THE

WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER

‘er the apathy, lack of
sspect and absence of
y in ethnic identity and
Mural heritage, so frequent
“, Canadian imos who
heave been educated in our
‘beautiful, modern school
njildings in such towns as
Yellowknife and Inuvik. In-
deed, we learned of numer-
wus instances of the kind of
“assertion and personal
“ {amide one expects of people
- lho have experienced equal-
‘ity of treatment and equality
peeornnity:

TIVE POLICE

st winter, for example,
workmen who en-
ed in a drunken brawl in
barracks had to be quel-
by the police in the capital
n of Godthab. When they
sted arrest by a group of
enlandic policemen, the
ers didn’t hesitate to use
methods of persua-
sion which police everywhere
employ. No one so much as
_ |paised an eyebrow at the fact
“that this was an instance of
Mative people using force
against Danes. It might be
added that these Greenlandic
police were fully qualified
olice officers, not “native
‘assistants’ hired mainly to
-jact as go-betweens, a phenom-
enon by no means unknown
‘jin Canadian Indian and Eski-
mo communities.
| The relations between

|

e)

Greenlanders and Danes are,
in fact, far more equalitarian
than those between white
Canadians and Eskimos. Mar-
riages of Eskimo men to Dan-
ish women, as well as vice-
versa, are not infreauent on
various social levels. In some
Greenlandic households Dan-
ish domestic help are employ-
ed. Places of amusement and
accommodation, such as beer
halls and hotels in the larger
towns, are equally open to all.
Remarks indicative ot racial
prejudice are rarely heard,

GREENLAND BEAUTY

® over the prior treaties
N gave the Indians the
unrestricted right to hunt and
on their reserves. The In-
ns claim that the govern-
, therefore, has reneged
Contract with the Indians
ut consulting or nego-
with them. The Indi-
raw attention to the
et that “even in expropria-
yeh cases where there is a
seat public need to possess
n glad property, it is
/ e without negotia-
on compensation, It is
is double standard that has
bittered the Indian people.
€ consequence of this case
earently is that only white
© are entitled to consi-
on and consultation .. .
restoration of our treaty
nts would generate .. . a
W sense of confidence in the
~ahadian. government whic
, 8° vital to the efforts to

poverty. —
concluded with

int and fish for food at
on reserve property

NATIVE INDIANS

The Union of Ontario In-
dians had asked the Ontario
Labour Committee for Hu-
man Rights to help them re-
gain their treaty rights. In
line with its activity in the
Kenora Indian demonstration,
the Committee’s policy is to
assist disadvantaged minority
groups to fight for them-
selves. Accordingly, it helped
the Indians to draft the brief
and organize the delegation.

A representative group of
non-Indians organized by La-
bour Committee Director, Al
Borovoy, endorsed the brief
and travelled to Ottawa to
support the Indians in their
presentation to the Minister
of Indian Affairs.

The following were some of
the non-Indian groups pres-
ent:

The Canadian Labour Con-
gress, Canadian Welfare
Council, Young Women’s
Christian Association, the Co-
operative Union of Canada,
various church groups, Jew-
ish Labour Committee of
Canada, United Steelworkers,

United Auto Workers.

Sac

and then only by uneducated,
temporary personnel from
Denmark.

Although the recently pub-
lished Carrothers Report on
government in the Northwest
Territories recommends an
increased measure of self-
government, even its recom-
mendations do not approxi-
mate the situation in Green-
land. There, a 15-member
elected Council plays a major
role in the affairs of the is-
land, recommending legisla-
tion to the Danish _Parlia-
ment which is seldom refused.
At present, 14 of the 15 mem-
bers are Greenlanders. More-
over, Greenland elects: two
M.P.s who represent her in-
terests in Parliament in Co-
penhagen. The proceedings of
the Greenland Council are
carried on bilingually with
on-the-spot translation, and
are published in both Danish
and Greenlandic.

ARTS BOARD

The arts are stimulated and
encouraged through the Dan-
ish Arts and Crafts Board;
Greenlandic music has been
carried to major centres of
Europe and America via the
tours by Mik, the Greenlandic
song troupe.

y experience in Green-
land provided a very vivid
demonstration that through
an enlightened, liberal, imag-
inative programme of plan-
ning and development, Arctic
regions can move into the
modern world, without the
massive destruction of native
heritage and self-respect so

_ prevalent in the Canadian

North. Little Denmark, with
only one-fifth of Canada’s
population and far more lim-
ited resources, has shown a
way that’s proving successful.
Why don’t we follow?

“THE OPPRESSION OF OUR
INDIANS GOES ON AND ON"

By BILL CAMPBELL

The terms “Race Discrimi-
nation”, “White Backlash”
and “Segregation” are rarely
applied to the Canadian
scene. We do not even have a
home-grown insult-word like
“Nigger” or “Wog” for our
Native Indian people.

And, Heaven knows, this
omission is something.

Yet, although the words
are missing, the oppression of
Canadian Indians goes on and
on, as.it has for every one of
the hundred years of our
centenary.

Like many other evil things
in our country our ‘race prob-
lem’ does show some signs of
a beginning to a solution. In
B.C., for example, all credit
must go to the organized
workers in the two main in-
dustries where Indians chiefly
find employment: fishing and
logging. The recent Hazelton
Sawmills story, carried in this
newspaper, with reference to
joint work between the IWA
and the Kispiox Band Coun-
cil and Native Brotherhood is
just one instance of the re-
wards to be gained from right
thinking and right action, by
both parties, on the race
question.

RAW TRUTH

Nevertheless, without in
any way minimizing the value
of such ‘beginnings’, the raw
truth is that’ most of the
quarter million Canadian In-
dians, including the forty-odd
thousand in B.C., live in bleak
social conditions that are
enough to make the very
stones weep.

Indian Acts and Indian Af-
fairs Departments with all
their legal trappings far from
being what they pretend, i.e.
a protection for a minority
people, are and always have
been ‘the machine’ itself! The
deliberate, planned purpose
and end result of these gentle-
men’s activities has always
been the same—land stealing.

And if any reader thinks
this is too harsh a description
let him ponder over two
things.

First, that in British Co-
lumbia, out of a total of 192
Indian Bands, only 16 of
these have land Treaties. This
means, in the words of the

NO MEANING FOR HIM

eminent B.C. anthropologist
Professor Wilson Duff. . .
“the other 176 Bands are still
without Treaties ... that the
Native Title of these lands
is still alive, unsurrendered
and in effect’. :

The other thing to be aware
of is that this quite illegal
plundering of Indian land,
(that is, of the little they have
been “allowed” to keep in the
form of Reserves), is still go-
ing on by the same class of
people who have done it from

the start. :,

MORE REFINED

No longer is the job done
with a musket in one hand
and a Bible in the other—and
a bottle of gut-rot whiskey in
the back pocket. Today it is
much more refined with all
the apparent majesty of the
law on its side. One way is
for a city or town municipal-
ity to ‘offer’ to extend its
boundaries to include a Re-
serve. Promises are _made
about a modern water supply
and sewerage: even tax re-
turns. A general softening-up
process is carried out. ‘Cor-
dial’ joint meetings are held
between the Band and the
City Fathers with just the
right mixture of Big Brother
and Big Wheel. Some leading
Band member will be given a
White business club award,
another ‘permitted’ to dance
with the Mayor’s wife at some
function. “

A final point is, of course,
again, the question of cheap
labour. That the IWA has a |
proud record of pressing for
parity is common knowledge.
But not all mills and bush
operations are, alas, organ-
ized yet. And side by side
with this essential organizing
job it seems very necessary
for every trade unionist to
take an active interest in
dealing with one of the chief
causes of cheap labour which,
whatever the apologists for
the millionaires may say, is
still spelt ‘poverty’. Add to
this, in large doses and in a
hundred different ways, the
denial of human dignity and
you have a situation all
around us which we can only
ignore at our peril.

, 1S
He san Bir of Rice
i ie eget

ae 8 demure haces
nce wet