Residential Schools

Written - 15 June, 2008


Last week the Canadian government not only acknowledged the atrocities perpetuated in Indian residential schools but also apologized for them. While seen as a historic moment in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal relations, the apology requires more than a scripted statement by Harper to heal the injustices of forced assimilation. The Canadian government must reaffirm its apology by adopting current world standards regarding indigenous rights and put these rights before industrial interests.

In September 2007, Canada was one of four nations to vote against the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. However, Canada was in the extreme minority as 143 nations ratified the motion, with 11 abstaining. The document itself was not overtly liberal in that it was a compromise between recognizing Indigenous rights and allowing governments the power to operate. But for Canada, several of the Articles were clearly in conflict with an archaic policy that has been (and is) used to interact with Aboriginal Peoples.

Article 4 called for the provision of self-government and autonomy for Indigenous peoples, which was venomously opposed by the Canadian government. Aboriginal communities have advocated self-government for generations and academics and government inquiries have as well for over two decades. The creation of Nunavut was seen as a monumental step to achieving self-government in Canada, but in the south, the government has opted to rely on the bureaucracy of Indian Affairs to govern Aboriginal Peoples.

As well, Article 26 explicitly stated that Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands they traditionally occupied and called on governments to honour past treaties. Canada has obviously been reluctant to put past treaties in a modern context – as noted by First Nation peoples who still receive a $5 pittance each year. Further, land claims are backlogged into the decade range and government often allows development on these disputed lands despite these claims – see Caledonia and Grassy Narrows for example.

However, signing the declaration may be inconsequential anyway. Canada has a poor track record of signing international agreements and then ignoring them (as with Kyoto but interestingly not NAFTA). In order to heal these injustices, Canadians themselves need to ask questions about what happened in our history in an honest way and rethink what it means to be Canadian. Do we really want short-term business projects and government incompetence to overrule our humanity?