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of the day, June 26 2019:: Here is the case being argued by the three
Indigenous Networks, Defenders of the
Land, Truth Campaign and IIdle No More, against the Trudeau government’s Policy
of Reconciliation with indigenous people, which they call a Termination Policy
2.0, since they regard it as nothing more than a continuation of the
50-year-old White Paper issued in 1969 that proposed abolition of Indians and
their special status, and their treaties, and their Inherent Rights and
Treaties.
I
am happy to hand over my Chronicles for today to this press release by these three important indigenous activists:
Indigenous Activists Networks
Defenders of the Land, Truth Campaign, Idle
No More
PRESS RELEASE
On 50th Anniversary of the 1969 White Paper
on Indian Policy, Indigenous Activists Networks Condemn the Trudeau
Government’s Termination Legislation
Turtle
Island/June 25, 2019) 50 years ago today, under a government led by Prime
Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, the Minister of Indian Affairs, Jean Chretien,
stood in the House of Commons and introduced a Statement of the Government of
Canada on Indian Policy.
1969 White Paper on Indian Policy
The White Paper proposed
the Termination of “Indians” through various measures to “end the legal
distinction between Indians and Canadian citizens.”
The 1969 White Paper
proposed:
• Eliminate Indian Status.
• Dissolve the Department of Indian Affairs
within 5 years.
• Abolish the Indian Act & remove
Constitutional Reference to Indian & Indian Reserve Land.
• Convert reserve land to private property
that can be sold by the band or its members.
• Transfer responsibility for Indian Affairs
from the federal government to the province and integrate these services into
those provided to other Canadian citizens.
• Provide transitional funding for economic
development.
• Appoint a commissioner to end outstanding
land claims and gradually terminate existing Treaties.
The reaction from First
Nations was swift and furious across Canada.
Cree Leader Harold Cardinal
compared the White Paper to the American policy that “The only good Indian is a
dead Indian” and said “Chretien had amended this to read "The only good
Indian is a non-Indian.” In the face of the fierce opposition the government
publicly withdrew the White Paper in 1971. However, internal correspondence
from within the Department of Indian Affairs shows the 1969 federal Termination
Plan has remained the federal objective.
As DIA Assistant Deputy Minister (Indian
Consultation and Negotiation) David A. Munro, wrote in a 1970 letter to the DIA
Deputy Minister, not to abandon the White Paper Plan but to change tactics
"We need not change the policy content,
but we should put varying degrees of emphasis on its several components and we should try to discuss it in terms of its
components rather than as a whole. [emphasis added]
This was
followed by a 1971 letter from the Minister of Indian Affairs, Jean Chretien to
Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau confirming continuation of the White Paper Plan:
…we are deliberately furthering an
evolutionary process of provincial and Indian inter-involvement by promoting
contacts at every opportunity at all levels of government, at the same time
recognizing the truth of the matter – that progress will take place in
different areas in different ways at a different pace. Experience shows that
the reference of a time frame in the policy paper of 1969 was one of the prime
targets of those who voiced the Indian opposition to the proposals. The course upon which we are now embarked
seems to present a more promising approach to the long-term objectives than
might be obtained by setting specific deadlines for relinquishing federal
administration. [emphasis added]
Today, on the 50th
Anniversary of the 1969 White Paper on Indian Policy we are facing the
implementation of White Paper 2.0 by the current Trudeau government!
What is White Paper 2.0?
It’s Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau’s Recognition and Implementation
of Indigenous Rights Framework, which involves co-opting the Assembly of
First Nations to use them as a springboard to manufacture consent through
various co-development tables and processes giving the illusion that Indigenous
Nations want these Bills, policies and changes. The Federal Government is
imposing an overwhelming “shock and awe” strategy of massive changes to
legislation, policies and new funding agreements that are designed by the Prime
Ministers’ Office and the federal bureaucracy to complete the
assimilation-Termination objectives of the 50 year old 1969 White Paper on Indian Policy.
Justin Trudeau’s version of
the longstanding federal Termination Plan, which he calls the Recognition and Implementation of
Indigenous Rights Framework, was first announced on February 14, 2018 with
the goal to remove bands from the Indian Act and turn them into federally
recognized “Indigenous Governments” or “Nations” that will have self-government given to them as defined by the
Government of Canada. They will be
subject to the Canadian Constitution as a 4th order of government—below
federal and provincial governments and with less power than municipal
governments.
The Trudeau government has
delayed the “Rights Recognition“ legislation because it was widely rejected by
First Nation Peoples and Chiefs across Canada. Now the government is taking
advantage of our poverty to change administrative agreements and funding that
forces us to accept policies that impact our sacred Treaties & Inherent
Title & Rights, while directly attacking our sovereign jurisdiction. This
is genocide through law and policy!
Moreover, the Trudeau
government is now proceeding to implement its White Paper 2.0 Framework in a piecemeal approach that involves: 1)
issuing a one-sided Directive to Federal
Negotiators who preside over “Land Claims”, Self-Government &
“Recognition Tables”, 2) new coercive
funding policies, including 10 year funding agreements & new funding
arrangements and 3) through the following Termination
Bills that passed into law on June 21, 2019:
Bill C-97
– On August 28, 2017, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the federal
government was dissolving the Department of Indian Affairs & Northern
Development and creating two new federal departments: one for Indigenous Services and one for Crown-Indigenous Relations. The
legislation to make this happen is buried within the April 2019 omnibus budget
bill now before parliament without any debate from Indigenous peoples. This
federal restructuring of government is central to the Trudeau government’s White Paper 2.0 Framework approach to
Indigenous policy, law, funding and is unilaterally defining a “new”
relationship with Indigenous Peoples (First Nations, Metis & Inuit). 3
Bill C-86
– a 900 page Omnibus Bill that became law in December 2018, making substantive
amendments to the: First Nations Land
Management Act, First Nation Fiscal Management Act, Additions to Reserve and
First Nation Matrimonial Property Act – all of this legislation facilitates
eliminating reserves by transitioning communally held reserve lands into a new
land regime that eventually leads to individually held private property (fee
simple) that would come under provincial laws and lands registry.
Bills
C-91/92 – language and child welfare legislation are intended to take our
existing Inherent Rights and convert them into federally defined section 35
rights, which are subsumed under Crown Sovereignty (to be dictated by the
limitations stemming from section 35 federal doctrine/court decisions), as well
as, provincial controls into Indigenous jurisidiction.
This suite of federal
legislation will now be used by the federal government to continue the attack
on our sacred Treaties, Inherent Title & Rights and sovereign jurisdiction,
particularly with the creation of two new federal departments (Indigenous
Services & Crown-Indigenous Relations) to continue to implement the 1969
White Paper objectives through the current Trudeau government’s White Paper 2.0 Framework (2019).
Although the current
Trudeau government was able to push its Termination Bills through Parliament
our Resistance Campaign will continue to support our grassroots Peoples in
their exercise of the right of selfdetermination as Indigenous Peoples!
We note from the AFN
Website, the 40th Annual General
Assembly of the Assembly of First Nations will be held July 23-25, in
Fredericton, New Brunswick and “only Chiefs will be allowed in the main
plenary”, so ask your Chief and Council what are they doing to stop White Paper 2.0?
We remember June 25, 1969,
as a dark day of infamy in the history of Canada’s Plan to Terminate our
collective rights! We survived into today because of the fierceness of our
parents and grandparents in opposing it and this is our inspiration in our
continuing fight against this the new offensive to convert us from being
Indigenous Peoples into becoming ethnic minorities as Indigenous-Canadians.
-30-
FOR MORE INFORMATION
CONTACT:
Communications Contact: E-Mail:
info@IdleNoMore.ca Sylvia McAdam, Idle No More Organizer, Cell: (306) 281-8158
Rachel Snow, Spokesperson,
Cell: (403) 703-8464
Russ Diabo, Spokesperson,
Cell: (613) 296-0110
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