This is the 50th anniversary of Indigenous-rights activist Harold Cardinal’s book, The Unjust Society, his so-called “stinging rebuttal” (from the book-jacket) to Pierre Trudeau’s 1969 White Paper, the latter of which had called for the gradual, staged elimination of the Indian Act, reserves and separate legal status for Canada’s Indigenous peoples, all with the view of bringing them into the legal and social mainstream of Canadian life, and thereby improving their lot generally. With its defiant and aggressive Indian Power theme- almost racist-sounding at times, (constant references to “the white man”, and references to Indians who don’t agree with him as “brown white men” and “Uncle Tomahawks”), his defiance summarized by his cry: “We would rather live in bondage under the Indian Act than surrender our sacred rights.” – it became an instant success with the new, ascendant Woodstock Generation, and, along with similar books about Black Power, Women Power and Quebec (independence) Power, symbolized the country’s new and ever-increasing focus on group rights and identity politics over individual rights and civic nationalism.
A far more mature and humane book, Ruffled Feathers, written by Saskatchewan Cree William Wuttunee, the first Indian to practice law in Western Canada and a founder of today’s Assembly of First Nations, supported the White Paper, arguing, as the White Paper did, that ending the dependency-inducing reserve system and separate (read “apartheid”) legal status for Indians, and giving them equal rights and responsibilities with the rest of Canadians would, in the long run, better ensure Indian-Canadian individual and group pride and progress.
The howls of protest from the nascent Indian Industry, best articulated (such as could be done) by The Unjust Society, the weakness and irresolution in the face of this on the part of the Trudeau government, (No “Just watch me!” here), and the new Woodstock zeitgeist, all combined to make Harold Cardinal a cultural hero on the winning side, and to cause William Wuttunee to be successfully branded as one of Mr. Cardinal’s Uncle Tomahawks and to be banned from numerous reserves in Saskatchewan and Alberta-
a political outcast. The White Paper was withdrawn to the reported sound of Trudeau’s resigned and frustrated statement- “We’ll keep them in the ghetto as long as they want.”
Ruffled Feathers went out of print; long forgotten. On the other hand The Unjust Society was re-released in 1999 and is still regarded as a foundational Ur-document of the Indigenous rights movement.
Now, with the benefit of 50 years experience and hindsight, what can we learn from all this?
Overall we learn that Harold Cardinal was wrong and William Wuttunee and the White Paper were right.
More particularly, we learn that many current assertions of the Indian Industry underlying their claims for more money and power are only very recent fabrications, not based in history, because there’s no mention of them in The Unjust Society, supposedly a superior and full expression of Indian grievances.
There’s no mention, as constantly asserted now, of the treaties being agreements to “share” lands and resources, indicating that this claim too is only a recent, ahistorical fabrication. As Mr. Cardinal writes:
“To our people the treaties were the beginning of a contractual relationship whereby the representatives of the queen (sic) would have lasting responsibilities to the Indian people in return for the lands that were ceded to them.”
There’s no mention in The Unjust Society, as is the case now, and as is the legal reality now, of the ceded lands being “traditional lands” in relation to which the Crown or a private company should have a duty to consult and accommodate all remotely nearby Indian bands before being allowed to do anything on them, (like build a pipeline), confirming that this too is a purely modern legal invention- a modern invention out of legal thin air by a dangerously overly-activist Supreme Court- with no roots in, and completely divorced from, Canada’s past. When Mr. Cardinal refers to Indian “homelands” he is clearly, strictly referring to Indian reserves.
There’s no mention of “nation to nation” relationships, as now. In fact, rather the opposite. Mr. Cardinal writes:
“We like the idea of a Canada where all cultures are encouraged to develop in harmony with one another, to become part of the great mosaic…The vast majority of our people are committed to the concept of Canadian unity and to the concept of participation in that unity…Indian society will add to the mosaic and upon what we can accomplish as individuals to add to our country’s total potential.”
About residential schools, unlike today, as in the Truth and Reconciliation Report, where they are stereotyped as always worthless snake pits of sexual abuse and criminal neglect, Mr. Cardinal says nothing about this, restricting his criticism of them as being institutions staffed by incompetent teachers giving a poor quality education and yes, as being vehicles for Christianization and assimilation. But not a whiff of the one-sided hysteria and hyperbole of the TRC Report. And significantly, unlike the TRC Report, the CBC and the Indian Industry today, he acknowledges the “good intentions” underlying them:
“Let it be acknowledged that the missionary teacher acted (usually) out of the best motives but brought about the worst of all results: a Christian without character…Much can be said about the inherent good intentions of these missionaries, and it is true that without their efforts the educational level of our people might be even lower than it is today.”
The demands that Mr. Cardinal set out so forcefully and threateningly, (“The present course of the federal government drives the Indian daily closer and closer to the second alternative…despair, hostility, destruction.”),correctly betting that no one would call his bluff, were numerous and diverse, and which can be summarized as follows:
“Bigoted”, “ignorant”, “insensitive” “white men”, (all appellations from the book), “give us paid-for general skills training, help us get off welfare by providing us with financing “without strings attached”, training and technical aid for Indian-owned, on-reserve business development projects, give us paid-up medicare and paid up education controlled by Indians, set up a land claims commission, fully fund our provincial and national organizations so that we can speak to the white man’s government face to face, and give us money and equipment for farming.”
“Further”, (Cardinal writes), “your White Paper, “amazingly”, states that:
“a plain reading of the words used in the treaties reveals the limited and minimal promises which were included in them…the significance of the treaties in meeting the educational, health and welfare needs of the Indian people has always been limited and will continue to decline…the services that have been provided go far beyond what could have been foreseen by those who signed the treaties.”
“This is more than a gross distortion of fact”, Cardinal writes. “This is a deliberate, white-faced lie.” (Yes, actual quote.)
It’s “quite the opposite”, Mr. Cardinal baldly, and without any supporting facts, asserts. “The position of the Indian people always has been that a plain reading of the treaties is inadequate and, more than that, unjust. Simple, literal reading of the treaties does not reflect the spirit in which they were signed. The Indian has long realized and has said clearly that all the promises made to the Indian at the signing of the various treaties were never in fact written into the articles of the treaties. It is doubtful, however, that had the promises not been made, any treaties would have been signed…The Indian must have from the federal government immediate recognition of all Indian rights for the re-establishment, review and renewal of all existing treaties. The negotiations for this must be undertaken in a new and different spirit by both sides. The treaties must be maintained. The treaties must be reinterpreted in light of needs that exist today…The terms of the treaties must be extended and interpreted in light of present social and economic standards.”
The final big demand of The Unjust Society was that, along with all the above unilateral, unsubstantiated demands being met, the White Paper be withdrawn, so that “…the Indian future will rest in qualified brown hands…”
And again, as with residential schools, Mr. Cardinal, despite calling the federal government, amongst other things, an ignorant, white-faced liar, acknowledged the good intentions underlying the White Paper, saying, “The intention of the government may be good, but the realities of the situation are ignored.”
So why do I say that the events of the past 50 years have proven William Wuttunee right and Harold Cardinal and his The Unjust Society wrong?
Because virtually every one Mr. Cardinal’s demands as set out in The Unjust Society have been met, and in some cases exceeded, yet Indigenous Canadians continue to remain at the bottom of virtually every measurement of social and material progress in Canada. Cardinal’s demands have been met and Indigenous Canadians are worse off than ever. The proof is in the pudding.
Indian bands have been given all the “no strings attached” money transfers and programs demanded by Cardinal. They’ve got unlimited free medical and dental care. They’re getting free education, increasingly run by themselves. More importantly, by way of radical court decisions like Haida Nation and Restoule, the treaties have been judicially redefined as “sharing” agreements rather than cession of land agreements, as even Cardinal understood them to be. And, according to these courts, they are to be interpreted in the “modern” way, as Cardinal demanded, not literally. Indian bands, with their right to be consulted and accommodated, now have a de facto veto over what takes place on their “traditional lands”, being all of Canadian Crown and wilderness lands, rather than, as Cardinal thought, only on reserve lands.
But it hasn’t made a difference. Indigenous poverty, despair and social dysfunction continue at the highest, tragic levels. Only their small leadership class has short-term benefitted from all this. We see every day the particulars of all the various manifestations of this tragic dysfunction and social and economic failure, which particulars speak volumes for themselves.
At an aboriginal law legal conference I attended in 2016 Joe Wild, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister for Indigenous and Northern Affairs, in a refreshing and unusual moment of candour and realism said:
For the past 40 years we have been plowing money into programs. We have no evidence that it’s working.
In other words, we have no evidence that the approach of Harold Cardinal and The Unjust Society is working. In fact, having regard to Cardinal’s defiant cry, even with all his demands met, Indians have continued to live in bondage under the Indian Act, and they will continue to do so unless there is a radical change of course.
Our Indigenous population is suffering! Fifty years of experience tells us that all the present approaches being adopted to improve their situation are failing and are sure to keep failing. The effect of all the present approaches is disastrous and it is malpractice and a breach of the “honour of the Crown” to continue with them. As Christian writer Marilyn Robinson writes in The Death of Adam:
If serious solutions were being attempted, would not someone hold them to the standard of their effect, and suggest a reconsideration?
It’s time to abandon this obviously losing, destructive, illiberal, quasi-racist, “separate but equal” approach to improving the situation of Indigenous Canadians. Fifty years of failure and waste of human potential is enough. It’s time to start on the White Paper- William Wuttunee path of ending the reserve system and, in a gradual, staged and steady manner, bringing Indigenous Canadians into the Canadian family on the basis of equal rights and responsibilities.
Peter Best- August 20th, 2019
