FEATURE ~

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The Tory attack
on Native rights —

By PAUL OGRESKO

In 1969 the Trudeau government released its infamous
White Paper on Indian Affairs. That paper, which at its
core called for the termination of Indians as distinct
peoples and their total assimilation into the dominant
society, was a formula for genocide.

It met with a storm of protest from aboriginal
organizations across Canada and, inadvertently for the
Trudeau government, led to a new level of militancy and
organization among aboriginal people which would
culminate in the formation of organizations such as the
Assembly of First Nations.

Now, almost two decades later, the Canadian
government is launching a new, concerted attack on
aboriginal rights. This time it’s a Tory, not Liberal
government, and the attack is accompanied with the new
right-wing phraseology of ‘‘fiscal restraint’ and
‘“economic readjustment”.

In March, 1986 the Mulroney government released its
Nielsen Task Force Review of Indian and Native
programs. The official release of the 523 page report
came a year after an embarrassing leak sent then Indian
Affairs Minister David Crombie scurrying to assure the
media the report was not official government policy.

The report, headed by former deputy prime minister
Erik Nielsen, called for massive cutbacks in Native
programs; the closing of schools and hospitals,
‘“‘deterrent’’ fees on medical care, the termination of
housing and community assistance to reserves in areas

' considered economically “‘unviable’’, the relocation of

Indian people to urban centres and the dismantling of the
Department of Indian Affairs.

After the release of the Nielsen report, Mulroney,
repeating Crombie’s assurances, said the report was not
government policy. Recent events prove contrary.

Tory Doubletalk

‘‘Don’t think of a cutback as a cutback but as less of
an increase,’ Bernard Valcourt, a deputy minister of
Indian Affairs, said at a recent meeting with Ontario
Native leaders who were not reassured by the Tory
doubletalk. After decades of lies, fabrications, and
broken promises on the part of the Canadian
government, Native leaders have come to view any
government statement with due suspicion. Leaders of
the First Nations of Ontario, like their counterparts
across the country, see the current round of cutbacks on
Native programs as the Mulroney government’s
undeclared implementation of the Nielsen report.

- ‘Even though Mulroney has said the Nielsen report is
shelved; it is being implemented right now.’’ Gord
Peters, leader of the First Nations of Ontario told the
Tribune, ‘‘The Nielsen report is almost a direct product
of the 1969 White Paper on assimilation which leads us to
believe that neither government, Liberal or
Conservative, has any idea of what the aboriginal people
of Canada want and strive for.

‘‘(The governments) only see themselves in the light of
trying to eradicate what they call the ‘Indian problem’.
As long as they continue to see us as a ‘problem’ then
we’ll never find solutions to the kind of conflict we have
now.’ Government policy this year bears out Peters’
concerns. In May the Department of Indian Affairs
announced cutbacks in funding for Native education,
changes that will limit any expansion in the number of
Native people being given money for higher education.
The new funding formula the feds are pushing has
already resulted in an estimated 5,000 Native students
being told they are not eligible for post-secondary
education funding. In Quebec there has been a $2.8
million reduction in education financing for Native

students.
: Under the Knife

The funding limits come at a critical time for Native
people. The Native population is young and increasing;
currently 52 per cent of Native people are under the age
of 20 while the birth rate is double the national average.
The Assembly of First Nations has questioned how the
federal government can legitimize closing the avenues of
access to education when the need among Native people
has never been greater.

Education is not the only area under the Tory knife.
The Native policing program in Ontario is now in
jeopardy with the federal government refusing to pick up ‘

its portion of the funding program. The Native policing
program was a small step in the direction of accountable
and responsible policing on reserves. The history of
police-Native relations in Ontario, like across the
country, has been a litany of abuse and misconduct.
Both the provincial police and the RCMP have a

record of unjust arrests, insensitivity to Native traditions
and open brutality to Native people both on and off

« reserves.

The aim of the Ontario program, begun in 1975, was to
have Indian constables who were responsible to, and
acted on behalf of, reserve band councils. Now, using
Meech Lake as a springboard, the feds are shifting
responsibility to the provinces. Native leaders see this as
a direct attempt to negate federal responsibility for
Native people and to shift constitutional responsibilities
to the provincial governments.

‘‘We don’t want any more provincial intrusion into
our own territories.’ Peters said, ‘‘The effect of Meech
Lake is limited at this time but it is part of a process to
give provinces the ability to opt out of federal programs
and it’s part of the indication contained in the Nielsen
report that there would be more provincial
responsibility.”” ‘

Caught in the Squeez

Increasing populations have left reserve councils
strapped for funds and scrambling to find available
housing. There is a backlog of 10,000 families waiting for
new housing on reserves while a further 11,000 homes
need major renovations. A recent study revealed that
2,500 reserve homes are occupied by two or more
families while more than half of the homes have no
central heating and almost a third no indoor plumbing.

Federal expenditures are falling far behind the rapid
increase in demand while fed employment programs that
funded job training and hiring in construction, have been
shut down leaving many reserves with half-constructed
units. Adding to the burden is the influx of ‘‘reinstated”’
Indians who had previously lost their “‘status’’ due to
the inequities of the Indian Act. Now the federal
government, in correcting a historical injustice it itself
had created, has left Native people shouldering a burden
not of their making.

A Program for Termination

The Nielsen Report warned that Indian people could
be expected to resist the major changes it proposed and
that the government ‘‘should be prepared to judge the
extent to which it is prepared to withstand this
criticism.’’ The massive cutbacks currently being
implemented show the Tories have no intention of
seriously negotiating self-government with Native
organizations. The underlying goal of the conservative
government, as outlined in an analysis released by the
First Nations of Ontario, is the ‘‘ultimate termination of
First Nations and their lands.”

The Tory alternative to first nation self-government is
a form of limited, delegated control by Indian reserves
that would leave existing reserve land, and outstanding
claims, open to exploitation and control by the huge
transnationals. To achieve this goal the Mulroney
government has embarked ona divide and rule program,
trying to strike separate deals with each reserve rather
than deal with representative organizations such as the
AEN.

At the same time the Nielsen Report laments the
position of Native organizations, stating “‘If only they
would enter the 20th century and leave behind the
land-based culture and values, such as promoting the
communal good before the individual interests .. .””

It is precisely that ‘communal good”’ that sets the
agenda for the first nations in their quest for

- self-government; a vision that offers the hope of setting

up a Society true to Native culture and tradition.
Fiscal restraint was an oft used term by the
Department of Indian Affairs representative at the
recent meeting between Native leaders and the federal
and provincial governments. After listening to a lecture
on how the federal government had to be responsible in
its spending, Dennis Cromarty, leader of the
Nishnawbe- Aski nation, asked, ‘‘How can the federal
government legitimize spending billions on weapons of
war when it won’t spend a million on human rights?”

Karmel Taylor-McCullum

Cree children: Facing an uncertain future as Native

education comes under the Tory knife.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 3, 1988 e 5