Former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien was interviewed on CBC
Radio on May 31, 2018. Although he is now 84 years old, he sounds today just
like the feisty, former street fighter he was. From a very young backbencher,
through many cabinet posts, and finally to a Prime Minister who only seemed to
know how to win majority governments, he is a true legend. He helped us keep
this country together, and then navigate through the difficult reconciliation
with Quebec. As a finale, he very wisely kept us out of America’s
ill-conceived, and disastrous war in Iraq. Jean Chrétien is probably Canada’s
most underrated prime minister, and will probably be rightly viewed in the
future as one of our greatest leaders.
But, as a cabinet minister in the government of Pierre
Elliott Trudeau that he took one of the biggest gambles of his political
career. As Minister of Indian Affairs that he tried – but failed – to end
Canada’s apartheid regime.
Let me explain.
Pierre Trudeau saw promise in the young Jean Chrétien, where
others saw only a rough looking guy who spoke some strange, raspy Franglais. He
asked the young Chrétien to take on various cabinet posts, at an age when many
of us were still trying to find our way to the water cooler.
But it was as Minister of Indian Affairs that Chrétien
shone. He quickly became accepted by the chiefs as an able man, who was
determined to end the stagnation that had characterized that post for so many
years. After all, this was still the time of the “Indian Agent” and all the
demeaning aspects that entailed.
Chrétien had a personal connection to Indigenous issues as
well. He and his wife Aline adopted an Inuit child as a baby. The adoption
ended badly, as the boy was a victim of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD),
and committed a very serious sexual crime as an adult. But it was undoubtedly
that personal connection, and a strong desire to improve the lot of Indigenous
people, that inspired Chrétien to take bold action.
Chrétien looked around and immediately saw that The Indian
Act, and its reserve system, were a dead end for Indigenous people. He
consulted with chiefs and Indigenous advocates, who told him in no uncertain
terms that they wanted an end to the apartheid system they were forced to live
under. It was the chiefs who called the system “apartheid”, and they were
right. They demanded change in a big way.
Chrétien took them at their word. He went back to Ottawa,
and in 1968 he and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau oversaw the writing of the
infamous White Paper. That paper did exactly what the chiefs and other
Indigenous advocates had demanded. It proposed an end to the apartheid system,
and gave full equality to Indigenous people. Compensation for special rights,
and government funding for employment programs to ease reserve residents into
the job market were all a part of the Paper.
But then a funny thing happened. Instead of being pleased
with what Chrétien had done, the chiefs realized that they would have to
give up their privileged positions and their perks in order to gain full
equality as Canadian citizens. They then turned on Chrétien and denounced the
White Paper – using the usual “racist” and “cultural genocide” terms that are
routinely applied to anything that threatens the chiefs’ position.
According to Chrétien he told the chiefs “You can’t have it
both ways – You can’t have equality, and keep your special privileges at the
same time”. In other words, “You can’t have your cake, and eat it too”.
But, it turned out that was exactly what the chiefs wanted.
Pressure from a well planned propaganda campaign by Indigenous activists forced
Trudeau and Chrétien to withdraw their visionary plan.
As a result, we are still stuck with the racist and outdated
Indian Act, and its soul destroying reserve system fifty years later. Since
that time no federal government has taken any significant step to ending the
apartheid regime. Sadly, the current government seems determined to entrench
the system of separateness even further.
But, a question that is never asked is why we have an Indian
Act in the first place. Why, in 1876, did the same inspired politicians who
created Confederation feel it necessary to single out one group of people, from
everyone else, and pass what is by any definition the racist, and
discriminatory Indian Act? They did not have to. No other group of people were
singled out for special treatment in The British North America Act.
The answer appears to be that those politicians were in a
hurry. They were determined to build the railroad from coast to coast that
John. A. MacDonald knew was necessary to bring in settlers to populate the
west, before the United States could annex what are now the western provinces –
something the USA would surely have done. Indians at that time were a minor
consideration. They consisted of small and scattered groups of poor people that
were politically unimportant.
So, in their haste, the politicians simply adopted the
thinking of the tired and outdated Royal Proclamation of 1763 – namely that
Indigenous people were to be treated unlike others because they were inferior
people. They were not to be treated as individuals, like everyone else, but
were to be regarded as one giant tribe. This was racist and wrong, but it
became the law of the land.
Indians were isolated on reserves, and we know how that
turned out. Instead of integrating with the mainstream, and keeping as much of
their cultural identity as they cared to – a path every other ethnic group has
taken – they languished on reserves, while a modern country grew up around
them. The dismal statistics concerning Indigenous people – child welfare, jail
, poor health, short lives – are all a testament to how wrong our politicians –
Indigenous and non-Indigenous – were when they singled out Indigenous people
for separate treatment, and stuck them on reserves.
However, the immense amount of money that has been poured
into this Indigenous apartheid system since 1876 by well meaning politicians
and judges has made it almost impossible to change.
Our Fathers of Confederation deserve credit for the inspired
work they did in creating this country, but they let all of us down – and most
particularly our Indigenous citizens – when they created an apartheid system
that isolated people on reserves, and treated them differently in law, simply
by virtue of their race. And our politicians failed us in 1982 when they
perpetuated this special treatment in our Constitution. And they continue to
let us down, by leaving this decrepit system in place. None of them have even
tried to correct that error. Except for Jean Chrétien and Pierre Trudeau.
Brian
Giesbrecht, a retired Manitoba Judge, is Senior Fellow at the Frontier Centre
for Public Policy HERE.
1 comment:
Some very insightful comment, accurate to laud Mr Chretien for his many accomplishments as Prime Minister, most especially in keeping Canada out of the Iraq war. However, the so-called "white paper" was not Chretien's creation, but largely that of one key actor in the PMO and senior officials of the the Department (DIAND) -- all in opposition to the Andras Submission to Cabinet. Since I was a key actor in this process (Bob Andras top advisor) and he Minister charged with developing a new "Indian" policy, the real story has yet to emerge, even after all these years, with so many writing self serving accounts.
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