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'Nation to Nation'? Indigenous people and the Trudeau government
November 2, 2015 - 2:43pm
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First Nations hold Trudeau to ‘nation to nation’ promise
What roles could Aboriginal MPs play as they head to Ottawa
well i'm not going to hold my breath in expectation.
pondering's rants in another thread about FN's comprising less than 5% of the "Canadian" population and basically why should the focus be on such a small % indicates to me maybe the Liberals are going no where on nation to nation discussions. it was in the Leap manifesto thread.
Cabinet is promising.
Jody Wilson-Raybould, a former BC chief, takes on a top office. Among other things, she can start the proces s of a nation-to-nation relationship, if allowed to do so.
And there's another indigenous minister, Hunter Tootoo, meaning that Wilson-Raybould will not be a token indigenous person, but will have back-up.
The temptation to name an indigenous person top head the Colonial Office (aka Indian Affairs & Northern Development) was resisted. Good. But Carolyn Bennett is someone who aspires to be an ally. So that is promising. The Colonial Office can't be abolished overnight, but the demolition and replacement by something designed to serve its constituents rather than colonize them can begin.
Lots of work to do, but this is at least promising. Now, the govenrment needs to be held to account for its promises ot implement all 94 calls to action from the Truth and Reconcilation Commission, and to actually behave on a nation-to-nation basis with regards to the indigenous peoples who have always been treated as colonial subjects by all past Canadian governments. I don't have high hopes htat this govnerment will end the colonial relationship, but it seems at least possible that change can start.
If that was what the Leap is supposed to be about, then fine, it's a great opening.
If the intent is to gain mainstream support for a dramatic shift to a green economy which seemed to be the ultimate goal of "The Leap Manifesto", then it's not a good opening from a marketing perspective.
It makes it appear as though it is about indigenous people, not the environment. Trudeau has committed to follow the recommendations of the Truth and Reconcilliation Committee. It's expected that the inquiry into missing and murdered indigeneous women will be among his first orders. Other issues, including national and international treaties will take longer to address.
The Leap also addressed a coalition government. The Leap is already outdated.
I don't label you a feminist because you reject that label. I am not a Liberal and I object to your labeling me and using me as though I am a representative of the party therefore a predictor of what the party will do, not to mention your mischaracterization of a conversation that took place in a different thread.
I am also pleased with the appointments. I agree that it would be naive to think that the relationship will be instantly transformed. There is a lot of work to do. The inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women will be a welcome first step but it is a very tiny step in the grand scheme of things.
pondering this is the conversation and stop trying to white wash it:
followed by this:
imv it went down exactly how i paraphrased it here!!!
You are still wrong. You still missed the point. You still took a conversation from a different thread into this one to pick a fight.
I'm willing to hear your argument that indigenous rights are the top priority for a majority of Canadians. I would be very happy to be proven wrong. So let's have it. The floor is yours.
If it's from that thread, maybe you could both take the argument back to that thread?
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And yes, I'm pleasantly shocked by the look of this cabinet. Aglukkaq was an unfortunate exception. We can wait and see (as quizzical says) whether this group is better when it comes to substance. Trudeau's action on the 94 recommendations, and concretizing "nation to nation" relations, will be the appropriate barometer.
seems i can't tell the difference between edit and quote.
while i'm here i'm going to say i still have little hope. i've been reading and i feel unsettled.
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I"m going to take Swallow's advise and take this conversation back to the appropriate thread with one exception.
The accusation of racism was made here in this thread. So I ask again. Present your argument that indigenous rights are a top priority for the majority of Canadians. Not just your friends or your community, for the majority of Canadians.
I have an opinion on how you present your voice here too but unlike you I don't want to pick a fight so I will keep it to myself. It was your intention to insult me and you did. That's picking a fight. Own it.
Talk past each other much.
Quizzical thought your post had racist undertones and you challenge her to prove the majority of Canadians have indigenous rights as a top priority.
WTF
Why shocked? It seems like the economic players are relatively conservative.
I am surprised Andrew Leslie didn't get a spot. Not surprised Blair didn't.
The First Nations leadership is offering a hand of friendship to move forward. Puglaas is the name given to Jody Wilson-Raybould by her Grandmother and means a "woman born to noble people."
The real question for a nation to nation relationship is what will Goodale be like as Tzar of the RCMP. Will we see repeats of Elsipogtog in the interior of BC or will he respect the FN's who have vowed to block oil and gas pipelines from entering their teritories?
http://www.ubcic.bc.ca/fnlccabinetappt?recruiter_id=37407
I think that would be Trudeau's call not Goodale's. Trudeau has stated that social licence is required and it is up to the oil companies to get it.
Thanks for taking the arument back to othter thread, much appreciated.
Aglukak and her colleague Peter Penashue were, I think, both unfortunate exceptions. (Surprising for me, since I recall Penashue's day as an anti-NATO protester. Perhaps that was just his mother's influence.) The door seems open a crack for some sort of reconciliation between settler and indigenous societies. It will be very interesting to see how Wilson-Raybould and Tootoo handle this, being members of the Canadian government now, rather than spokespeople for their people. Not that this means they stop being who they are, of course, jsut that their job description makes them employees of Ottawa. Watching with huge interest!
The way I see it the reason we strive for diversity in cabinet is to provide views from the perspectives of a wide range of Canadians. Cabinet ministers have specific posts, but they also represent the interests of their communities geographic or otherwise.
I hope to see a dramatic reduction of incarceration rates for indigenous peoples. I know it can't happen overnight but Trudeau has a 4 year mandate and that is long enough to see a statistical difference.
Sure, absolutely.
But nation-to-nation implies that indigenous peoples are not Canadians unless they choose to be - and many don't. (Just cross the Mercier Bridge and you'll get an earful on this from the Kahnawake Mohawk community.) The current relation is inherently colonial, forcing people to be citizens of a state that has colonized them, whether they like it or not.
This is one of the key differences between First Nations and Inuit, on the one hand, and newcomers from diverse backgrounds, on the other.
Or to put it another way: indigenous rights is not just another matter of "diversity." If the Trudeau government is simply including indigenous ministers in order to show "the perspectives of a wide range of Canadians," then that's fine and in many ways praiseworthy, but it's not nation-to-nation.
Very well said.
Exactly. Yes.
yup. good words swallow.
New Indigenous Affairs Minister speaks reconciliation with sage in her boots, loaned eagle feather in hand
Well said. Of course I recognize that indigeneous people have rights that must be respected. It's difficult to name a specific top priority in repairing our relationship with indigeneous peoples assuming it can be repaired but if I had to name one it is honoring the treaties. I say, assuming it can be repaired, because the mistreatment is so severe and ongoing. I believe among the list of items to address is teaching the truth about Canadian history but I don't see how reconcilliation can come about until the appalling conditions on some reserves are addressed.
I just found this!
http://aptn.ca/news/2015/11/05/new-indigenous-affairs-minister-speaks-re...
Truth=>>
https://twitter.com/char_lawyer/status/662088435398795264
https://twitter.com/char_lawyer/status/661971001811582980
https://twitter.com/char_lawyer/status/661939586277339136
https://twitter.com/1mohawklawyer/status/662004521720274944
"It's not about Nation to Nation It's about TermiNation This is still about Indigenous interests adverse to the State. How does a nation-to-nation relationship function when you absorb us into your own government? This is not some lofty philosophical concept."
That is simplistic. Indigenous peoples are not a monolith with all the same opinions on how to move forward. The best solutions vary by community and even individuals. Wild guess, but in my opinion the indigenous peoples living in the worst circumstances just want help and do consider the above a lofty philosophical concept that has no bearing on their lives.
To many indigenous people getting government services such as educational funding, health care, a place to live and clean water to drink are their top priorities. I have no idea how many people that represents as a percentage but they most certainly exist. There are human experiences that transcend culture.
Indigenous people who have chosen to serve in cabinet and in parliament are not being absorbed. They are individuals choosing to work in government. Just as indigeneous peoples have the right to reject the label "Canadian" they certainly also have the right to choose it.
Yes indeed. But in doing so and solemnly swearing to be loyal servants of her Majesty, and become Canadian politicians - they work for Canada and Canada's interests. Not indigenous sovereignties. One is the colonizer of the other.
"I do solemnly and sincerely swear that I shall be a true and faithful servant to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second...Generally, in all things I shall do as a faithful and true servant ought to do for her Majesty." This is the oath taken. A sovereign Indigenous national, an ally of the Crown, becomes instead its servant. There's no shilly-shallying around that fact. Art Manuel a sovereign Secwepemc national and an authority on such things explains it as follows:
"When Indigenous peoples decide to vote or indeed run for political office under the federal electoral system, we are accepting that Parliament is the expression of our 'political status' as Indigenous Peoples.
Collectively, Indigenous Peoples never decided to participate in the federal electoral system. So Indigenous individuals who have affiliated themselves with Canadian political parties like the Liberals, Conservatives and NDP are deciding individually to act this way.
Collectively it is extremely important to understand how participating in the federal election will undermine our right to self-determination and we should not overlook this fact when making decisions about participating and running in Candian federal or provincial elections." - Arthur Manuel
http://rabble.ca/comment/1520789#comment-1520789
It is also dodgy to speak of 'nation to nation' when one of the parties is in reality an Indian Act Band Council acting as an administrative unit of the Canadian government that has usurped the authority of the 'nation' on Canada's behalf constituting in its place a 'First Nation' which has a specific legal meaning that is not the same as a 'nation' in international law. These are some of the tricky aspects of this very important matter. Termination and extinguishment remains the modus operandi of Canada. The BC Treaty Commission, from whence came the Minister of Justice, is only one, albeit a particularly pernicious example of a Canadian 'extinguisher'.
The lawyer's tweets posted reflect a very real aspect of what occurred in Rideau Hall's feel-good festivities, whether people wish to recognize that or drift away on pleasant dreams of Trudeaumania 2.0 and a nice new 'Indian Agent' minister with an eagle feather.
Those tweets are important, and should not be dismissed. It's important to acknowledge that Wilson-Raybould and others are choosing to join a colonialist regime - their choice, an honourable one intended to transform and start to decolonize perhaps, but still a colonial regime. There's every possibility that "nation-to-nation" is going in pracetice to continue to mean "termiNation." It always has before, after all. Far from simplsitic to point this out - it's a basic truth, for sure.
Pondering, not to pick on you, that's not my intent, but since we're discussing here.... You write "the indigenous peoples living in the worst circumstances just want help and do consider the above a lofty philosophical concept that has no bearing on their lives." I'd suggest that colonialism carried out by the Canadian state is the fundamental reality that creates the poverty and poor conditions. In that light, is the colonizing government really the best placed to deliver "help"? It may be able to become part of starting a solution, but it should act with an awareness of its own past and of unequal power dynamics.
I've heard "they jsut need help" a lot from people working on international development aid. When global trade is skewed to suck wealth from poorer countries into powerful and wealthy Western states, can aid really be considered value-neutral? Can a few development projects really be considered "help" in the face of a global system that harms the poorest people every day? Is it simple and value-neutral to speak of help, or do we need to think more deeply about systems of pwoer and oppression, then seek to change those?
Also, as NDPP points out, important to recognize that band councils are creatures of the Indian Affairs department, even under its new name. They were imposed at gunpoint by the Canadian state, not created by the people they govern. Mohawks know this better than anyone. Other forms of traditional authority persist. (Bill Wilson for instance is someone who comes very much from the more traditional governance systems of his people.) I think councils have often done amazing thing despite their lack of power, and they at times can be instruments of change and even liberation, but I agree we shouldn't romanticize.
As to the BC treaty commission process - kropotkin is from BC and can speak about this with more knowledge than me, but I understand the problem to be that BC First Nations were never permitted a treaty process outside Vancouver Island. So when people (including me) use the expression "we are all treaty people," derived from a Saskatchewan/prairie context, we're overlooking the theft without treaties that took palce in BC. The treaty commission process, it seems to me, is an effort by people (like Bill Wilson?) to do the best they can for their people in a tough situation. it's flawed and imperfect and constrtained, but it can also deliver improvements for First Nations people and educate the wider public on just whose land they are on.
A long time ago, I lived in rural BC for a while. People used to take their trash and dump it on "uninhabited" forest reserve lands. The owners of that land would gather it, bring it back, and return it to the person whose garbage it was.