Transcript NATIVE RIGHTS: Examples of Issues & Controversies in recent

NATIVE RIGHTS:
Examples of Issues
&
Controversies in recent
years
•WRITE BRIEF
SUMMARY
NOTES
TREATIES WITH THE FIRST NATIONS
These treaties deal with Land Claims,
logging, fishing, hunting, taxation, etc..
There are still many in North America
which are not settled. Rumour has it
Manhattan Island has a Land Claim on it. It
was purchased for less than 1000 bucks
Most of these issues deal with
Treaty Rights signed many years
ago in peace treaties with First
Nations groups by Canada and,
before Confederation, Britain.
In Nova Scotia, October 1st is
Treaty Day. This day marks
interacial friendship. Now, that’s
more like it! Now, for the
negative…
The ideology of Eurocentricism had a
major role in the destruction,
oppression, and suppression of
Aboriginal civilizations.
Eurocentricism stems from the belief
that Europeans are politically and
culturally superior to all other people
in the world. The image of the
uncivilized Native originated long
ago; Europeans held the belief that
indigenous societies were barbaric,
subhuman, and savage for centuries
After Confederation in 1867, the Indian Act
(1876) was brought in. It reduced
“Indians” to an oppressed people that were
wards of the state administered by white
Indian Agents. It set up the Reservation
System and denied them full Cdn. Citizen
status (e.g. voting rights). Women who
married non-Natives lost all status, as did
their children.
Residential Schools
The history of Indian Residential
Schools began with the infamous
Davin Report. In 1879 Regina MP
Nicholas Flood Davin was
commissioned by Sir John A.
Macdonald to study and report on the
internal workings of the American
Indian industrial boarding schools,
and advise on the feasibility of
establishing similar schools in
Canada.
Davin's Report recommended these
American-type schools. This marked
the beginning of the Indian
residential school system in Canada.
Davin firmly believed, as did other
politicians, that "if anything is to be
done with the Indian, we must catch
him very young“ Essentially, get rid
of the “Indian” traits that these
children had.
•Aboriginal children were removed from their
reservations and sent to schools far away from
home (There was one in Shubenacadie).
•School life was modeled after military life:
•children were issued uniforms
•learned drill practices
•marched to and from classes and the dining
hall for meals
•School structure operated on academics for half
a day and trades the other half
•Children were not allowed to speak their native
tongue
•The school operated a printing and newspaper
program (to supplement its small source of
funding received from the federal government)
The only difference between American and
Canadian residential schools was Canadian
residential schools were operated by
Christian churches at the request of the
government. "Thus the interests of church
and state merged in a marriage of
convenience…the churches could harvest
souls at government-funded schools while
meeting the shared mandate to eradicate all
that was Indian in the children“ THUS, THE
GOAL WAS ASSIMILATION.
Years later, reports of physical, psychological
and sexual abuse surfaced. The school were
shut down IN THE 1970s AND 1980s and
legal compensation settlements are ongoing
between the government and the victimized
former students. The money was given out in 2007
and PM Stephen Harper apologized formally in 2008.
• RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS AND
APOLOGY IN 2000s IN 1950S
The Oka Crisis 1990
In the summer of 1990 at Oka, a place famous for cheese making monks near western
Island of Montreal, a proposed increase of holes to 18 to the nine hole golf course
resulted in a 2 1/2 months long armed standoff in which one SQ police officer was
killed. The golf course was on sacred Mohawk land. Mohawk warriors came north
from the U.S. to fight with their Cdn. brothers and sisters. They shut down bridges to
Montreal, disrupting commuters, leading to local non-Natives rioting. PM Brian
Mulroney eventually sent in the army to calm things down. The crisis lasted 78 days.
• http://archives.cbc.ca/war_conflict/civil_unr
est/clips/500/
• http://archives.cbc.ca/war_conflict/civil_unr
est/clips/512/
http://archives.cbc.ca/war_conflict/civil_unres
t/clips/523/
• http://archives.cbc.ca/war_conflict/civil_unr
est/clips/581/
• http://archives.cbc.ca/war_conflict/civil_unr
est/clips/582/
• http://archives.cbc.ca/war_conflict/civil_unr
est/clips/584/
Ipperwash, Ontario 1995
The Ipperwash Crisis was an Indigenous land
dispute that occurred in Ipperwash Provincial
Park, Ontario in 1995. Several members of the
Stoney Point Ojibway band occupied the park in
order to assert their claim to their land. This led
to a violent confrontation between protesters and
the Ontario Provincial Police, who killed
unarmed protestor Dudley George. The ensuing
controversy was a major event in Canadian
politics, and a provincial inquiry, was completed
in the fall of 2006. The OPP police were found to
have overeacted and killed an unarmed man.
Dudley George: Killed by the OPP at
Ipperwash. Subject of CTV movie
ONE DEAD INDIAN
Donald Marshall Jr.
• Donald Marshall Jr., the man at the centre
of one of Canada's highest-profile wrongful
conviction cases, died in 2009 of
complications from his 2003 lung transplant
• In 1971, Marshall was wrongfully convicted of murdering
his friend, Sandy Seale, in Sydney's Wentworth Park.
Marshall was just 17 years old when he received a life
sentence for the murder that was later determined he had
not committed.
• He was released in 1982 after RCMP reviewed his case
and cleared by the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal in 1983
after a witness came forward to say another man had
stabbed Seale and several prior witness statements
connecting Marshall to the death were recanted.
• Though the Appeal Court declared him not guilty, Marshall
was told he had contributed to his own conviction and that
any miscarriage of justice was more apparent than real.
• Roy Ebsary, an eccentric who bragged about being skilled
with knives, was eventually convicted of manslaughter in
Seale's death and spent a year in jail.
• Systemic racism
• Marshall, a Mi'kmaq, was exonerated by a royal
commission in 1990 that determined systemic racism had
contributed to his wrongful imprisonment.
• The seven-volume report pointed the finger at police,
judges, Marshall's original defence lawyers, Crown
lawyers and bureaucrats.
• "The criminal justice system failed Donald Marshall Jr. at
virtually every turn from his arrest and wrongful
conviction for murder in 1971 up to and even beyond his
acquittal by the Court of Appeal in 1983," the report said.
• Marshall was one of 13 children of Caroline and Donald
Marshall Sr., once the grand chief of the Mi'kmaq nation.
Following his exoneration, he became known as a
"reluctant hero" to the First Nation for his role in fighting
for native rights.
• Marshall was also the central figure in a landmark
1999 Supreme Court of Canada ruling that
guaranteed aboriginal treaty rights to fish and
hunt.
• He was the primary petitioner in the case after he
had been arrested while fishing for eels out of
season.
• The high court ruling also confirmed that Mi'kmaq
and Maliseet in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia
have the right to earn a moderate livelihood from
hunting, fishing and gathering.
• Chief Lawrence Paul of the Millbrook First Nation
near Truro said Marshall’s battle for native rights
will be his lasting legacy.
• It was instrumental. It was a benefit to the
economy of the First Nations across
Atlantic Canada, and I think right across
Canada," Paul said Thursday.
• "So, his name should go down in history as
a sympathetic individual who had the rights
of the Mi’kmaq people close to his heart."
• How the ruling applies to other aboriginals
in Canada is still being interpreted.
• Province marks Treaty Day - NovaScotia TheChronicleHerald.ca
Donald Marshall wins Supreme Court victory - CBC
Archives
• How do we resolve land claims? - CBC
Archives
• http://archives.cbc.ca/politics/federal_politi
cs/clips/6866/
Burnt Church, New Brunswick
As Indigenous people, Mi'kmaq claim they have the
right to catch lobster out of season. The nonAboriginals claim that that if this is allowed lobster
stocks (an important source of income) could be
depleted so none would be left!
In September 1999, a Supreme Court of Canada ruling,
The Marshall Decision, acknowledged that treaties
from the 1770s held that a Mi'kmaq man, Donald
Marshall, Jr., had the right to fish for eels out of season.
The Burnt Church First Nation IN New Brunswick
interpreted the judgment as meaning that they could
catch lobster out of season and began to put out traps.
Angry non-Aboriginals damaged and destroyed a number
of Mi'kmaq lobster traps in the weeks to come. Local
Mi'kmaq retaliated by destroying non-Aboriginal fishing
boats and buildings.
Government Minister Herb Dhaliwal and the Department
of Fisheries and Oceans managed to sign fishing
agreements with 29 of 34 Atlantic Coast bands but the
Burnt Church First Nation was not convinced. The
Canadian Government ordered the Mi'kmaq to reduce
the total number of lobster traps used, leaving members
of the Burnt Church First Nation with a total of 40 traps
for the whole community. Some Mi'kmaq resisted this,
claiming that they already have conservation methods in
place to ensure the lobster stock would not be depleted off
the Atlantic coast.
In 2000 and 2001, rising conflict led to a
series of standoffs between police and
Aboriginals, and a number of arrests were
made. (famous footage of Coast Guard
ramming a small fishing boat made worldwide
news).The federal government offered to pay
for a two million dollar fishing wharf and five
new fishing boats for the Mi'kmaq. The
Natives rejected the offer, believing it could
be interpreted as a surrender of their legal
fishing rights.
• YouTube - DFO think they own the ocean
and fish
• YouTube - Burnt Church Fishing dispute.
• YouTube - Burnt Church Fishing dispute 2
• http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20111
004/nova-scotia-band-government-111004/
• http://archives.cbc.ca/society/crime_justice/
clips/12858/
• http://archives.cbc.ca/politics/federal_politi
cs/clips/6867/
• http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/08/06/
donald-marshall-wrongful-convictiondies342.html
• Inuit rights
• Haida vs. logging
• Oil drilling vs. native rights
• Nisga’a Treaty
The Territory of Nunavut:
Eastern part of the NWT that was
created in 1999 to give Northern
Innu and Inuit self government
and more input into their own
affairs.
The capital is Iqaluit on Baffin Island, in the east,. Other
major communities include Rankin Inlet and Cambridge
Bay. Nunavut also includes Ellesmere Island to the north,
as well as the eastern and southern portions of Victoria
Island in the west. Nunavut is both the least populated
and the largest of the provinces and territorities of
Canada. It has a population of only 30,782 spread over an
area the size of Western Europe. If Nunavut were a
sovereign nation, it would be the least densely populated
in the world: Nearby Greenland, for example, has almost
the same area and twice the population.
Nunavut means 'our land' in Inuktitut, the language of the
Inuit
• NUNAVUT ELECTION
• NUNAVUT PREMIER
The main united voice for Native people in Canada.
ANNA MAE PICTOU-AQUASH
• CBC News Indepth: Anna Mae PictouAquash
• Gun In Her Mouth - YouTube