SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN Genocide, Indigenous Nations and the Canadian State

Tags

aboriginal rights, Canada, Indigenous Peoples, Sovereignty

New book batters Canadian denial, launches in Vancouver this week

Suffer the Little Children – Genocide, Indigenous Nations and the Canadian State
By Tamara Starblanket

Clarity Press, 2018
Foreword by Ward Churchill
Afterword by Sharon H. Venne

Official launch Thursday, June 7, 6pm at the Vancouver Native Education Center.

This much-anticipated book places Canada’s Indian Residential School programme among the world’s leading crimes against humanity: genocide. From the Introduction: This book is meant to serve as a battering ram to hammer through the wall of denial. 

         Advance remarks on this book by Noam Chomsky, Steven Newcomb and Irene Watson indicate its importance to leading thinkers today. The Foreword by Ward Churchill and Afterword by Sharon Venne, an international legal expert on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, lend even more credibility to the work. It’s a subject of pivotal importance in Canada, and yet few have had the fortitude to approach it. Far fewer have had the endurance to complete such a painful analysis.

One of the most important things about this book is its refusal to allow Canada to be considered a “post-colonial” state. The evidence against Canada’s genocidal “forcible removal of children” during the Indian Residential School era is connected to the present-day foster care system, which targets young Aboriginal families in particular: still forcibly removing children from the genocidally-targeted group and placing them with members of another group. With the colonizing group: be they white, yellow, beige, or brown families. And still removing those Indigenous children with the same genocidal objective of “bringing about the destruction of the group, in whole or in part,” in order to continue colonizing and absorbing the yet-unceded Indigenous homelands.

Starblanket’s thesis, on which the book is based, was argued successfully for a Master of Laws degree from the University of Saskatchewan.

​         Another of the book’s most important accomplishments is Starblanket’s assessment of Canada’s official federal treatment of the Indian Residential School fallout as having only to do with individuals. Individual survivors were compensated under the 2006 Indian Residential Schools Survivors’ Settlement Agreement. In fact, the intended and effective result of the “schools” was a series of national crises among the Indigenous Nations whose lands Canada tries to claim. With their children gone, and their languages and systems of culture and governance uncertain, the crime was against nations – not individuals. Starblanket breaks down the very different legal implications.

​         The crime of removing the children was against nations and peoples with the right to self-determination, land, language, history and future: individuals do not have such rights.

​         But it is Canada’s special reservation to deny the nationhood and national characters of some fifty nations. This is in keeping with Canada’s posture that the state has the ability to absorb various Indigenous “minorities” within its stolen borders, and award them various “Aboriginal rights” in place of their internationally-recognized rights as nations and peoples.

Canada’s assault on these nations is justiciable – for all the reasons Starblanket puts forward – under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1969; under the Geneva Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1948; and, in some ways, under more recent international norms, such as the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights. These latter two are equipped by the United Nations with Treaty Bodies – with Committees which have repeatedly reviewed and severely criticized Canada for its denial of the self-determination of Indigenous Peoples. Starblanket concludes that self-determination is the answer. Not “reconciliation,” which she debunks as a public relations scam.

​         Information does not make change, however. There is no Committee to receive reports on, or review violations of the Geneva or the Vienna Conventions. Only states can take other states to the International Court of Justice for that. And, so far, no other state has been willing to intervene in what is known as the “domestic judicial complicity in genocide,” such as it is within Canada. This book may help with that.

If there must be a shortcoming in Suffer the Little Children, it is the absence of international legal prescriptions for justice. Genocide is not a crime which a state can be allowed to rule on domestically when its own government is one of the parties to the crime. There is an important precedent. In 2007, Menchu v. Montt was heard by the Constitutional Court of Spain. That case concerned Guatemala’s genocide against the Mayan people, and it found General Rios Montt guilty of genocide. Unfortunately, the presiding Spanish judge, Justice Garçon, died suddenly and unexpectedly shortly thereafter. And the ruling was reversed.

​         The importance of this book is that it makes available, to the people of Canada and to the people of the world, the trial of Canada – if not the actual court room. These things take time, and this book keeps the clock ticking.

​         If the empires and invading nations cannot be relied on to deliver justice, even when their Constitutional Courts decide a fairly obvious matter, perhaps the people of the world can do better. If not the colonizing people of Canada, who have a vested interest in the displacement, denial and dispossession of the original nations; then perhaps the people of the world – as the overthrow of apartheid in South Africa was achieved, in part, by outside groups.

​         And if the example of Menchu v. Montt could be brought to bear in the case of Canada, might we get the next chapter of this story? Something like Starblanket v. The Director of Child and Family Services? The case has certainly been laid out: the Ministry has been advised, time and again, over decades, of the effects its actions are having – and it keeps doing them.

The book will be officially launched this Thursday, June 7, at the Vancouver Native Education Center. Event starts at 6pm.

Follow this link to the book : Suffer the Little Children

 

Quotes from the book:

“While other aspects of Canada’s “Indian policies” can be seen to fit the definition of genocide, specifically at issue in this book is its century-long program of forcibly removing indigenous children from their families, communities, societies—in sum, from their Nations—and placing them for sustained periods in “residential schools” where the stated goal was to strip them of their cultural identities and “remake” them into “end products” deemed useful to Canada’s colonizing and ever-growing settler population.”

“I am the sole member of my birth family still alive. My grandparents, maternal and paternal, as well as my late mother and her siblings, were all forced to spend their formative years in the schools, an experience from which none of them would ever recover.”

About TamaraStarblanket:

Tamara Starblanket is Spider Woman, a Nehiyaw iskwew (Cree Woman) from Ahtahkakoop First Nation in Treaty Six Territory.  Tamara holds an LLM (Master of Laws) from the University of Saskatchewan, and an LLB from the University of British Columbia. She is the Co-Chair of the North American Indigenous Peoples’ Caucus (NAIPC) at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. She presently coordinates and teaches in the criminology program at Native Education College in Vancouver, BC.

Early Reviews:

“Settler-colonialism reveals the brutal face of imperialism in
some of its most vicious forms.  This carefully researched and
penetrating study focuses on one of its ugliest manifestations,
the forcible transferring of indigenous children, and makes a
strong case for Canadian complicity in a form of ‘cultural
genocide’ – with implications that reach to the Anglosphere
generally, and to some of the worst crimes of the ‘civilized
world’ in the modern era.”
Noam Chomsky

“Tamara Starblanket’s work is confident, clear and succinct;
her work is ground-breaking and provides us with new ways of
looking at how the states treatment of First Nations Peoples
has gone unrecognised for its genocidal affect. This work
provides an excellent critique on the exclusion of cultural
genocide from how genocide is defined in international law.”
Professor Irene Watson,
Research Professor of Law, University of South Australia

“Tamara Starblanket’s book provides a much needed
examination and critique of the ‘residential school’ system that
forcibly transferred Indigenous children from their families,
communities, and nations into institutions run by the colonizer
state—in this case, Canada. Despite the fact that the United
Nations 1948 Convention on Genocide explicitly includes
‘forcibly transferring children of the group to another group’ in
its definition of ‘genocide,’ there are those who deny that the
colonial ‘civilizing’ project amounted to genocide. Starblanket
demonstrates that the residential schools in fact aimed at
destroying the most intimate level of Indigenous life—the child-
parent relation—employing brutal beatings, solitary
confinement and other horrible punishments, often resulting in
children’s deaths. The goal of the schools was to prevent
Indigenous societies from perpetuating themselves. Though
officially repudiated, the residential schools produced a
continuing social and institutional legacy. Starblanket’s work
brings this history and its legacy effects to our awareness and
shows that ‘the road home’ requires an emphasis on
Indigenous self-determination.”
Peter d’Errico,
Professor of Law, University of Massachusetts

“Tamara Starblanket has skillfully taken on one of the most
difficult and contentious issues, genocide. With intellectual
courage and determination, she has approached the issue
from the perspective of a Cree woman, scholar, and attorney
who has first-hand knowledge of the deadly and destructive
intergenerational impacts of Canada’s domination and
dehumanization of Original Nations and Peoples.”
Steven T. Newcomb (Shawnee, Lenape),
author, Pagans in the Promised Land Decoding the
Christian Doctrine of Discovery

“This is heavy stuff, about which much more should be said,
and Starblanket is unsparing in saying it…I am proud to call
her sister, and to thank her.”
from the Preface by Ward Churchill,
author, A Little Matter of Genocide

The Best Of All Titles – Gitwangat Chiefs, 1884

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Delgamuukw, Gitksan

We would liken this district to an animal, and our village, which is situated in it, to its heart. Lorne Creek, which is almost at one end of it, may be likened to one of the animal’s feet.

We feel that the whitemen, by occupying this creek, are, as it were, cutting off a foot. We know that an animal may live without one foot, or even without both feet; but we also know that every such loss renders him more helpless, and we have no wish to remain inactive until we are almost or quite helpless

We have carefully abstained from molesting the whiteman during the past summer. We felt that, though we were being wronged and robbed, as we had not given you the time nor opportunity to help us, it would not be right for us to take the matter into our own hands. Now we bring the matter before you, and respectfully call upon you to prevent the inroads of any whiteman upon the land within the fore-named district.

In making this claim, we would appeal to your sense of justice and right. We would remind you that it is the duty of the Government to uphold the just claims of all peaceable and law-abiding persons such as we have proved ourselves to be. We hold these lands by the best of all titles. We have received them as the gift of the Creator to our Grandmothers and Grandfathers, and we believe that we cannot be deprived of them by anything short of direct injustice.

In conclusion, we would ask you, would it be right for our Chiefs to give licenses to members of the tribe to go to the district of Victoria to measure out, occupy, and build upon lands in that district now held by whitemen as grazing or pasture land? Would the whitemen now in possession permit it, even if we told them that, as we were going to make a more profitable use of the land, they had no right to interfere? Would the Government permit it? Would they not at once interfere and drive us out? If it would not be right for us so to act, how can it be right for the whiteman to act so to us?

—Gitwangak Chiefs, 1884

As copied from the book, Colonialism on Trial: Indigenous land rights and the Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en sovereignty case, New Society Publishers, 1992

Image: Delgamuukw as he was in 1987, Albert Tait

Living Treaties, Lasting Agreements. 1985

Tags

aboriginal rights, Canada, Comprehensive Claims Policy, Federal Liberals Comprehensive Claims Policy, Land claims, Living Treaties Lasting Arrangements, Section 35

This book, produced by the federal government, is now very hard to find.

It was written after the 1982 Canadian Constitution Act had been formalized, but before the failure of the First Ministers Conferences to implement a meaningful “Section 35” – where Aboriginal and treaty rights are recognized and affirmed. This is possibly the single most candid publication the Canadian government has produced concerning Indigenous rights, and it admits a lot of Indigenous rights which have disappeared from the federal discourse since the failure of Canada to legislate implementation of Section 35.

Comprehensive Claims – policy & protest

Gustafsen Lake Standoff 1995

Gustafsen Lake 1995 standoff

Follow the link for newspaper articles, interview transcripts, press releases and more, 1995-2005.

STATEMENT OF THE NISHGA NATION OR TRIBE OF INDIANS. 1913

Tags

Land claims, Naas, Nisga'a, Nishga

From time immemorial the Nishga Nation or Tribe of Indians possessed, occupied and used the territory generally known as the Valley of the Naas River, the boundaries of which are well defined. The claims which we make in respect of this territory are clear and simple. We lay claim to the rights of men. We claim to be aboriginal inhabitants of this country and to have rights as such. We claim that our aboriginal rights have been guaranteed by Proclamation of King George Third and recognized by Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain. We claim that holding under the words of that Proclamation a tribal ownership of the territory, we should be dealt with in accordance with its provision, and that no part of our lands should be taken from us or in any way disposed of until the same has been purchased by the Crown. By reason of our aboriginal rights above stated, we claim tribal ownership of all fisheries and other natural resources pertaining to the territory above-mentioned.

For more than twenty-five years, being convinced that the recognition of our aboriginal rights would be of very great material advantage to us and would open the way for the intellectual, social and industrial advance of our people, we have, in common with other tribes of British Columbia, actively pressed our claims upon the Governments concerned. In recent years, being more than ever convinced of the advantages to be derived from such recognition and fearing that without such the advance of settlement would endanger our whole future, we have pressed these claims with greatly increased earnestness.

Some of the advantages to be derived from establishing our aboriginal rights are

1. That it will place us in a position to reserve for own use and benefit such portions of our territory as are required for the future well-being of our people.
2. That it will enable us to a much greater extent and in a free and independent manner to make use of the fisheries and other natural resources pertaining to our territory.
3. That it will open the way for bringing to an end as rapidly as possible the system of Reserves and substituting a system of individual ownership.
4. That it will open the way for putting an end to all uncertainty and unrest, bringing about a permanent and satisfactory settlement between the white people and ourselves, and thus removing the danger of serious trouble which now undoubtedly exists.
5. That it will open the way for our taking our place as not only loyal British subjects but also Canadian citizens, as for many years we have desired to do.

In thus seeking to realize what is highest and best for our people, we have encountered a very serious difficulty in the attitude which has been assumed by the Government of British Columbia. That Government has neglected and refused to recognize our claims, and for many years has been selling over our heads large tracts of our lands. We claim that every such transaction entered into in respect of any part of these lands under the assumed authority of the Provincial Land Act has been entered into in violation of the Proclamation above mentioned. These transactions have been entered into notwithstanding our protests, oral and written, presented to the Government of British Columbia, surveyors employed by that Government and intending purchasers.

The request of the Indian Tribes of British Columbia made through their Provincial Organization, that the matter of Indian title be submitted to the Judicial Committee of His Majesty’s Privy Council, having been before the Imperial Government and the Canadian Government for three years, and grave constitutional difficulties arising from the refusal of British Columbia to consent to a reference, having been encountered in dealing with that request, we resolved independently and directly to place a petition before His Majesty’s Privy Council. In following that course we desire to act to the fullest possible extent in harmony both with other tribes of British Columbia and with the Government of Canada.

We are informed that Mr. J. A. J. McKenna sent out by the Government of Canada has made a report in which he does not mention the claims which the Indians of the Province have been making for so many years, and assigns as the cause of all the trouble, the reversionary claim of the Province. Whatever other things Mr. McKenna found out during his stay, we are sure that he did not find out our mind or the real cause of the trouble. We are also informed of the agreement relating only to the so-called reserves which was entered into by Mr. McKenna and Premier McBride. We are glad from its provisions to know that the Province has expressed willingness to abandon to a large extent the reversionary claim which has been made. We cannot, however, regard that agreement as forming a possible basis for settling the land question. We cannot concede that the two Governments have power by the agreement in question or any other agreement to dispose of the so-called Reserves or any other lands of British Columbia, until the territory of each nation or tribe has been purchased by the Crown as required by the Proclamation of King George Third.

We are also informed that in the course of recent negotiations, the Government of British Columbia has contended that under the terms of Union the Dominion of Canada is responsible for making treaties with the Indian Tribes in settlement of their claims. This attempt to shift responsibility to Canada and by doing so render it more difficult for us to establish our rights, seems to us utterly unfair and unjustifiable. We cannot prevent the Province from persisting in this attempt, but we can and do respectfully declare that we intend to persist in making our claim against the Province of British Columbia for the following among other reasons:

1. We are advised that at the time of Confederation all lands embraced within our territory became the property of the province subject to any interest other than that of the province therein.
2. We have for a long time known that in 1875 the Department of Justice of Canada reported that the Indian Tribes of British Columbia are entitled to an interest in the lands of the province.
3. Notwithstanding the report then made and the position in accordance with that report consistently taken by every representative of Canada from the time of Lord Dufferin’s speeches until the spring of the present year, and in defiance of our frequent protests, the Province has sold a large proportion of the best lands of our territory and has by means of such wrongful sales received a large amount of money.
4. While we claim the right to be compensated for those portions of our territory which we may agree to surrender, we claim as even more important the right to reserve other portions permanently for our own use and benefit, and beyond doubt the portions which we would desire so to reserve would include much of the land which has been sold by the Province.

We are not opposed to the coming of the white people into our territory provided this be carried out justly and in accordance with the British principles embodied in the Royal Proclamation. If, therefore, as we expect, the aboriginal rights which we claim should be established by the decision of His Majesty’s Privy Council, we would be prepared to take a moderate and reasonable position. In that event, while claiming the right to decide for ourselves the terms upon which we would deal with our territory, we would be willing that all matters outstanding between the Province and ourselves should be finally adjusted by some equitable method to be agreed upon which should include representation of the Indian Tribes upon any Commission which then might be appointed.

The above statement was unanimously adopted at a meeting of the Nishga Nation or Tribe of Indians held at Kincolith on the 22nd day of January, 1913, and it was resolved that a copy of same be placed in the hands of each of the following:—The Secretary of State for the Colonies, the Prime Minister of Canada, the Minister of Indian Affairs, the Minister of Justice, Mr. J. M. Clark, K.C., Counsel for the Indian Rights Association of British Columbia, and the Chair-man of the ” Friends of the Indians of British Columbia.”

1. J. LINCOLN, Chairman of Meeting.

 

Xwe-Nal-Mewx Declaration, 1988

Tags

Coast Salish, Declaration, Sovereignty, Xwe Nal Mewx

Also called, Coast Salish Declaration

Begins:

“We know the Creator put us here. We know our Creator gave us laws that govern all our relationships to live in harmony with nature and mankind; defined our rights and responsibilities.

“We have the right to govern ourselves and the right to self-determination. Our rights and responsibilities cannot be altered or taken away by any other nation.

“We have our spiritual beliefs, our languages, our culture, and a place on Mother Earth which provides us with all our needs.

“We have maintained our freedom since time immemorial. …We declare and affirm to the people that… the Xwe-Nal-Mewx have held and till hold title to all lands, waters and resources within our traditional territories. ….”

Full text: xwe-nal-mewx-declaration-coast-salish

Musqueam Declaration 1976

musqueam-declaration-1976-low-resolution

 

Return of the Indian Agent?

Grand Chief Ed John recommends MCFD in every reserve community

In September of 2015, Grand Chief Ed John was hired by the province of British Columbia “to provide advice on how to address the inordinate number of Indigenous children in care of government.” For clarification, the BC government asked for advice from the Chair of the First Nations Summit on how to stop itself from forcibly removing the children of Indigenous nations.

On November 21, 2016, John’s report was released: “Indigenous Resilience, Connectedness and Reunification – From Root Causes to Root Solutions.” Unfortunately, it does not feature the most obvious solution to the problem – the solution proposed over and over by Indigenous leaders; the solution which families and communities have fought for, tooth and nail: the removal of state child-apprehension programs from interference among peoples with whom Canada has no treaty, and over whom Canada has no jurisdiction.

Instead, the report calls firstly for increased funding to the provincial Ministry of Child and Family Services, in order to support the presence of more government-accredited social workers in a Ministry office on every reserve. And lastly, for Canada-wide legislation dictating the terms by which Indigenous Peoples may participate in child welfare.

There is a vast disconnect between the stories reported and the recommendations ensuing. The stories: anger, heartbreak, loss and irreparable harm caused by all-powerful MCFD agents demanding nuclear-family scenarios from extended-family cultures.

The recommendations: nothing less than re-institution of the Indian Agent. The highest recommended level of community engagement is a “nation-to-nation” protocol between the Indigenous party and the MCFD regional office (which is not a nation). After that, in the long term, an Indigenous community can take steps to replace the on-reserve agent with a bureaucrat of their own making, following federal prescriptions for the fulfillment of Ministry requirements.

There are several further, eerie shades to this report. One appears in the opening paragraphs, where the late Tl’azt’en warrior Chief, Harry Pierre, is quoted: “In our time, the helpers would come to help the mother and father…they would remind the parents of their responsibility.” Ed John does not refer in his report to any character resembling a “helper,” such as is described by Pierre, except the newly mandated on-reserve social worker.

John avoids directly identifying the “root causes” of BC’s excessive child-removal program, except to hint that they were planted in Indigenous communities by the government. And now –however unexpectedly – he lays out an agenda whereby those causes are to be corrected by planting alongside them the government itself. Thus providing “root solutions.”

No part of these recommendations pursues Indigenous autonomy in their continuing, unsurrendered jurisdiction over these matters. Although UN declarations are referenced, the report’s recommendations ignore international recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ rights to self-determination, control of their lands and resources and their own natural wealth, and control of their own social, economic and cultural business. The report also ignores a bloody, sweaty, tearful and epic campaign by Indigenous nations to bring their children home.

 

Jurisdiction over Indigenous children

A handful of news articles have appeared on the release of this report, all relying entirely on phrases provided by the government and Ed John’s public remarks. The journalists do not include the hard facts of his main recommendations, but parrot the buzzword jargon which John provided in his summary: “the essence of his 85 recommendations is a call for a jurisdictional transfer of aboriginal child welfare from governments, federal and provincial, to indigenous communities themselves,” reported Vaughn Palmer in The Vancouver Sun.

There arises a problem with the definition of “jurisdiction,” which the Grand Chief does not condescend to clarify. Indigenous Peoples expect that “jurisdiction” means their inherent and internationally recognized right of self-determination – their full International Bill of Rights and the wealth of their natural resources that comes with. In this Special Advisor’s report, the word “jurisdiction” is apparently used to refer to “powers delegated to a First Nation by the federal government after agreements releasing and indemnifying the governments and anyone else for past harms, and after ratification of self-government agreements modifying the Aboriginal right to be the rights included in this Agreement, as funded by periodic arrangements with the provincial and federal governments.”

Grand Chief Ed John has had 25 years of experience in promoting these extinguishment agreements, in his role as Chair of the First Nations Summit. The Summit is the regulatory approval and promotion mechanism for First Nations to negotiate Final Agreements under the terms of the BC Treaty Commission. Recently the government has exchanged the word “extinguished” for the word “modified” to describe the transformation of Indigenous Peoples’ rights into “the rights specified in the Agreement.”

He reports on his meeting with the Nisga’a, the first to ratify a Final Agreement in BC, where there have been “no removals of Nisga’a children in the last six years,” and all “because of the existing relationship between Nisga’a and MCFD.” Presumably this is because of their Final Agreement, under the terms of which “workers in Nisga’a communities are hired as auxiliary employees with MCFD.”

This is an example of the highest expression of “jurisdiction” possible under Ed John’s recommendations.

This is a very unimpressive example because it is not entirely true. According to a young Nisga’a woman living in Vancouver, she and her new family have been harassed by MCFD since she was six months pregnant. The Ministry has exacted dreadful invasions of her life, all on pain of losing her infant child if she does not comply. When questioned about assistance available to her as a Nisga’a citizen, who one would expect to have benefit of this “all possible because of the existing relationship between Nisga’a and MCFD,” she explained that this was not considered a good or even viable option by other young Nisga’a families she had asked. This particular young woman is mature, extremely intelligent, capable, and focused on her son – but she made the mistake of reporting to an Aboriginal liaison worker that she had had a fight with her boyfriend.

“Jurisdiction” here means perhaps even less.

 

Government Approved

The BC government press release announcing the report also included the news that “Of the recommendations directed at MCFD, work on 40 of them is either being wrapped into the ministry’s multi-year operations plan or is currently underway.” It seems that the report has outlined some extremely achievable goals for the provincial government.

Or is that a bad translation? The report was also described by the province as a key to “improve outcomes for Indigenous children and youth by changing focus from intervention and separation to strengthening families.” However, there are no recommendations pertaining to this at all – except possibly #17, a reminder list of procedural obligations for BC judges, including that they should “make every possible effort to keep siblings together in their orders.” And possibly #37? Another $4 million to INAC and MCFD in “family preservation funding”?

The 220 page report is largely made up of highlighted quotes from BC’s Child Family and Community Services Act, and is perhaps most useful as a guide to the Act itself. Most of the recommendations concern implementing the Act at deeper and deeper levels within Indigenous communities. Focusing heavily on government handouts about its finer instruments of inducting Indigenous youth into state “care”, the report runs the gamut of ‘Delegated Aboriginal Agencies’ and ‘Aboriginal Operational and Practice Standards and Indicators’ and ‘Wrapping our Ways Around Them’ – a guidebook “based on the understanding that Aboriginal peoples need to understand how to work within the current systems.”

And here, after summarizing all these, the first Recommendation appears:

#1: MCFD and INAC invest in the development and delivery of child and family services directly within First Nations communities in BC, through the following specific actions:

• MCFD and INAC commit to invest an additional $8 million annually to increase the number of social workers, support workers, and others serving First Nations communities in BC by at least 92 FTEs over the next two years;
• MCFD take immediate action to ensure that the additional front-line staff identified above are placed directly within First Nations communities in BC;
• MCFD and INAC work together to ensure that a child and family liaison and advocate  is funded for each First Nation community  as a support service to parents, families, leaders, and members who require support within the community or to navigate the child  welfare system; and
• MCFD, with the objective of maximizing its child safety recruitment, review the entry-level qualifications for front-line workers to consider educational and experiential requirements for child safety positions.

Of all the grandmothers’ statements and community advocates’ outlines of internal remedy, those are not the characters elevated in the Grand Chief’s recommendations.

It is not until Recommendations 5 and 6 that First Nations – or any of them – are mentioned in the proposed new regime: their leaders should meet regularly with regional MCFD officers, and receive lists of the names of their children who are in state care.

A question arises concerning the discrepancy between the funding/hiring/state infrastructure recommendations, and contrary statements in the body of the report like this:

 As this report will illustrate, I do not believe it is sufficient to simply refine the            existing child welfare structure and authority base with an internally accountable quality assurance framework premised on greater centralization and improved lines of communication. Nor do I believe it will suffice to simply deploy more university-educated social workers, who – though often well intentioned – are without the knowledge and understanding of the Indigenous peoples with whom they work. A bigger and brighter version of the existing children welfare system will not address the concerns or meet the expectations of those Indigenous peoples with whom I met over the course of my engagements as Special Advisor.

And the question is this: did the same person who wrote that statement also write the recommendations? Because the recommendations are all about, are only about, expanding the existing structure; deploying more social workers; and delegating a “refined” version of the existing framework to Indigenous administration.

 

The Role of Special Advisor

John’s unique commission as “Special Advisor” started two months before his colleague, Bob Plecas, released his commissioned report on the same subject of child welfare. That report is unique in that it attached a dollar figure to the MCFD’s annual operating budget in BC: $2 billion. However, because of a self-disclosed business approach to the matter, when the Plecas Report came out in December, 2015, Indigenous leaders described is as “callous” and “ignorant”, as well as publicly urging John to remove himself from the situation and distance himself from the report. He did neither.

At least one Indigenous organization objected to this Special Advisor role early in the process. The Chilliwack Progress reported: “A resolution approved by Sto:lo Tribal Council is calling for Grand Chief Edward John to step down from his MCFD advisor role… The issues they raise about Chief John have to do with the irreconcilable contradiction between his role as MCFD advisor, as well as a B.C. Leadership Council and First Nations Summit Task Group member: “The Minister and Deputy Minister have stated in writing and in public that they are not required to consult First Nations leaders and organizations such as the First Nations Health Council because they hired Grand Chief Edward John.””

Others have commented in social media outlets since the release of the report. “Indigenous child welfare requires traditional ways, not white government interference!” exclaimed Hereditary Chief Kakila of Tenas Lake, St’at’imc. “The First Nations Summit is about money, not about solutions for community needs. In order to protect the child you must first protect the parents! You must build a healthy community that is the family structure! A child needs love, kindness and nurture – not millions of dollars for social workers!”

The First Nations Summit, the center of John’s career, is the state-constituted body which represents First Nations in BC treaty negotiations. This is not widely regarded as authentic representation of Indigenous peoples, although the BC government has always allowed the lines to blur: “Ed John has no mandate to represent anything. Another Christy Clark scam.” – Morris Amos, Haisla.

As to the legal reality of Indigenous Peoples’ jurisdiction, some traditional leaders are grim: “Unceded lands but tightly in the grip of these Uncle Tomahawks and Christy Clark. And they ignore us hereditary chiefs. There’s no way to get at them. It would take an organizing effort of epic proportions to combat this government-funded machine with so many entrenched “Grand Chiefs” and all those lofty titles they give themselves.” – Ron George, Hereditary leader from the Deskayway House of Wet’suwet’en:

 

A Note on the Cipher

Entrenched dominance jargon throws shade on the few bright Indigenous-led initiatives that are barely referenced in the Grand Chief’s report. In one of the only references to authentic Indigenous aspirations, John couches the internationally recognized Indigenous Peoples’ right of self-determination within Canadian-defined “self-government.” He literally presents the notion of “a First Nation to move toward fully exercising its right of self-determination as an aspect of self-government.”

In order to crack this code language, one must appreciate that whatever the government of Canada recognizes as an Aboriginal right, in this case “self-government” (now defined by the “First Nations Governance Act”), is therefore something that can only be safely exercised in a manner in which Canada approves and recognizes and legislates it. It is simply an act of deception to include the words “self-determination” in a context which precludes the meaning of that right.

In order to understand Grand Chief John’s report, one must have several elite keys to decipher the code. For example, a deconstruction of this paragraph:

“The report, however, also recognizes and speaks to the period of transition currently underway as Indigenous peoples and communities transition away from governance under the Indian Act, and work to rebuild our governance capacity, core governance institutions, and assert our jurisdiction based on the needs and priorities determined by our own communities. In recognition of this important period of transition, and motivated by the desire that no child, parent, family, or community be left behind, the report also recommends specific shorter-term actions that should be taken to improve legislative and administrative measures relating to the welfare of Indigenous children, families, and communities.”

 

Key:

“period of transition” = implementation of former Prime Minister Harper’s Bill C-45 omnibus legislation which sparked the Idle No More movement in reaction to its sweeping codification of limited and delegated Aboriginal rights, such as in the cutting of Constitutional Non-Derogation clauses; the First Nations Financial Transparency Act; First Nations Governance Act; First Nations Land Management Act; First Nations Education Act; etc.   * also implementation of the federal government’s “Secret” (otherwise unnamed) document on adapting federal policy to “reconciliation” following the Supreme Court rulings on Haida  and Taku in 2004.

“away from governance under the Indian Act” = towards Final Agreements in the BC treaty process and under the federal Comprehensive Claims Policy (extinguishment agreements), and effectively into corporate entities with municipal status under provincial legislations

“rebuild our governance capacity” = turn Indian Act Bands into corporate models under the First Nations Governance Act, exercising “Aboriginal rights” as allowed and delegated by Canada

“our jurisdiction” = meaning, post-transition delegated powers

“specific shorter-term actions” = also known as “Interim Measures” in the BC treaty process, referring to unilateral administrative actions, deals and programs by the state

“legislative and administrative measures” = actions taken by the state

“welfare of Indigenous children, families, and communities” = no clear meaning. When this phrase follows a recipe for assimilation into Canadian minority status such as in the paragraph above, “welfare” probably literally means measurable statistics and indicators such as educational achievement, life expectancy and economic status comparable to other Canadians, measured according to Canadian values rather than Indigenous values (which would also include identity, language, autonomy, independence, ecological sustainability, cultural cohesion)

 

The report is a collection of headlines unsupported by corroborating details. This way, a reporter can reference these headlines as if they are representative of the content of his report. Except the black and white recommendations, which do not support the headlines.

This is a writing genre that Ed John has perfected over many years of his career in the Indian Industry. John has dispersed empty rhetoric, while never taking any action whatsoever, as the Chair of the First Nations Summit; as BC Minister for Children and Families; as a member of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues – in which capacity he often and profoundly misrepresented events in the state of Canada, most notably in his characterization of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a product of Indigenous decision.

The trouble with having such a career is that this tradesman actually depends on continuing, even enriching the Indian Industry. Or, as a comparable character, a junior minister in the BC cabinet, once put it: “It’s not about making it work – it’s about keeping it working.”

 

 

For relevant and meaningful reports on Indigenous mobilization to re-take control of their children and families, please see a developing archive on the subject of Canada’s forcibly removing Indigenous children from their homes and families: State of Indigenous Child Removal ihraamorg.wordpress.com

 

A timeline to put the Grand Chief’s recommendations in historical context:

• In 1920 the Canadian legacy began, with enforcing attendance of all Indian children in Indian Residential Schools. This was, as we know, “to kill the Indian in the child” and make sure there would be “no more Indian problem.”
• Into the 1960s, enforced attendance was relaxed and some children did not go to IRS.
• In the 1960s and 70s, tens of thousands of Indigenous children were kidnapped from public places, from maternity wards, and from homes by state officials mandated to find neglect and remove children to non-native homes, severed from all knowledge of their true identity.
• From the 1970s to present, the state has imposed impossible criteria on Indigenous families to keep their children, with no accountability, apparently, to anyone, and no real recourse for families. The only “deliverable” appears to be the children themselves: out of their communities and into foreign homes.
• In 2016, Ed John recommends that the Ministry responsible for half a century of forcible removal of children be located by satellite offices directly inside Indigenous communities, thus rooting government control of family life in the heart of the community. With the option for Indigenous Peoples to eventually run that particular machine themselves, by agreement, and be accountable to Canadian taxpayers.

“Reconciliation” arose as Federal Policy after Haida and Taku legal victories

2004

This federal policy draft, attached here, marks a major shift in Canada. The new strategy to “quiet” Indigenous titles and rights is by mutual agreement: “in the spirit of reconciliation.”

secret-fed-policy-doc-september-10-2004-re-haida-and-taku

Finally realizing the Supreme Court of Canada’s repeated emphasis on “reconciliation”, which can be negotiated, the federal government revised its policies away from denial and towards vague statements of recognition. Along a program of “the concept of reconciliation,” Canada has been advancing Final Agreements and self-government agreements with renewed urgency, since the Haida people’s success in gaining the court’s recognition of their land rights.

Streams of government agreements with Indigenous Peoples, including agreements about child welfare, education, compensation for forestry operations, health care, land management, governance, and financial obligations have now, in specific instances, conceded key areas of Indigenous jurisdiction to Canada. Indigenous ratification of agreements with Canada, or even provinces or territories, becomes a reciprocal recognition. Whereas most peoples and nations never gave their countries away, nor struck a bargain with Canada for shared ownership, in the absence of constructive arrangements these agreements specifically require an Indigenous party to recognize Canadian interests. Once they are signed, and funding programs have shipped, these agreements are not constitutionally protected and “reconciliation” has no legal character.

Since 2004 we have seen “reconciliation” enter the scene to draw attention away from unilateral assertions of Indigenous rights on the ground, and away from litigation to prove claims. Instead: the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where no more charges were to be laid in the trial of the residential schools; the flopped Recognition and Reconciliation Act in British Columbia, where a runaway band of elected Chiefs purported to provide recognition of Crown interests in unsurrendered territories; even “reconciliation in child welfare” – a numbing phrase designed to force Indigenous communities to accept existing Ministry interference as the baseline for ‘moving forward’; and so on.

And now we know that many Indigenous leaders have been complicit in those programs while they were completely aware that this is Canada’s strategy to side-step the Indigenous right. It was the Union of BC Indian Chiefs that copied and distributed this secret draft policy document in 2004. Attached above, it has been scanned and transcribed with OCR to recreate the original document. The draft spells out the fact that Canada is in a perilous legal and financial place, with investment evaporating every time Indigenous Peoples win in court – and that future wins are stacked up like an avalanche waiting to happen – and a big diversion is needed.

“Reconciliation” is now entering every area of “Aboriginal rights” negotiations – rights which can be exercised as Aboriginal Canadians – but it is a function of assimilating Indigenous nations into Canada. No one is really prepared to stand up and say “we don’t want reconciliation,” for obvious reasons.

But in this situation, Canada is abusing the concept to shame Indigenous leaders and representatives into subjugating themselves to Canada. Their nations never joined Canada – they were invaded and looted by Canada. And now the self-proclaimed country, having thrown its borders up around all these nations, wants to marry the one it robbed so there can be no more talk about separate possessions and interests and the little matter of injury.

“Reconciliation” is the New Deal. Canada is trying to buy land – and buy the people who own the land – with the promise that it will share the wealth once it has the deed.

North American Indian Nation Government

The Second Session, held in Detroit Michigan, USA, at the Wolverine Hotel, September 1947

north-american-indian-government-2nd-session-1947-from-ubcic-archive

Excerpt, first paragraphs:

This National Indian Government which did not exist since 1763 has re-established in June 21, 1945, a great meeting was held at the Chateau Laurier in the City of Ottawa, Canada.

All the delegates who did attend the meeting at that time, they have all discussed their situation so, when they all realized that the Federal Government do not treat the Indian population with justice then they all decided to approve a National Indian Government established by the Indian and for the Indian, immediately they all voted for a new Indian Constitution act, right there the Indian Government was re-established…

…all the delegates present at that time did approve the first Indian law book to interest all the Indian people to read and learn what this National Indian Government expects to do for his people in the future.

At the Second Session, the following were elected:

Supreme Chief: Bernard Commanda, Nipissing Lake

Assistant Supreme Chief: John Chabot, Maniwaki Band

Secretary-Treasurer: Jules Sioui, Lorette Band

Assistant Secretary-Treasurer: Silver Star (E. Matteson), Pontiac Branch Band

 

Article 1. The Indian language has to be taught in the school by the teacher to safeguard the National Indian language(s).

1.A. Chief and Council of each Band has to govern the school, the teacher, and anything else that may pertain to the education of their children.

Note the report of the meeting was published in English and French in a single volume.