Br Eiet 4 ‘against them in TREATED ‘WORSE THAN PIGS-’ By BILL DEVINE On the reserves and in towns and cities, Canada’s In- dian and Metis peoples are still being denied the right to live in human dignity. The same is true of Can- ada’s Eskimo population. The white man’s “civiliza- tion” is depriving them of the elementary right to earn a livelihood and is forcing them to live in conditions of the utmost degradation and mis- ery. At the same time their so- cial and cultural traditions are undermined under the patronizing guise of “integra- tion” into the white man’s society — an integration that is on the white man’s terms and which thus amounts in fact to subjugation. How DO Canada’s Indians and Eskimos live? Recent news reports from northern Manitoba and On- tario and from Vancouver have highlighted the situation for the Indians and Metis on reserves and in the cities, but the same conditions apply generally throughout the country. Estimates of the average annual income of northern Manitoba’s Indians and Metis range from $148 to $217. The staple diet for the winter is bannock bread (made from flour, baking powder and water) and lard. Children were said to be fainting from hunger at school because they could not afford the price for milk (30 cents a can) eggs ($1 a dozen), potatoes (25 cents a pound), or 80 cents for a box of baby food. One schoolteacher said In- dian children bring lunches of bannock and lard during the winter — “and sometimes they don’t even have lard.” Overcrowding and lack of sanitation were also said to be the rule. DRISCRIMINATION Of northern Manitoba’s 25,000 Indian and Metis, some 4,000 are located_near Thomp- son, site of the big new Inter- national Nickel Company plant. The Indians have charg- ed that INCO discriminates its hiring practices after having used them to do the bull-work in clearing the land for construc- tion of the plant. INCO tries to deny this, stating Indians and Metis — ues that since the Indians con- must measure up to certain educational requirements. But - neither the provincial govern- ment nor INCO provides ade- quate educational facilities and thus the charge of discri- mination is true beyond a doubt. Before Christmas the Salva- tion Army wanted the RCAF to co-operate in a food and clothing air-lift to the area, but the federal government vetoed this. Citizenship and Immigration Minister Bell said ‘it did not seem neces- sary ...at the present time.” Since the Christmas-time publicity INCO has hired the grand total of four Indians. Manitoba Premier Roblin visited the area and amid much publicity announced two “immediate relief’? road building and airstrip projects. So far, 20 jobs have been provided on the road (the project will last only 40 days) and no start has been made on the air-strip. But this would also only provide 20 jobs for a 40-day period. A report to last month’s meeting of the Ontario Hous- ing Advisory Committee by Thomas Kellett of the Econo- mic and Development Depart- ment’s housing branch, told of the degrading and miser- able conditions of Indians liv- ing on the fringes of the nor- thern Ontario communities of Red Lake, Hornepayne and Sioux Lookout. _ “T just can’t tell you how bad these conditions are in Red Lake and in some other places,’”’ Kellett said. The slum areas inhabited by Indians around ‘the North- ern Ontario communities re- sult from Indians leaving ov- ercrowded and impoverished reserves. A reporter for a Toronto newspaper stated: “With only basic elementary education on the reserves, the Indians have drifted south to seek what- ever living they can make.” He said that in the Red Lake area he found the barest minimum of food, overcrowd- ing and lack of water and sanitary facilities. POLITICAL FOOTBALL He said the situation has become “a political football that no one wants to claim.” Provincial authorities claim the federal government must accept responsibilitv while the federal government arg- PUBLIC OPINION POLL In reply to the question: political beliefs.” per cent. MAJORITY IN CANADA FAVOR ALL—IN TRADE The Canadian Institute of Public Opinion announced on Jan. 30 that the majority of Canadians favor the idea of trading with the socialist world. The Institute arrived at its conclusion on the basis of the results of a Gallup Poll conducted by it. “Are you in favor, or are you opposed, to the sale of Canadian wheat, produce and other non- strategic goods to Communist countries such as Red China, Cuba and Poland?’’, 63 per cent of those asked answered that they are in favor, four percent were in favor ‘under certain conditions,’ 26 per cent were opposed and seven per cent had no opinion. The Institute broke down its favorable replies into the follow- ing categories: 64 per cent of Conservatives were in favor of such trade, 62 per cent of Liberals and 69 per cent of people ‘‘of other The Institute further announced that in Eastern Canada, 58 per cent of the people questioned were in favor, in Ontario the figure was 62 per cent and in Western Canada it climbed to 70 _ Feb.. 15; -1963—-P ACIFIC; TRIBUNE—Page 8. B.C. NATIVE VILLAGE. Native children are seen here playing along the tracks in the Native village at Port Edwards which houses workers employed by Nelson Bros. cannery seen in back- — Native peoples denied human dignity — ground. This picture represents a typical scene on the northern B.C. coast. In reservations condi- tions among the Native people are even worse. —Fisherman Foto cerned -have left the reserves they are a provincial responsi-. bility. : As a result no one does any- thing and the Indians contin- ue to suffer. The Ontario government did send a community devel- opment officer to the area and is studying a plan for a basic house for the Indians costing $3,000 — but so far has given no indication as to how the Indians are to find work to amass anything near that sum. In Vancouver, attention has been centred on the plight of Indians — especially young Indian women — living in that city by the death of a 26-year-old Indian woman on the community’s infamous Skid Road. Forced into prostitution by impoverishment, she had been beaten to death and became the 48rd such victim in the last two years. = 2 Indian men and women find their way to Skid Road because they are lonely, most often without work and know they will find other Indians . there. What brings them to Van- couver in the first place was indicated by a report in a Tor- ento newspaper from its Van- couver correspondent who wrote: “Sanitary conditions and job opportunities on some of the up-coast reserves are so bad, it is stated, that the younger people must often come to Vancouver to sur- vive.” The last word in this quota- tion contains the bitter irony of the situation. “ON THEIR OWN” The federal Indian Affairs Branch says it can do little about the problem because once the Iindians reach the city they are ‘on their own.” Vancouver’s Mayor Rathie announced plans for a “clean- up” of Skid Road. But Pacific Tribune editor Tom McEwen correctly stated that while a “clean-up” would be approv- ed by decent-minded citizens, the problem can only be over- come successfully “by getting —is in fact also turning the _ at the root of the evil, viz., social equality, opportunity, respect, and responsibility to- ward and for our Indian people.” The shameful nature of the treatment of Indians is re- vealed in these (figures: in 1960 there were 2,217 re- serves in Canada. An investi- gation by the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire in Saskatchewan showed that in a typical reserve to accommo- date 400 there were now 12,- 000 persons. Mrs. H. C. Matheson, Sask- atchewan IODE president, said: “Some conditions are equal- ly as bad as in the underdevel- oped areas in Asia where the United Nations is sending aid.” : Because of overcrowding on the reserves, many Indians move to the cities. But there they find only the Skid Road of Vancouver or the slum areas described earlier in Northern Ontario. Canada’s Eskimos are n better off. : The recent Ottawa meeting ‘of the Northwest Territories Council was told that 25 to 50 percent of the Eskimo labor force in the Keewatin dis- trict is on some form of relief and no prospect for a better- ment of the situation is in sight. Mrs. Isabel Hardie, MP for the northern constituency of Mackenzie, had this to say re- cently about conditions of Es- kimos in the Arctic. “PIGS TREATED BETTER” “Pigs at the (Dominion) ex- perimental farm at Ottawa are treated better than most Eskimos. ‘“T’ve seen Eskimos living ~ in shacks so dilapidated that children are’ forced to'remain rolled in blankets day and night to keep from catching cold.” - Authorities continue to prattle smugly about lengthy “transition” stages to ‘“‘inte- grate” the Indian into the “white man’s” world, but this seems to be only a cover-up for a do-nothing attitude and problem upside down. The fact is that where In- dians, Metis and Eskimos have been employed in the “white mans” world in the north, they have done their job and done it well. But “integration” on the white man’s terms is not the answer. Whatever integration may come must be founded on a basis of equality and not high and mighty pre-judgments by the whites. This point was made in a letter to Vancouver city coun- cil by the Communist Party in that city, commenting on Mayor Rathie’s “clean-up” proposals. While it welcomed this, the letter emphasized: “Solution to the problems of the Indian people lies not in their absorption into the cities or their de-Indianiza- tion, but in creating condi- tions in their communities which will allow their culture to flourish while at the same time creating economic con- ditions for a standard of life equal to that enjoyed by the average Canadian.” The present. disgraceful sit- uation of the Indians and Es- kimos makes the program of the Communist Party daily more currect. It states: “European settlement and capitalist industrialization in Canada were carried through at the expense of its original inhabitants. The Indian peoples were robbed of their lands and herded into reser- vations; they were deprived of equal rights of citizenship, and of self-government. “The oppression of the In- dian and Arctic peoples is a continuing disgrace to Can- ada. It is the urgent duty of all democratic Canadians to help win recognition of their identity and dignity as dis- tinct peoples, the ending of all forms of discrimination against them and the estab- lishment of their full political equality. “The government-ward sta- tus of the Indian and Arctic peoples must be : abolished and their rights fully restor- ed.”