peoples from their lands and sometimes benefited directly from Indian monies held in trust by the Crown. They have long excluded native peoples as faculty and administrators, while at the same time educating countless generations of Canadians and international students a sanitized version of both history and the present. Native voices and realities has been erased by universities for many decades. While it is very positive to see many universities and colleges embracing the TRC report and taking concrete steps to advance reconciliation, it has become very clear that there is a fundamental misunderstanding about what reconciliation really means in a university context.

    The TRC called on universities and colleges to undertake the following:

    Call to Action #16 – Create Aboriginal language degrees and diploma programs;

    Call to Action #24 – Medical and nursing schools to provide a mandatory course dealing with            Aboriginal health issues, which includes skills-based training in intercultural competency, conflict resolution, human rights, and anti-racism;

    Call to Action #28 – Law schools to provide a mandatory course in Aboriginal people and the law with required skills-based training in intercultural competency, conflict resolution, human rights, and anti-racism;

    Call to Action #65 – Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and post-secondary institutions and educators establish a national research program with multi-year funding to advance understanding of reconciliation; and

    Call to Action #86 – Journalism programs and media schools provide mandatory education for all students on the history of Aboriginal peoples.

    However, it must be kept in mind that reconciliation goes well beyond those specific Calls to Action. Universities and colleges have a long way to go to address their role in the dispossession and oppression of native peoples – both historic and ongoing. However, I think this discussion needs to happen in reverse. Before I share some ideas about what universities should be doing to advance reconciliation, it may be more useful to look at some examples of what should NOT be considered reconciliation and why. 

    Not Reconciliation list:

    (1) Apologize for university’s past contribution to oppression of native peoples;

    (2) Give a land acknowledgement;

    (3) Senior administration or professors attend a First Nation community or pow-wow;

    (4) Hang native art on campus;

    (5) Change street names or building names on campus;

    (6) Partake in cultural sensitivity training or Aboriginal History 101;

    (7) Watch documentaries like Colonization Road;

    (8) Read Thomas King’s The Inconvenient Indian (I love this book);

    (9) Send a First Nation or organization an email asking what you can do to help;

    (10) Hire more native peoples to reflect our % of the population;

    (11) Have an elder open and close your conferences;

    (12) Nominate a native person for an award;

    (13) Invite native faculty to sit on committees or Senate;

    (14) Create an Aboriginal Advisory Committee on campus;

    (15) Send a happy National Aboriginal Day tweet or Facebook post;

    (16) Include First Nations in your research projects; and/or

    (17) Invite native speakers into your classrooms.

    There are many universities and colleges doing a number of the above items under the banner of reconciliation right now. Some may have even done some of these prior to the TRC report. However, I have seen a number of universities include some of these items in their reports on reconciliation. To my mind, none of these items fall under reconciliation. They are all important in different ways, and universities, should be doing these things, but they are not reconciliation.

    Why not?  Because most of the items on the above list should already be done in universities and colleges as a matter of law – as per federal and provincial human rights laws; employment laws; non-discrimination laws; equality laws; and campus commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion. Universities don’t get to pat themselves on the back for doing what they should have been doing all along under the law. Furthermore, some of the actions noted above should be happening as a matter of academic practice. If you teach about native issues, it should be a given that native voices and content are centered. It’s a matter of professional ethics and academic standards that faculty learn about the subjects they teach – or ought to be teaching. 

    The following represents a few things that universities should be doing under the banner of real reconciliation:

    Real Reconciliation:

    (1) Ensure that you hire native faculty and staff that reflects plus 20% extra hires to build institutional capacity; provide support for new hires; and to make amends for having excluded native peoples for all these years;

    (2) There should be proportional (20%) native hires in ALL faculties and departments, especially politics, law, science, engineering, medicine and business (in addition to social work, midwifery & native studies);

    (3) Do NOT ever hire just one native faculty member at a time. That is an incredibly unfair burden to that faculty member as everyone, even with the best of intentions, will want their advice, guidance, ideas and participation of that one faculty member on every committee, project and initiative;

    (4) When you hire, you must develop workloads and expectations around the fact that many First Nation hires will have community-based expectations/obligations that should be accommodated.

    It is their connection to their First Nations, their knowledge exchange and community-based work that often informs who they are, how they teach and what they teach.That unique knowledge and experience comes with commitments to their home communities which takes time and energy and should be accommodated and counted.

    (5) Don’t stop at recruitment and hiring of native faculty and staff. Think about what your institution does to KEEP them there, i.e., professional supports, active mentorship, recognition, research dollars, promotions, pay levels, leadership opportunities, advanced training and skill development and flexible or alternative work arrangements.  (6) Keep current commitments to native faculty and staff. For example, if you have a Chair in Traditional Native Medicine, make sure that Chair is made permanent, funded from core university dollars and not dependent on external funders (i.e., supported only if the funds are available). Making reconciliation initiatives dependent on the goodwill of corporate funders puts them all at risk given the fact that native peoples are largely discriminated against in the corporate world. Universities must engage in real sacrifices – of power and wealth – in order to engage in real reconciliation. That means the university itself must dedicate and protect the funds for reconciliation initiatives – includes faculty, staff, chairs, research and projects.

    (7) Real reconciliation is about more than who teaches, it also requires that native peoples also be represented in the governance and senior administration of universities and colleges – as Presidents, Provosts, Chancellors and on boards of governors. They must be part of the decision-making mechanisms throughout the institution – including in the unions, committees and Senate, on all issues, but especially those that impact native peoples specifically.

    (8) Native peoples need to be the ones deciding how targeted native research funding is distributed; who gets research chairs in native issues; and how academic success is measured – that means including the community-based work and advocacy that is an inherent part of the lived personal and professional realities of many native peoples.

    (9) First Nations and Inuit communities need to have a direct line of input into university programs, curricula, research and governance that impact them and their students. It is not good enough to have one native faculty or several native staff members speak for diverse Nations. The relationship needs to include voices inside and outside the institution.

    (10) Every university and college sits on native territory should reflect local native languages, cultures and symbols throughout the campus, in ways that are directed by native peoples (with a focus on local native communities) and respectful of their cultures. It is not good enough to have just one dedicated “native” area – like a statue, park bench or student centre. Our presence must be reflected throughout the campus(es).

    (11) The benefit and privilege of a university education and research needs to be fully shared with local First Nations, with more focus on open access to information and publications and translation of research in accessible formats for community use.

    (12) Universities need to think about education beyond tuition-paying students and include strategic partnerships and alliances with native communities to help fill research, policy and/or technical gaps that exist due to chronic under-funding and failure to implement treaties, by building these requirements into courses and research or special projects.  (13) Universities could help make amends for past harms. Take for example, the crisis of disappearing native languages. Universities and colleges in partnership with native communities, elders and languages speakers, could help prevent native languages from extinction. Together, they could develop comprehensive k-12 education, as well as community-based native language instruction, to try to undo the devastating impacts of Canada’s assimilatory policies and the university’s roles in it.

    (14) Universities need to ensure that their reconciliation plans are co-developed by native communities and experts – which may include faculty, but also those external to the university that are not at any risk of retaliation or ostracization. Without native peoples directing the path forward, universities risk of forging ahead with superficial plans, or replicating the status quo. (15) Universities must also focus on the recruitment, retention and support of native students towards academic success. This includes not only a welcoming atmosphere, various student supports like housing and grants, but also native faculty advisors, native courses, and special research projects and other opportunities.  (16) Universities must take active measures against the growing trend of rushing to hire “self-identified” native peoples who are not native, not connected to community and have no lived experience as a native person. Universities are being flooded with those making false claims and universities commit further harms to actual native people by taking no action to prevent it from happening.  When frauds take our places in universities as students, staff or faculty, our voices are once again erased and our identities over-shadowed by white ethnicity shoppers whose only claim to Indigeneity is ancestry.com or some distant relative from 400 years ago. At best, these frauds skew our numbers and taint our research, and at worst, they proactively work against real native peoples.

    (17) Universities must find ways to prevent Deans from using the same old racist tactics, like using so-called “merit” versus “diversity” as a way to keep native people out of universities. This perception of merit is very biased and often used in racist ways to discriminate against native peoples. It has been used to keep women out of the boardroom and with lower salaries. It has also been used by non-native Deans to keep native peoples out of tenure-track positions. Even after the TRC report, I have still seen Deans revert to this racist form of excluding native peoples – as if their traditional Indigenous knowledges, their professional experiences, their community-based work are not valued the same as a non-native’s traditional educational background as “merit”.

    There is a lot to do and it will require a fundamental shift in both thinking and practice. It will require real changes – a transfer of both power and wealth. This requires that universities make sacrifices to make space for native peoples – not simply Indigenize here and there. Universities can’t simply tweak their current structures and expect substantive results.  Clearly there is a great deal that university can and should be doing. This blog is already too long to include a much longer list. I truly believe that some of this will happen in short term, and some of it will take a little longer. But without real native people at the helm – directing the path – it runs the risk of preserving the same status quo or worse. I believe that we are at a turning point.  The TRC has helped jump start both conversation and action at the university and college level. We just need to ensure the way forward is co-developed by native peoples and communities, together with universities and colleges. We have a real opportunity to make lasting, impactful changes. Let’s move beyond the superficial and engage in real, transformative reconciliation now – which will mean doing things as they haven’t been done before. We’re ready academia – are you?

    For those who prefer audio, here is a link to my Warrior Life podcast based on this blog: https://soundcloud.com/pampalmater/indigenous-reconciliation-in-university-and-colleges For those who want more information, here is a link to my Woodrow Lloyd Lecture on Reconciliation at the University of Regina in 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89s3l2mYGWg&list=PLDnK0xT7aXRBut5qi5rlJrDQWpS-Pxu1v&index=2&t=3083s

    *This blog is based on a much longer speech that I delivered in Halifax for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in 2018.

  • More than Empty Promises: Canada’s Military Still Fighting Indians Today

    Why is it that Indigenous Peoples are always accused of creating an us vs. them dynamic in Crown-First Nation relations, when in fact it is the opposite that is true. Our treaties were negotiated so that we could move forward cooperatively, yet Canada (which includes Canada includes ALL federal departments, agencies and commissions as well as the provinces and territories) has broken every promise it has made. Given that our treaties were to maintain peace and friendship, Canada has breached the treaties at every step. We wanted to maintain our connections to the land and Canada wanted to assimilate us. When we exercise our “Canadian” right to peaceful assembly and protest, Canada sends in the military to take us down. It seems that no matter what we do, Canada’s answer always seems to be to “get rid of the Indian problem” and it does so by very strategic military means. Canada has long used military tactics against us to accomplish its goal of taking our land and resources. In the beginning, it was blankets filled with small pox and scalping laws. Even the treaty “negotiations” consisted of brutal force to sign treaties: Their quarrels and wars were not for ambition, empire or bloodthirstiness but to defend their property and bounds…

    Their injuries have been very great, as divesting them of their land by force or fraud, first making them drunk and then to sign what they knew not what…

    Ad to this our inhumanity to them … We vilify them with all manner of names, and opprious language, cheat abuse and beat them, sometimes to the loss of limbs, pelt them with stones and set dogs upon them … too often an Article of Peace has run in one sense in English and quite contrary in Indian, by the Governor’s express order… (T. Bannister to the Council of Trade and Plantations, Calendar, vol. 28).

    We all know what happens when a First Nation protects its traditional lands from destruction – we have the RCMP, the police and the military come in and take our people down – even to the point of shooting and killing us. In between military maneuovers against us, Canada has adopted an ancient military tactic of starving us off our lands. Our people are the poorest in the country and thousands of us die pre-mature deaths directly related to the chronic and purposeful underfunding of critical and essential life services like food, housing, water and health programs. Of course, there is also the other military tactic used around the world – that is to jail the political opposition. No one can argue with the current incarceration statistics highlighted for many years by Canada’s own Correctional Investigator. Our people are arrested, detained, and jailed far more often, for longer, and with less rehabilitation programs or likelihood of probation than non-Indigenous people. In some prisons out west, the women’s detention centres can be 80-100% filled with Indigenous women. How is it that all this happens in plain sight and with the passive acquiesence of democracy and equality-loving Canadians? It is because it is in their vested interest to criminalize every aspect of our lives so that Canadians can continue to enjoy the benefits of stolen lands, resources and power. Hunting and fishing has been our traditional means of providing for our communities since time immemorial – now doing so can land us in jail, or worse risk being shot at or run over by enforcement officials. Similarly, preserving the balance on our territories and making sure the land is cared for in such a way that it continues to sustain us and our people seven generations into the future – can land us in jail. Why then, does Canada continue the facade that it wants to “reconcile” and develop a better relationship when we all know that its actions speak otherwise. Why bother apologizing for the assimilatory foundations upon which residential schools were developed if the plan is to continue assimilation under the Indian Act? Why does Canada promise to apologize for calling us terrorists or spying on us whenever it gets caught doing so, when we all know those apologies will never happen – nor will the spying ever stop. When news of any of this hits the media, there is usually some uncomfortable word-smithing by federal representatives and occassionally a promise to apologize at some point in time in the future. Always in the future… Yet, treating us like domestic terrorists and spying on us continues. Don’t bother making more empty promises, just admit you are at war with us and let the chips fall where they may. If you are going to be our enemy, have the backbone to admit it. Why am I ranting about this today? Well, it’s because once again Canada got caught spying on us. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/military-intelligence-unit-spies-on-native-groups/article2199496/?from=sec431 And that made me think back to the promise by the military to offer us a now long overdue apology for calling us terrorists – which has never happened. http://www.globaltvcalgary.com/military+apologize+warriors/4019344/story.html And because despite Canada agreeing to support but not endorse or implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Conservatives have ramped up their spying efforts with INAC (now AANDC) as the lead. https://pampalmater.com/2011/06/secret-agent-harper-conservative-spy.html Canada seems to have a great deal of time and money to spend spying on our people and keeping us in poverty. Since I will no doubt be labled a “radical”, I guess there is no harm in sharing some of my radical ideas: why don’t we put that extra money into providing lawyers for those granted standing at the murdered and missing Aboriginal women inquiry? Or perhaps invest some in First Nations schools to close the education gap? Or, even more radical, why don’t we provide equitable funding for child and family services, housing, water, and sewer on reserve… I think it’s time we all got real about what is happening here and stop promising to make future apologies for military actions against our people when we all know it will continue. It is no longer other distant countries we can point to and sit in judgment over how their militaries treat their citizens. It’s time to put the focus back on our own country and stop the war against our people once and for all. For rabble fans, see my blog at rabble.ca.