Tag Archives: Federal Liberals Comprehensive Claims Policy

Reconciliation means Municipalization

29 Friday Sep 2023

Posted by in Reconciliation

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

Part 5 of this week’s blog, No More “Reconciliation Sticks”

In the 1970s, at least one informant in the Canadian government was relaying the state’s plans to Indigenous political leaders.

        The obvious question is, why did the Governors Attorney and General, the Superintendents, judges and Ministers have secret plans?

In one easily cracked nutshell, the Canadian state was already wildly liable for attacking the British Crown’s “Allies; the Tribes and Indian nations with whom We are Connected” – and fur trading partners – in their own protected territories, so peace and good faith would be hard to recover. And because, in the case of the Colony of British Columbia, the British wouldn’t give them any money for Treaties. So the politicians and judges could not very well speak out about what they had in mind – at least not plainly.

The many-headed word “reconciliation” aids them there.

In Canada, it has taken three centuries of brutal tactics, and the martial law of Indian Act Band Councils, and the colony has still not convinced the nations to become consenting colonial districts.

Today, Canada is more desperate than ever to manufacture this consent.

Using the “concept of reconciliation,” among many coercive tactics, a replacement Indian Act targets Indigenous communities under duress.

            Attempting to transform constitutionally and internationally protected peoples, owners of rich and substantial land bases, into virtually landless provincial municipalities, Canada has passed into law an entire framework to replace the Indian Act. You may remember the First Nations Governance Act, revised; the First Nations Fiscal Accountability Act; the First Nations Land Management Act, et al, as the omnibus Bill C-45, 2012, which sparked the Idle No More protests.

            The crucial difference with this municipalization plan, is that the present day First Nations’ entry into confederation would be achieved by consent. Consent to the state and recognition of “crown interests” are achieved incrementally in delegated jurisdiction agreements concerning education, child welfare, housing, health, and such; as well as in negotiation of land claims under the 1974(78) Comprehensive Claims Policy and the 1995 Inherent Rights Policy (the leading extinguishment programmes in Canada today),

There, reconstituted under Canadian law – having ratified an individual First Nation constitution; having released and indemnified the colonizers; having accepted cash as the full and final settlement of Aboriginal rights – the First Nations will be outnumbered in provincial unions of municipalities. There, First Nations will be dependent on five-year provincial funding agreements and occasional aid for natural disasters, and will not retain their autonomy, or sovereignty, or even those controversial Aboriginal rights.

Today’s article looks at the mechanism of the “concept of reconciliation” at play in the municipalization of Indigenous communities. Municipalization is the only future, under Canada’s runaway judges, consistent with their regularized practice of complete abrogation and derogation from “Aboriginal and treaty rights.” It is the only possibility that conforms to the reconciliation program, as described by the Supreme Court of Canada.

            It will not be achieved by any means consistent with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

            But hey, if First Nations want to make Final Agreements that extinguish their rights, who’s to stop them.

From unilateral legislation to coercion

So, in the 1970s, Walter Rudnicki was working for the federal government. He shared confidential information with the leaders of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs. He confirmed the intention of Canada to finally coerce the assimilation of every Indian Band as a provincial municipality, and thereby liberate itself from the burden of acquiring title. A consensual union would also indemnify the state of past harms.

Here’s the setting.

            The legendary 1969 White Paper, the Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy, had just failed spectacularly up: forging extensive political allegiances from coast to coast to coast. It had been a play to unilaterally assimilate the nations by legislation, demolishing the Indian Act and every line of constitutional ink that described the burden of legally acquiring title to the Indian territories.

            The Nishga case, Calder v. The Attorney General of British Columbia, got a 1973 admission from the Supreme Court of Canada that Aboriginal title continues to exist in Canada, unextinguished.

            Trudeau the First and his Minister of Indian Affairs, Jean Chretien, passed the federal Comprehensive Claims Policy within the year. Any Indigenous nation could apply within the process it enabled, and they could get small cash and smaller land deeds as a final settlement of their title, rights, and interests in the surrendered area.

The Comprehensive Claims Policy, 1978 update, is the leading negotiating policy today.

Indigenous leaders did not particularly need an inside informant to confirm the meaning and intent of that. But it may have been helpful, in some cases, to have a little advance warning of the next strategy being formulated.

            It was helpful in 1981, in the case of Trudeau’s next best plan, the attempt to get a new Constitution from Britain: one which did not include any obligations to the now occupied nations.

            It was helpful in 2009, when British Columbia had tried to simply legislate the Bands under provincial jurisdiction.

Someone gave the Union of BC Indian Chiefs a copy of the September, 2004 “Secret Framework for Renewing Canada’s Policies with Respect to Aboriginal and Treaty Rights.” Emphasis in the original.

The draft Framework begins by reminding us that the Speech from the Throne, April 2004, stressed finding more efficient ways of concluding self-government agreements. (Self-government means municipalization under Canadian law and abandonment of original Indigenous titles and jurisdictions, at least the way Canada uses the term.)

            It mentions the “sectoral follow-up table on expediting land claims,” which are “a key component for transforming relationships.” (That is, until First Nations abandon original claims and accept delegated Canadian authorities in Final Agreements, they won’t get any.)

            It says,

“The Speech from the Throne and the establishment of the sectoral table on land claims and self-government reflects the reality that establishing cooperative relationships with Aboriginal peoples on quality of life issues must be underpinned by effective policies and processes for addressing Aboriginal and treaty rights.” (That is, there won’t be any improvement in on-Reserve quality of life until extinguishment agreements are signed – as above.)

            The Aboriginal participants at the same sectoral follow-up voiced the exact opposite set of priorities:

“Aboriginal groups emphasized that joint work on quality of life issues must be situated in the broader transformative agenda based on recognition and respect for Aboriginal and treaty rights.”

The secret draft writers resolved that stitch by reminding the secret reader,

“The Supreme Court of Canada has stated that the basic purpose of section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, is the reconciliation of the pre-existence of Aboriginal societies with the sovereignty of the crown. Reconciliation has become the key organizing principle which the courts have used in addressing issues related to Aboriginal and treaty rights.” (That is, the court has taken the political lead and reduced legal rights to issues, so the government’s job is just to follow suit.)

            Note: We looked at that in Part 2 – Theft by Chief Justice, where the term “reconciliation” was coined.

The 2009 British Columbia “Recognition and Reconciliation Legislation” was crafted under Premier Gordon Campbell and his cabinet of hungry skeletons, particularly Mike deJong, Wally Oppal, and former QC Geoff “they never had any title and if they did it was extinguished by the presence of the crown” Plant.

            This legislative flop was certainly influenced by the 2004 secret plan – if nothing else, it must have been lent audacity. The province’s 2009 Re&Re Legislation even came with sign-off from the First Nations Leadership Council (FNLC)[i] and their lawyers from Mandell Pinder.

            Only thing was, the FNLC hadn’t mentioned anything about the legislation to its members, or their respective peoples and constituents, when the right honourable Mike deJong announced to media the “seismic shift” that was about to occur in BC.

            And consent is sacrosanct. The bluff was called, retracted, and turned to ash – like the White Paper Policy 1969.

            The government’s only working plan now is coercion.

Instead of consent, all these years, there’s only forcible imposition

Canada has forcibly imposed the Indian Reserve and Indian Band structures – on non-treaty and treaty nations alike.

            British Columbia plays a huge part in the necessity that mothered that invention.

The province of BC was written into existence in 1858, unbeknownst to any Indigenous leaders west of the Rockies, by the Queen of the British Empire – precisely one-half the circumference of the globe away. Then she forgot about it, and nobody in England wanted to pay for treaties there.

            There is no need for me to re-write what happened once the Indigenous protest reached a critical level. This is from Bruce Clark’s “The Error in the Tsilhqot’in Case,” 2018:

“In 1874 British Columbia enacted a Crown Lands Act that regarded all crown land as if it were public land available for disposition, even though the land is part of the continental reserve for the Nations or Tribes of Indians, not being “ceded to, or purchased by Us.” In a report to the Canadian Privy Council, Attorney General Télésphore Fournier recommended disallowance under section 90 of the Constitution Act, 1867, on the ground of conflict with the proclamation and section 109. The report was approved in a Minute in Council dated 23rd January 1875 and endorsed by the Governor General.”

“British Columbia then made a proposal to Canada to resolve the Indian problem by establishing a commission to investigate and “set apart” provincial Crown lands as “reserves” for Indian use. This led directly to the Indian Act, 1876. The Acting Minster of Interior Affairs in a report dated 5th November 1875 recommended approval of the provincial plan, which was done by the Canadian Privy Council pursuant to Minute in Council dated 10th November 1875. This entailed leaving the originally disallowed Crown Lands Act to its operation, i.e., reviving it. Attorney General Fournier was elevated to the Supreme Court and was replaced in office by Attorney General Edward Blake. Blake reported under letter dated 6th May 1876 to the Governor General explaining that “Great inconvenience and confusion might result from its disallowance.” As recommended, on second thought, the Governor General did leave the statute to its operation. Treaties were not made thereafter in mainland British Columbia. There was no need, since all Crown land was thereafter unconstitutionally regarded as public land available for disposition. It was as if the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and the “subject to” proviso in section 109, BNA Act, duly had been repealed or had never existed.”

When Canada passed the Indian Act, everything an Indigenous nation would need to do to survive was criminalized. In the legislation, Indians were defined negatively as “a person is anyone other than an Indian.”

If Indigenous Nations didn’t consent to be governed by the Indian Act, why go along with it?

Because someone had to take those roles in the leadership and administration of the office; in the Band Council.

            No, they really had to.

You can’t have an economy based on the resources in a few acres of Indian Reserve, and you’re not allowed to sell anything anyway. Not even vegetables or produce, when it makes competition for settlers at their markets.

            In 1935 the Indian Act was amended to reflect that there must be one (1) Chief Counselor per Band, and that he should be elected by popular vote, in the prescribed fashion. This did not resemble any Indigenous structures.

            But without that, the Band can not receive the relief funds provided by the government which took their land. That relief program started approximately at the time the plains peoples were starving because the settlers wiped out the buffalo… to make sure they would starve.

            In BC, it started in 1927, after DC Scott and his colleagues in the Judicial Committee, in Ottawa, dismissed the Claims of the Allied Indian Tribes, formally. The relief was the “BC Special” – $100,000 per year, “In lieu of treaties.”

            There were more than 200 Bands at that time. The <$500 per Indian Band per year, a pittance – and most of it paid to the Minister of the Interior to administrate the fund, hasn’t quite kept up with inflation here in 2023.

This is what makes things like “economic reconciliation” sound attractive to First Nations. This is how “the reconciliation of aboriginal societies with the sovereignty of the crown” is achieved: under duress.

Pitawanakwat, 2000

In an Oregon County court, Justice Stewart compared OJ Pitawanakwat’s situation in Canada with members of the Irish Republican Army in Ireland. She found it was manifestly the same. Just as Spain refused, in the 1990s, to extradite IRA members to Britain, Justice Stewart refused Canada’s extradition request.

            Pitawanakwat was present at the Gustafsen Lake police siege, 1995, and had subsequently been charged, detained, and released on bail after two years. He fled to the USA.

            Now, because of the facts that “his conviction was of a political character,” and in a “politically charged climate,” were recognized by an American judge, he lives there still, unable to return home to Anishinabek territory.

At Gustafsen Lake, they said no to the Indian Act; they said no to municipalization; and they said no to extinguishment in full and final settlements. The Attorney General declared war on them.

“We’re not going to agree to anything that will affect our economy.”

Thus spake the province’s negotiator at the St’át’imc Chiefs Council protocol table, in 2008. He might as well have been speaking on behalf of the Canadian state.

The “reconciliation” proposed by Canada would be achieved, if ever, because it is the only prescription for change that Canada will agree to. And that change is: Indigenous nations must submit to their bisection and reduction to scattered postage-stamp communities, where less than a quarter of their own Band membership has room (or housing) to live. They also must relinquish all claims against the province, the state, and “anyone else” for past harm. They must reconstitute themselves, starting with a new Constitution for each First Nation, and enter the hallowed halls of the Union of BC Municipalities.

The conditions under which that kind of “consent” would be achieved, would not hold up under international scrutiny.

It would be achieved under a colonially imposed, extra-legal regime, rather than by authentic governance procedures. It would be achieved by denying Indigenous titles, and capitalizing on the financial ruin which has resulted from this. It would be achieved by refusing to recognize authentic and legitimate holders of the rights to political decisions, who can be marginalized by the imposed ratification procedures.

But, to the great credit of humanity – which will go down in history forever – Indigenous Peoples may be cash poor, but they’ll surely survive these lean, mean years and live their own way.

Thank you very much for reading. Takem i nsnukw’nukw’a.

[i] Executives of the First Nations Summit (BC Treaty Process); Assembly of First Nations (BC region); and Union of BC Indian Chiefs.

“I guess you had more rights than we thought”

21 Wednesday Jun 2023

Posted by in Commentary, editorial, Comprehensive Claims - Policy and Protest

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

Fifty years since Calder v. The Attorney General of British Columbia: how Canadian policies – and judges – adapted to delay and deny recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ land title

On January 31, 1973, Indigenous people’s unextinguished right to “possession” of their lands was recognized in a Canadian court for the first time.

Three Supreme Court of Canada judges reasoned that the Indigenous Nisga’a People had never lost to British Columbia their “possession of the land,” and had the continuing “rights to enjoy the fruits of” their land.     

In the case presented by the Nisga’a nation, with Frank Calder as the name plaintiff, the people established that their ancient rights to the soil had not, could not have been, diminished by any unilateral pronouncements or colonial legislative acts: the Nisga’a had never freely relinquished, sold, or made treaty to surrender them.

Supreme Court of Canada justices Hall, Spence, and Laskin wrote 50 of 72 pages in the Calder ruling, finding in favour of that position, as per the Canadian constitution.

The court ruling was split, however. Three judges ruled Nisga’a had no title and, if it ever did, the presence of a British colony nullified it. The seventh judge refused to decide, based on a procedural anomaly.

Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s reaction was to say, “I guess you had more rights than we thought, when we did the White Paper in ’69.” Unfortunately, the exact purpose of the federal government’s 1969 position and policy was to erase those rights which they were well aware had never been addressed.

Some politicians were more responsive. Because of the court finding in the Nass Valley case, the former prime minister John Diefenbaker immediately addressed the government, asking that the question of Aboriginal rights be referred to a full bench of nine Supreme Court of Canada judges “as this question can be settled once and for all.” The Justice Minister, Otto Lang, said he would consider the suggestion.

The judges were very responsive. In the past fifty years, the Canadian judiciary has defined that title down.

The politicians did not refer the question, they constructed a policy even more dangerous than their 1969 White Paper. The Comprehensive Claims Policy, a process of extinguishing Aboriginal title and rights by agreement, emerged in 1974 and is still the government’s bottom line. It predetermines the result of every engagement with Indigenous Peoples where land and jurisdiction are concerned: gains in Canadian titles to land, financial settlement, and limited forms of municipal self-governance are paid for by release of Aboriginal rights and indemnification of the governments – and “anyone else” – for past harm.

The agreements are invariably negotiated under duress: under the conditions of poverty and desperation imposed by another unconstitutional action, the Indian Act of 1876. Also, still in effect.

“Extinguishment with consent” remains Canada’s policy and enthusiastic practice to date. It has been heavily criticized by international treaty bodies for at least twenty years.

Government policy has been mirrored by the Canadian judiciary. In case after case, they defined “Aboriginal title” into something quite different.

Judge made law

In every Indigenous action that followed Calder, government lawyers began their argument by quoting Justice Gould of the BC Supreme Court, who made the original ruling of dismissal against the Nisga’a in 1969. Lawyers for the crown all began their prosecution of Indigenous land-defenders and rights-exercisers, or their defense against being sued for land and rights, by saying: if there was ever any right or title to extinguish, then any Aboriginal rights or titles were extinguished by denial, declarations, or legislation of the Imperial or provincial crowns.

But, since 1973 and the epic realization that if the Nisga’a had title, so did every other Indigenous Nation west of the Rockies, by the same logic, the Canadian judiciary began to define that title out of reach and out of all meaning.

Ignoring the clearly and passionately iterated expressions of the meaning of Indigenous titles, offered over the last century-and-a-half by Indigenous Peoples themselves, judges dismiss essential elements of those as “absurd;” they sift out definitions of Aboriginal rights which are not too inconvenient for the state; and the politicians pass legislation to mechanize pacification of the piecemeal rights arising from the litigation.

Judges confirmed that Aboriginal rights are sui generis: Aboriginal rights and titles are just not like other peoples’ rights and titles, in Canadian Pacific Ltd. V. Paul, 1988. They made lists of requirements about what Indigenous Peoples have to prove in order to convince courts they have rights, like exclusive and continuing and exclusive occupation, in Baker Lake v. The Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, 1980. That becomes quite hard to show, when communities were forcibly displaced and replaced by settlers.

In R. v. Adams, 1996, judges said Aboriginal title, being unlike other peoples’ titles, is actually a form of Aboriginal right. They defined what “the core of Indianness” means, in Dick v. The Queen, 1985.

They figured out that Aboriginal rights are only those activities which were in play in 1846, effectively freezing Aboriginal Peoples out of the right to develop and to have that development recognized as within their rights.

The judiciary then put themselves, and Canada, squarely in charge of elaborating on the constitution, where it concerns Indigenous Peoples, because that, Chief Justice Antonio Lamer explained in R. v. van der Peet, 1996, is what Section 35(1) is for. “Aboriginal rights are aimed at the reconciliation of the prior occupation of North America by distinctive aboriginal societies, with the assertion of Crown sovereignty over Canadian territory, by bridging aboriginal and non-aboriginal cultures.”

The reconciliation demanded by Section 35, apparently, is to be defined and determined by Canada unilaterally. And they don’t have to reconcile with Aboriginal cultures when they can justify infringing them.

After they decided Aboriginal rights remain behind 1846, judges subsequently ruled that any Aboriginal commercial activities should really be in line with 1846 revenues. Nuu-chah-nulth, 20011.

Shortly after Delgamuukw, 1997, and that first positive definition of Aboriginal title as something other than sui generis, or unknown, courts went into high gear. With Taku River Tlingit, Halfway River, Haida, and Douglas, courts instructed the government that the issue here was not so much about Aboriginal title as it was about accommodating that title by consulting with Aboriginal Peoples when there probably is title, and then sharing benefits from industries that extract revenue from those probably-title lands.

But Indigenous Peoples’ land titles are protected from just that kind of exploitation by Canada’s constitution. Judges have stepped in to “bridge” any inconsistencies.

In fact, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently explained that, “we will not be revisiting the Constitution.”

Canada and British Columbia have devoted tens of billions to its legal defense against the Indigenous title holders; its out-of-court negotiations, which were often coercive and always divisive for the Peoples; and its settlement awards for relinquishment of claims, which funds were always alarmingly small.

They have not, however, spent any money on positively identifying Indigenous title lands.

Widespread judicial refusal to respect international norms and treaties is exactly the criteria required for third parties, that is, other states, to bring Canada before the World Court. If they haven’t done so yet, maybe cheap Canadian exports of raw resources, subsidized by denial of Indigenous titles, is clouding their vision.

International attention

In 2009 and 2014, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) found two cases from British Columbia admissible on the basis that there is no domestic remedy to grievances between the Indigenous parties and the state of Canada. The Hulqiminum Treaty Group and the Lil’wat plaintiff in Edmonds were both found to have exhausted any chance of a fair hearing within Canada.

This is what happens when state policies preclude access to an impartial court, or when an entire state judiciary demonstrates a refusal to recognize rights defined in international treaties: international courts gain jurisdiction over the matter. What has not happened so far is Canadian participation in the IACHR proceeding. Both cases have stalled.

One of the first international Indigenous cases turns fifty next year. Sandra Lovelace, Maliseet from Tobique, took her case to the UN Human Rights Committee. They found that Canada was in breach of its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1969, (ICCPR) in its use of the Indian Act to discriminate against Indigenous women. Lovelace’s case succeeded to the international arbiter because the Attorney General of Canada and the Department of Indian Affairs had just sued Jeanette Corbiere Lavell, to overturn a decision in her favour regarding the same issue – gender-based loss of Indian Status. The Supreme Court had found for the state: “The Canadian Bill of Rights does not affect the Crown’s legislative authority with regard to Indians.”

It can only be a question of other countries’ love for cheap timber, minerals, gas, and fish – subsidized by Canada’s political denial of Indigenous Peoples’ rights – that has stopped the land question from being prosecuted in a similar way to Lovelace. The same ICCPR states in Article 1:

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

1. All peoples have the right of self-determination.
2. All peoples may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources without prejudice to any obligations arising out of international economic co-operation, based upon the principle of mutual benefit, and international law. In no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence.
3. The States Parties to the present Covenant, including those having responsibility for the administration of Non-Self-Governing and Trust Territories, shall promote the realization of the right of self-determination, and shall respect that right, in conformity with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations.

Nuchatlaht 2023

In May of this year, BC Supreme Court Justice Myers ruled that the Nuchatlaht “may” have aboriginal title to some areas. His decision is regressive, almost contemptuous, and turned a valuable opportunity into a colossal waste of time and money. BC courts do not tend to find for Indigenous rights – the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) does that. 

What’s more: the media didn’t even show up for it. A single report by the Canadian Press was picked up by BC outlets, who used stock photos of previous Nuchatlaht appearances to accompany the brief, mis-quoted, disturbingly disinterested article.

This case is the first Aboriginal title case to follow Tsilhqot’in, 2014, where, on appeal from BC to the SCC, Aboriginal title lands were declared, ruled upon, and drawn on a map for the first time. A great deal more attention to detail was deserved to this follow-up case.

One of the details is the fact that Indigenous Peoples are still paying a King’s ransom in time and money to plead for their rights, and that is in itself a travesty of justice.

The elected politicians have not pursued justice – they have fought it in their own courts for a century – and instead tighten their policies. The electorate continue to make Canada an acid environment for Indigenous individuals, families, businesses, communities. Logging, mining, fishing, and every kind of industrial development has continued on the disputed lands at a pace normally associated with plunder in times of war.

Fifty years from now

“If the Indians win, there will be a cloud on all the land titles issued by the province.” So said Duncan Campbell Scott, Minister of the Interior and Superintendent of Indian Affairs, as part of the 1926 Judicial Committee on the Claims of the Allied Tribes.

The question was not “if” the Indians win: the question was “when” the Indians win. And there certainly is a cloud on all the land titles issued by British Columbia. That’s why the Province of British Columbia has a line item for “treaty making” in its annual financial audits: everybody knows BC does not have title, even Standard and Poor’s, and BC’s creditors need to see that uncertainty mitigated.

In Hawaii, non-native homeowners buy Title Insurance. The Hawaiians have been making their way through the courts, proving their title to acre by acre, and banks won’t give out a mortgage for a property without it being insured against the inevitable claims of the rightful owner.

Check out the infographic and forthcoming infobook on Electromagnetic Print

Living Treaties, Lasting Agreements. 1985

11 Tuesday Jul 2017

Posted by in Comprehensive Claims - Policy and Protest

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

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

Indian Claims Commission 1963 – Liberal election promise broken

29 Monday Dec 2014

Posted by in Government Commissions

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , ,

On August 15th, 1963, the then Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, The Honourable Guy Favreau had this to say to the Third Annual Conference of the National Indian Advisory Council of Canada, in Winnipeg, in respect to the establishment of an Indian Claims Commission.

“I mentioned earlier that lack of confidence on the part of the Indians remains one of the serious problems affecting Indian administration.

In analyzing the deep causes for this distrust it soon became apparent that a rankling feeling of injustice among the Indians at the lack of action with regard to the adjudication and settlement of their long outstanding claims was one of the roots of this evil.

This understandable sense of grievance among the Indians had made it extremely difficult over the years to obtain the fruitful co-operation between them and the government, which is so necessary in every field of endeavor that may be undertaken to improve their condition.

Two parliamentary committees on the administration of Indian Affairs had recognized this fact and recommended that action be taken by the government to assess and settle all Indian claims and grievances in a just and equitable manner.

The Liberal party, before the last election, had included in its program the appointment of an independent body, with broad terms of reference, to review all matters pertaining to Indian Claims.

In its desire to see justice done, the Government wish that every legitimate Indian claim be given a fair hearing, without undue formality, and settlement made where justified.

Without prejudging the matter, as I am inclined to believe that no claim submitted to the commission should be open to defeat upon narrow or technical grounds.

It is proposed that the commission be authorized to hear all claims referred to it by the government, as well as such claims as may be made before it by Indian bands or other identifiable groups of Indians.”

* Note: this Commission was never struck up, never populated, never happened. Instead,  one Dr. Hawthorn and his research team at the University of British Columbia, commissioned by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration to prepare an in-depth study of Indian administration in British Columbia, released their report in 1964 and 1965 and advocated assimilation of Indians by integration – as well as, later, the concept of “citizens plus.” In 1968, Pierre Trudeau became leader of the federal government and in 1969 he introduced the “White Paper Policy,” or “Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy.” That policy was simply to dissolve the Indian Act and erase any reference to Indian rights in Canada’s constitutional documents. This policy document was prevented from taking full effect by extreme opposition by every Indian organization from coast to coast to coast, and a few years later, the federal government instituted the Comprehensive Claims Policy instead: a process by which Indian communities agree to their own extinguishment in exchange for money. That policy is still in effect and underlines all negotiations between Canada and Indigenous Peoples, including the BC treaty process.

Indian Record fp October 1963 Favreau ICC

Observations on the promised Indian Claims Commission, 1963, on the election of the Federal Liberal Party:

B.C. Indian Lands Question

  1. The North American Indian Brotherhood (NAIB) carried out a survey of the Interior Indians by holding meetings at the various Interior towns as to what the Indians wished to pursue at the Senate and Parliamentary Committee hearings on Indian Affairs in the late 1950’s.
  2. It was unanimously agreed that the BC Indian Land question be pursued. At that time the Indian Land question had been completely abandoned and it was through the NAIB’s efforts after consultation with the Indians that it was revived.
  3. Through persistence by the NAIB the Liberal party of Canada issued a pamphlet (before their election as a party governing Canada) stating that in 1963 the Liberals promised as follows:                                                                                       a) Liberal policy now is to appoint as soon as possible an Indian Claims Commission, an independent, unbiased unprejudiced body with broad terms of reference, to review all matters pertaining to this issue.                                                                   b)With the objective of achieving a fair and just settlement of all outstanding claims, it is Liberal policy that the Commission will include qualified authorities on British Constitutional law as it affects aboriginal hereditary and usufructory (sic) rights.   c) To assure the objectivity which Indians of Canada have the right to expect after years of procrastination, Commissioners may be appointed from other parts of the Commonwealth such as New Zealand, where achievements in this field are regarded as outstanding. It is Liberal policy that the Commission will be unbiased and independent.
  4. Appointment of the Indian Claims Commission, as described, is based on the fundamental Liberal policy that Canada’s Native Indians must now achieve full equality without loss of aboriginal, hereditary and usufructory rights. Canada, at this time in our history and today’s war of ideologies, must erase the blot of second and third-class citizenship.
  5. In 1963 when the Liberals were elected the NAIB sent delegates to the United Nations and to Parliament in Ottawa recommending the Commission be instituted as follows:

The delegates recommend a three-man commission comprised of the following individuals:                                                                                                              a) A Commission Chairman, selected by the Secretary General of the United Nations, or an appropriate body of the United Nations, such as the International Court of Justice. b) An international senior anthropologist, who understands the Indian manner of submitting evidence by having direct contact with Indian affairs and through working with natives personally.                                                                                             c) A Canadian legal authority trained in International law and British Constitutional Law.

  1. The reason for an International Commission in that the commissioners would be trained in International Law is as follows:
  2. The Commissioners would be trained along International lines rather than Canadian and would bring into their thinking International cases such as the Ghana and Nigerian decisions which gave those native people title to their lands as hereditary nations.
  3. The Indian tribes in the United States and other countries have been treated in law as nations and Canadian Indians’ position in International Law should be the same.
  4. If you go hat in hand to government asking for a negotiation as to settlement, Canada, if it does agree to settle, will say we offer you so much and that is it. There will be a position wherein Canada makes the decision and the Indians will have to take it or leave it.
  5. If a Tribunal with International authorities decide, then world attention will be directed toward the tribunal and Canada will have to make an honourable settlement.
  6. Canada has already agreed that the Indians have title to British Columbia, otherwise the Indians would not be receiving $100,000 per year by way of the BC Special in lieu of Treaty monies.
  7. The difference is that at least theoretically the Indians in other parts of Canada agreed to their treaty money by having treaties signed by the Indians.
  8. But BC Indians never signed treaties, except for small areas regarding the Indian Land question, although Canada sees fit to pay them $100,000 a year for title.
  9. So that Canada admits the Indians have title to BC by paying them $100,000 per year which the Indians never agreed was enough, as they may have done by signing treaties in other parts of Canada.
  10. It is therefore essential that the Liberals be held to their promise of 1963 that an independent, unbiased, unprejudiced body with broad terms of reference be appointed to review all matters pertaining to the BC Indian Land question.
  11. This can only be done by appointment of persons trained in international affairs from outside Canada.
  12. The Liberal promise of 1963 was adopted by the Federal Liberal Party under then Prime Minister Lester Pearson, and this is a contract, and should be continuously held forth as such, regardless of any position taken by Prime Minister Trudeau or other government officials. This was a contract made with full intent and cannot be broken.

In hand writing at the top of this typed, undated, unsigned document: “This was the position of the Liberals in 1963 and I still maintain that you can hold them to it. –H.C.”