I once worked in Australia and after earning enough money to finance a year of university I quit my job and travelled across the country ending up in the tourist town of Cairns, Queensland. I arrived on the train at 5:30 in the morning and by noon I had found the local St. Vincent de Paul location to enjoy a free lunch. I shared the repast with a couple of guys who, based on the dried blood on their faces, seemed to be on the outs with each other and a tall Aboriginal fellow who was a wonderful raconteur. Following the meal, he asked if I would be interested in sharing accommodations with him and I agreed to look at his digs. He led me out of town on the train tracks and my nervousness increased in direct proportion to the emptiness of the horizon. Eventually we came to a place where the distance between the two sets of tracks widened, and he announced that we were “home”. He had beaten down the grass to form a living room and two bedrooms, each with appropriate entrances. While the absence of a bathroom was welcomed, I decided that having a roof during the rainy season was more important than having a funny room mate. I told him that I was afraid that my snoring would cause him to want to kill me during the night (a bit Freudian but he laughed) so I would look for other options and we parted friends.
A couple of years before this I had worked for the City of Yellowknife in the public works (read sewer and water) department. As it turned out, three of my eventual wife’s indigenous cousins also worked in that department. The eldest cousin was the lead hand of a small but productive team comprising me and his youngest brother. On one occasion younger brother and I were to pump out a sewer manhole to access the frozen sewer line. We were working unsuccessfully to convince the diesel pump to start pumping as big brother showed up in his truck. In forte voce, he informed us of how stupid and lazy we were and why don’t we just go to the other manhole so that the discharge line doesn’t jump when the pump kicks in. From one hundred feet away, we smugly watched his frustrated attempts at priming the pump. After pouring yet another 5-gallon bucket of sludge into the priming port he looked into it to encourage some action. And suddenly there was some action. A three-inch stream of semi-frozen sewage caught him fair in the face dropping us to our knees in laughter. Younger brother, conscious of potential future punishment, ran back to rescue his brother with me just behind. With eyelids engorged with sewage, coughing, and spitting goodness knows what out of his mouth, big brother gave us the dirtiest of looks, jumped into his truck, and raced off. We had to add to the manhole sewage so violent were our guffaws.
Since those early years of my working career, I have had many opportunities to make indigenous friends, but I never took time to consider their solitude within our shared existence. Towards the end of my career this changed. Prior to covid, I volunteered one night a week to offer chapel services to residents of the local medium security jail. While comprising approximately 4% (2011) of the Canadian population, indigenous folks occupy up to 50% of the beds in our prison system. Such a significant over representation might suggest systemic bias in the police system but I have concluded that, generally, this is not the case. In talking with the many indigenous guys who came out for the chapel services I concluded that their solitude was unlike anything I experienced while growing up and their experiences led almost inevitably to jail. Many told me that they were raised by their grandparents because their parents were in absentia. After hearing stories of their upbringing that were horrifying, I was always impressed when they would shrug their shoulders and say, “Well I guess I gotta move on from there.” I don’t think my response would have been quite so sanguine. Fortunately, these stories of a difficult upbringing are not representative of the entire indigenous culture.
As a Member of the National Energy Board, I participated in pipeline and powerline hearings that allowed me another glimpse into the indigenous solitude. In preparation for the oral testimony offered by indigenous leaders from across Canada, I read the various treaties between Britain and Canada and the indigenous community starting with the Royal Proclamation of 1783, the Haldimand Proclamation of 1784 and continuing through the Manitoba Act and all the numbered treaties. I read the Truth and Reconciliation Report and many of the defining Supreme Court decisions which touched on indigenous issues. I read every history of First Nations people that I could find and became familiar with the works of Francis Parkman. In the end, my views on the treatment of indigenous people in Canada were radically altered.
I learned that the First Nations treaty signatories were clever people who knew what they were doing. They precipitated the treaties to serve the best interests of their families and tribes because they could see the immigration juggernaut that was coming at them. The treaties, which do not cover all of Canada or all First Nations communities, resulted in the ceding and surrender of land to the Government of Canada (the Crown) in exchange for population-based land grants (reserves), education, and access to the ceded lands for the purposes of practicing traditional ways of life: hunting, trapping and herb gathering primarily. In making the treaties there was a consistent appeal to an important legal nicety called “the honour of the Crown”. Basically, the English and Canadian treaty negotiators were not to deal “sharply” and so embarrass the Queen.
I am convinced that the First Nations signatories recognized that there was a risk that over development of the ceded lands would threaten their access and ongoing use. For this reason, they wanted to be consulted when development was to occur so that their voices (and those of their heirs and successors) would be meaningfully heard and appropriately considered prior to such development. That seems an eminently reasonable request. They wanted to have access to European education so that they could deal as equals with the white-skinned marauders. Another eminently reasonable request it seems to me.
But therein lies the rub - how to deliver a European education to small and scattered groups of isolated family units? The aggregation of students at residential schools was the solution and it was not an unreasonable one. Were the residential schools a terrible thing? My wife has a cousin who credits the residential school with giving her a better life. She has another relative who felt aggrieved by her experience. I suppose that period of history was a mixed bag with its own library of stories. That there is a need for a reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous groups in Canada is without question as there have been other instances of terrible abuse of indigenous people by non-indigenous people. Former Alberta Social Services Minister Mike Cardinal, himself an indigenous person, argued effectively that many of the on reserve social problems started with the advent of welfare cheques. This is not to say, therefore, that First Nations leadership gets a pass on the many social problems that afflict their communities. They share a level of responsibility that cannot be passed off on the residential school system and its alleged and real abuses.
How is this reconciliation to be achieved? Do we pass out money? Do we make endless apologies that are largely meaningless no matter which Prime Minister’s tears are shed? Many people are thinking deep thoughts about this issue. Conferences are dedicated to the theme and a cottage industry of idea generation is being built all to a mostly noble end. I suppose that at a minimum it starts with a recognition that we are all image bearers of a loving God and that we commit ourselves to stop abusing each other. I find that my indigenous friends are ahead of me in this aspect of reconciliation.
Here are my thoughts for consideration. I find it more than strange that the early, numbered treaties are silent on the issue of subsurface mineral wealth while the railroad acts of the same time period deal specifically with such wealth. Is it sufficient to say that the tribal signatories to the treaties must have forgotten to mention it or that they were not interested in such wealth? Lawyer and author Peter Best (There is no difference) notes that the issue came up in the consideration of one of the numbered treaties, but it was ultimately not included. Is it possible that ignoring subsurface rights in the early numbered treaties was “sharp dealing” and that the honour of the Crown was and remains impugned? Could we advance reconciliation with First Nations by rethinking the treatment of subsurface mineral rights?
Should First Nations be paid a royalty on a go forward basis of all mineral and forestry wealth in all areas covered by a treaty? Is it not an attack on the honour of the Crown to require resource companies to establish social peace through negotiated benefits agreements rather then require the Crown to provide peace, order, and good government as basic developmental infrastructure? The capital accumulations created can be managed by a joint board and made accessible to any registered band on a population basis ensuring that bands who are distant from the source of the wealth have equal access to the funds generated by that wealth and can appropriately develop their social capital and industrial base. In a fevered dream, perhaps participation in this royalty wealth should be contingent upon First Nations removing themselves from the aegis of the Indian Act. Then we can fight over how that $7 billion windfall can be shared.
The relationship between indigenous and non-indigenous communities in Canada is complex. There have been abuses but the longer it takes for solutions to be found, the longer it is that Canada deprives its economy of the creativity of a growing portion of its population. Will giving up a royalty payment in exchange for real social change on troubled reserves result in an increase of creativity and economic activity which will repay the lost resource income? It is an interesting thought.