Canada Is Waging an All-Front Legal War Against Indigenous People

[Judi Lynn]

AUGUST 5, 2021

BY JUSTIN PODUR

Canada is developing a new image: one of burning churches, toppling statues, and mass graves. There are thousands more unmarked graves, thousands more Indigenous children killed at residential schools, remaining to be unearthed. There can be no denying that this is Canada, and it has to change. But can Canada transform itself for the better? If the revelation of the mass killing of Indigenous children is to lead to any actual soul-searching and any meaningful change, the first order of business is for Canada to stop its all-front war against First Nations. Much of that war is taking place through the legal system.

Canadian politicians have said as much, adopting a motion in June calling for the government to stop fighting residential school survivors in court. A long-standing demand, it has been repeated by Indigenous advocates who have expressed amazement in the face of these horrific revelations that the Canadian government would nonetheless continue to fight Indigenous survivors of systematic child abuse by the state.

To get a sense of the scope of Canada’s legal war on First Nations, I looked at a Canadian legal database containing decisions (case law) pertaining to First Nations. I also looked at the hearing lists of the Federal Court of Canada for ongoing cases. My initial goal was to identify where Canada could easily settle or abandon cases, bringing about a harmonious solution to these conflicts. Two things surprised me.

The first was the volume and diversity of lawsuits Canada is fighting. Canada is fighting First Nations everywhere, on an astoundingly wide range of issues.

The second thing: Canada is losing.

The Attack on Indigenous Children and Women

In his 1984 essay “‘Pioneering’ in the Nuclear Age,” political theorist Eqbal Ahmad argued that the “four fundamental elements… without which an indigenous community cannot survive” were “land, water, leaders and culture.” Canada fights Indigenous people over land, water, fishing rights, mining projects, freedom of movement, and more. The assault on Indigenous nations is also a war against Indigenous children and women.

More:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/08/05/canada-is-waging-an-all-front-legal-war-against-indigenous-people/

[Worried2020]

1. My favorite line . . "The second thing: Canada is losing."

.

I have long empathized with the native situation here, as well as disgusted with our shameful treatment of native people, their lands and their cultures.

I read the whole article, some parts more than once - shocking, but sadly not surprised that our governments are fighting the natives to keep every piece of land for us white folk . . .

Our national anthem's line "our home and native land" makes me shudder in shame and disgust.

Enuf - y 'all get who's side I'm on.

The author is an interesting dude - this is not a random criticism of our governments - years of research and participation preceded this article.

worth a read

https://euc.yorku.ca/faculty-profile/podur-justin-j/

W

[Bernardo de La Paz]

2. Wrong. Not "All-Front". Gov doing lots for them, but so much more to do, & there are bad lawsuits

There are some legal battles going on and a good number of them should be dropped. In particular, there are lawsuits against release of government documents regarding the residential schools used to suppress indigenous people for a century. However there are always going to be lawsuits because when society changes, its systems have to change, and the law is and needs to be slow and deliberative to get it right.

Canada is working through difficult issues.

The article uses inflammatory language to push an misleading view of issues. For example it says there are thousands of unmarked graves, when there are something like 1,500, so far. There are more to be found, which may be a couple thousand more.

But it was NOT a "mass killing". Large numbers do not make a "mass killing". The deaths are terrible, the large numbers are terrible, the backdrops of them was terrible, but they died one by one over a period of about a hundred years. Terming it a mass killing is a propaganda technique.

The Governor-General (symbolically highest official) just appointed and installed is indigenous; an Inuk woman from the Arctic.

Canada has had a Truth and Reconciliation commission and has endorsed the recommendations (94?) and is (a bit too slowly) working through them implementing them.

There was a commission for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women that made something like 230+ recommendations and Canada is working through those.

There are many issues such as drinking water supplies in northern communities that are difficult to resolve even if you throw money at it.

Other issues involving fishing rights are complicated because many species require conservation and there are established commercial fisheries.

The situation is improving and the pace has increased since the Liberal government was elected in 2015. But Canada could and should do more, even though it is a world leader in working with indigenous peoples.

[shrike3]

3. I agree with your take.

Parts of the article are hyperbole. And Canada does seem to be making an effort.

[appalachiablue]

4. More horrendous treatment of indigenous people:

.. Canada’s war on Indigenous children is also a war on Indigenous women. The sterilization of Indigenous women, beginning with Canada’s eugenics program around 1900, is another act of genocide, as scholar Karen Stote has argued. Indigenous women who had tubal ligation without their consent as part of this eugenics program have brought a class-action suit against the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia, both of which had Sexual Sterilization Acts in their provincial laws from the 1920s in Alberta and 1930s in British Columbia until the early 1970s, and Saskatchewan, where sexual sterilization legislation was proposed but failed by one vote in 1930. A Senate committee found a case of forced sterilization of an Indigenous woman as recently as 2019.

The Legal-Financial War on First Nations Organizations

As Bob Joseph outlines in his 2018 book 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act, Canada first gave itself the right to decide Indian status in the Gradual Civilization Act of 1857, which created a process by which Indigenous people could give up their Indian status and so become “enfranchised”—which they would have to do if they wanted to attend higher education or become professionals.
The apartheid system was updated through the Indian Act of 1876, from which sprang many evils including both the residential schools and the assertion of Canadian control over the way First Nations govern themselves. In 1927, when Indigenous veterans of World War I began to hold meetings with one another to discuss their situation, Canada passed laws forbidding Indigenous people from political organization and from raising funds to hire legal counsel (and from playing billiards, among other things).

The Indian Act—which is still in effect today with amendments, despite multiple attempts to repeal it—outlawed traditional governance structures and gave Canada the power to intervene to remove and install Indigenous governance authorities at will—which Canada did continuously, from Six Nations in 1924 to Barriere Lake in 1995. As a result, at any given moment, many First Nations are still embroiled in lawsuits over control of their own governments.
Canada controls the resources available to First Nations, including drinking water. In another national embarrassment, Canada has found itself able to provision drinking water to diamond mines but not First Nations. This battle too has entered the courts, with a class-action suit by Tataskweyak Cree Nation, Curve Lake First Nation, and Neskantaga First Nation demanding that Canada not only compensate their nations, but also work with them to build the necessary water systems.