Royal Commission, Part 1 of 3 Lubicon Lake Indian Nation
Little Buffalo Lake, AB
403-629-3945
FAX: 403-629-3939
Mailing address:
3536 - 106 Street
Edmonton, AB T6J 1A4
403-436-5652
FAX: 403-437-0719
May 6, 1991
Enclosed for your information are copies of selected newspaper
articles on the newly announced Royal Commission on aboriginal
issues. The history of such Royal Commissions in Canada is not
good.
Typically Royal Commissions in Canada are created in response to
growing political pressure to take action. They are created in
lieu of action by disingenuous politicians who hope that the
pressure on them to take action will be first deflected and then
dissipated over the often several year period that such Commissions
take to complete their work.
It's unlikely that a Royal Commission on aboriginal issues will
surface anything new on either the nature of the problem or
necessary remedial action. Inquiry after inquiry into aboriginal
issue after aboriginal issue arrives at the same or similar
conclusions.
Rather than a Royal Commission on aboriginal issues what's needed
are politicians with the decency, integrity and courage to do
what's generally known to be the right and honourable thing in such
areas as aboriginal land rights and aboriginal self-government.
Until such politicians can be elected and take obviously required
action it's likely that the serious problems associated with the
plight of aboriginal people in Canada will only continue to fester
and grow worse.
Attachment #1: re-printed without permission from The Globe and
Mail, Friday, March 08, 1991
ABORIGINAL RIGHTS CALLED 'MOST GLARING' PROBLEM
By Graham Fraser
Parliamentary Bureau
OTTAWA
Calling Canada's aboriginal issues "the most glaring human-rights
problem in this country," federal Human Rights Commissioner Maxwell
Yalden yesterday renewed his call for a royal commission to examine
the matter.
"In the current context, the option of a royal commission still
looks to us like the most hopeful -- perhaps the only satisfactory
-- way of getting to the bottom of a number of complex and
controversial issues on which the two sides, let alone the general
public, simply do not see eye to eye," Mr. Yalden told the House of
Commons standing committee on aboriginal affairs.
"A basic rethinking of federal relations with aboriginal people is
now in order."
He told the committee that the royal commission should be named
even though the Citizens' Forum on Canada's Future, headed by Keith
Spicer, has aboriginal issues as part of its mandate.
Mr. Yalden quoted Mr. Spicer as saying in a Nov. 21 letter to Prime
Minister Brian Mulroney that the forum would not be able to do a
"thorough" review of aboriginal concerns.
Speaking to reporters later, Indian Affairs Minister Thomas Siddon
said he does not anticipate a decision on a royal commission until
at least next summer, and he disagrees with Mr. Yalden's suggestion
that it should start work before then.
"I think the Spicer Commission is the proper place for Canadians,
including aboriginal Canadians, to express their views about the
future of a united Canada, which we all hope to see as the end
result of all this discussion," Mr. Siddon said.
Mr. Yalden told the committee there has to be a change in the way
the federal government deals with native people, "so aboriginal
leaders and their people can believe that they are in a fair game."
New Democrat Ray Skelly said Mr. Yalden should have filed a
complaint himself over human-rights abuses during a prolonged
confrontation last summer between Mohawks and government
authorities near Montreal.
"My answer is...that we had no prima facie grounds in thinking that
a person was engaged in a discriminatory fashion under the law,"
Mr. Yalden said, saying that the human-rights legislation permits
him only to address cases under federal jurisdiction that deal with
questions of discrimination on certain grounds such as sex, race or
religion.
The committee also heard from the Indigenous Bar Association, which
also called for an independent judicial inquiry.
Attachment #2: re-printed without permission from The Globe and
Mail, Friday, April 12, 1991
PM HINTS HE WILL CREATE NATIVE PANEL
Royal commission is expected to be announced early in May
By Susan Delacourt
Parliamentary Bureau
OTTAWA
Prime Minster Brian Mulroney hinted strongly yesterday that a royal
commission on aboriginal issues will be announced soon.
Asked whether the federal government is planning such a commission,
Mr. Mulroney smiled and told reporters that "it is not a
proposition that we have excluded. We're going to have an
adjournment (of Parliament) soon, and we're going to analyze it
closely."
He stressed that he had put forward the idea before the Meech Lake
constitutional accord was "sabotaged" last June, and that he was
still interested in the prospect, even though the promise went into
limbo after the death of Meech.
Since then, many people -- including Maxwell Yalden, head of the
Canadian Human Rights Commission -- have pressed the government to
go forward immediately with a commission on aboriginal issues, but
the government has repeatedly said it is either too soon or too
impractical.
However, the Prime Minister's remarks yesterday appeared to confirm
growing speculation that the time has now come for the commission.
His comments also seemed to confirm reports about the expected
timing of such an announcement.
It has been rumoured that the government will unveil the royal
commission around the beginning of May -- shortly before the Speech
from the Throne, scheduled for mid-May, and shortly after a House
of Commons committee issues its report on last summer's Quebec
native crisis, probably April 29 or 30.
Ethel Blondin, a Liberal representative on the committee,
acknowledged yesterday that the report's key recommendations are
likely to include a royal commission on aboriginal issues, as well
as a separate, judicial inquiry into the events at Oka, Que.
But she stressed that native people would not be happy with just
any royal commission on aboriginal issues and that its scope and
timing are crucial factors. "It has to be done in a way that's
expeditious, not long and drawn out," she said.
During deliberations over the report, Ms. Blondin has been
advocating the idea of am umbrella royal commission, which would
oversee a number of other specific inquiries. The smaller probes
would look into matters such as the treatment of native children in
residential schools, police treatment of native people, and
employment and job-training prospects for native people.
Ovide Mercredi, Manitoba Vice-Chief of the Assembly of First
Nations, also believes that the government simply cannot come up
with any old royal commission to examine aboriginal issues.
As he sees it, the panel has to focus not on the problems of native
people, but on white society's problems in dealing with them.
Attachment #3: re-printed without permission from The Edmonton
Journal, Wednesday, April 24, 1991
PM OFFERS NEW DEAL FOR NATIVES
Royal commission, too
Julian Beltrame
Southam News
VICTORIA
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney promised Canada's natives a new deal
Tuesday, saying the time had come for Canadians to face up to the
historic mistreatment of aboriginal peoples.
The prime minister announced a royal commission on native issues,
an accelerated land-claims process and a "key" role for natives in
future constitutional negotiations.
In a speech to about 200 British Columbia native leaders, Mulroney
said his government will try to form a partnership with natives to
build a new Canada.
"I believe, most sincerely, that we are on the threshold of
producing very beneficial and lasting change," he said.
Besides the royal commission on the "economic, social and cultural"
reality of aboriginal peoples, Mulroney pledged:
*Aboriginal concerns will be a "key element of the coming round of
constitutional discussions." A government official later told
reporters that aboriginal peoples will have a seat at the table,
although he did not say whether they will have a vote.
*The government target for settling all land claims disputes will
be the year 2000. There are currently 175 specific and 30
comprehensive land claims still to be settled.
*The government will negotiate with provinces and natives on
establishing an aboriginal justice system.
*A five-step fast-track process will deal with land claims of
$500,00 or less.
The main element is the creation of a commission composed of
natives and non-natives for appealing rejected land claims. The
commission will begin as an advisory body, but will be upgraded to
a legislative tribunal if it proves successful.
Later Mulroney suggested that former federal New Democratic Party
leader Ed Broadbent would be capable of heading such a commission.
Mulroney also announced $355 million to pay for successful native
settlements, $320 million over five years for native post-secondary
education, and $36 million to combat family violence in native
communities.
Indian Affairs Minister Tom Siddon said the royal commission would
be formed "soon" after consultations with natives.
The promises were greeted with only polite applause.
Taking the microphone after the prime minister, Bill Wilson,
chairman of the First Nations Congress, sought assurances the royal
commission will not be a way of "hiding issues you are incapable of
dealing with immediately.
"We will be keeping close watch, Mr. Prime Minister," he said.
Chief Ovid Mercredi, vice-president of the Assembly of First
Nations, credited the Prime Minister for finally making a
commitment to involve natives in constitutional change.
But he discounted the royal commission, saying natives have been
"studied to death."
Royal Commission, Part 2 of 3
Attachment #4: re-printed without permission from The Edmonton
Journal, Wednesday, April 24, 1991
NATIVES SKEPTICAL ABOUT PROMISE OF ROYAL COMMISSION
Joan Bryden
Southam News
OTTAWA
Brian Mulroney's promise to create a royal commission on native
issues was greeted with skepticism Tuesday by aboriginal leaders.
They criticized the prime minister for not consulting them before
the announcement and warned the plan will fail if they aren't
involved in choosing the commission's members and setting the terms
of reference.
"If they're simply going to come amongst us and do an inventory on
our situation -- how fast we die, the poor housing we live in, how
poor we are, the lack of income, the high unemployment -- forget
it," said Georges Erasmus, national chief of the Assembly of First
Nations.
"We don't want to hear that crap. We need something that will
basically go to the heart of the relationship between first nations
and this country."
Erasmus said the commission must focus on ways to ensure natives
gain self-government and "a share of the real power and land and
resources."
Mulroney announced in Victoria that he will soon set up a royal
commission to examine the economic, social and cultural situation
of aboriginal peoples. Membership and terms of reference are to be
announced in the next few weeks.
Both Erasmus and Viola Robinson, president of the Native Council of
Canada, said their groups -- which represent most status and non-
status Indians in the country -- were not consulted about the
announcement.
"Just the way they've proceeded to this point has created some
skepticism on our part," Erasmus said.
"Certainly there has to be more dialogue" if the commission is to
be useful, said Robinson.
Robinson said aboriginal people themselves should choose their
representatives on the commission. And she said the mandate should
include land claims and constitutional issues.
Erasmus said a royal commission could help avert another summer of
native protests -- but only if natives are involved in setting it
up.
"If it's really going to be something that is going to be used to
quell people and to tell them, 'Look, don't go to the barricades,
don't pick up the gun, there's another alternative,' let's do it
right. Let's have some respect for first nations right from the
start."
Mulroney also announced Tuesday measures to accelerate land claims
and the creation of an independent commission to resolve disputed
claims. Those measures received a warmer welcome, although not
whole-hearted support.
Attachment #5: re-printed without permission from The Globe and
Mail, Wednesday, April 24, 1991
EDITORIAL
STRIKING A COMMISSION ON ABORIGINAL ISSUES
It is easy to get bogged down in the bureaucracy of aboriginal
affairs in Canada. Ask anyone familiar with the grindingly slow
progress of past years, the false starts, the arbitrary ends.s
Consider Ottawa's past refusal to negotiate more than six
comprehensive and claims at a time, a policy Prime Minister Brian
Mulroney mercifully reversed last September. Consider its
reputation for rudely dismissing claims on technicalities, sowing
distrust and irritation among those who must deal with the Indian
Affairs Department.
Questions cry out for answers: What does self-government mean, to
natives and to non-natives? Does the criminal Code apply to all
Canadians, including aboriginal peoples, as Mr. Mulroney affirmed
last year to the annoyance of Georges Erasmus, national chief of
the Assembly of First Nations? What is the future of the reserve
system? What are its virtues, its shortcomings? How is the often
appalling poverty and despair on many reserves to be alleviated?
What about the lives of native peoples in Canadian cities? How can
aboriginal peoples best help themselves?
Speaking yesterday to the First Nations Congress in Victoria, the
Prime Minister acknowledged that aboriginal Canadians have, since
the first Europeans arrived, "too often been treated insensitively,
unfairly and even illegally". It follows that steps to resolve
native claims and grievances should be sensitive, fair and legal
(and just, which is not always the same thing).
In a belated but welcome move, Mr. Mulroney promised to create a
royal commission "to examine the economic, social and cultural
situation of the aboriginal peoples of this country." There are
mountains here to be scaled; the commissioners will find a wealth
of past studies, reports and ignored recommendations to enlighten
them. The Prime Minister was wise to dissociate this commission
from the narrower (though crucial) cause of constitutional reform,
a distinction that will give the commission the greater scope and
time it needs to be useful.
Even as we await details of the commission, we may salute the
government's initiatives, announced last fall and recalled
yesterday, to clear a path through the tangle of red tape that has
defined official dealings with natives in Canada. In particular,
responding to appeals from many who have studied the handling of
"specific land claims" -- claims grounded in the alleged non-
performance or malfeasance of governments -- Mr. Mulroney announced
the establishment of a special, independent commission to make the
resolution of those claims fairer. The commission will be, as it
must be, at arm's length from the Indian Affairs Department.
There was more, including new money to establish water and sewage
facilities on reserves where they are inadequate or absent, and
increased funding of Indian post-secondary education. The Prime
Minister made an impressive speech, saying encouraging things about
the government's willingness to admit past mistakes and, no small
matter, to overhaul the archaic, paternalistic Indian Act.
Such things have been said before, by this government and previous
governments, and native leaders may be expected to temper cautious
optimism with skepticism. But the changes and initiatives Mr.
Mulroney spoke of yesterday have much to recommend them; and his
decision to create a royal commission should help raise the profile
of aboriginal issues in Canada that, on practical, political and
moral grounds, cannot afford to keep brushing them aside.
Attachment #6: re-printed without permission from The Edmonton
Journal, Thursday, April 25, 1991
EDITORIAL
A FORUM FOR NATIVE PEOPLE
The aboriginal people of Canada will decide the fate of Prime
Minister Brian Mulroney's royal commission. We hope they find the
faith to make it work.
Royal commissions are Canada's favourite substitute for action.
Confused governments use them to buy time; cynical governments use
them to diffuse criticism. Indigenous people already mistrust
Mulroney's motives and resent his lack of consultation on the
belated master plan.
Their skepticism is justified. But is it too much to hope that
they might shape the outmoded royal commission into a forum of
their own creation? That they might use it to investigate, and
push forward their ideas about native autonomy without the usual
muffle of intermediaries?
What a gift to the country that would be. Canada needs no more
lectures on native grievances from bureaucrats in the Department of
Indian Affairs, from droning academics, well-meaning white
liberals, poverty statisticians or politicians who prefer blather
to the hard work of policy-making. Canada needs to hear from the
silent, disillusioned people at the centre of this maelstrom.
This is not to say the royal commission should be an all-native
exercise. Only a wide representation of Canadians can create the
dialogue that has been lacking. But let's try to avoid the usual,
dead-end pattern of national native investigations: white people
recommend, native people reject.
Aboriginal Canadians may not be able to summon the trust for the
project. They remember well that Mulroney offered a royal
commission last spring to bribe Elijah Harper into last-minute
submission on the Meech Lake accord, then withdrew it when the
Manitoban refused to do his bidding. Through the wretched summer
of Oka, the prime minister wouldn't consider a royal commission or
any consultation with native leaders.
He has now come around to the idea. More correctly, Canadians who
are ashamed of the country's failure to deal honourably with native
citizens have driven him to it.
The prime minister will appoint a royal commission on the
"economic, social and cultural situation" of aboriginal people. He
appears to want to leave their political demand for improved
constitutional status out of this process, an impossible
expectation, if true.
The best news Mulroney offered in Victoria was a streamlined land
claims process. The government promises to settle all land claims
-- 175 specific claims, 30 comprehensive claims and more to come --
before the year 2000. A special fast-track system will handle
claims of less than $500,000. A commission composed of native
people and other Canadians, at arm's length from the government,
will hear appeals.
Mulroney also promises to begin negotiations with native leaders
and the provinces on a new aboriginal justice system. Alberta's
Cawsey report, the Donald Marshall inquiry report from Nova Scotia
and the pending conclusions in Manitoba will push those talks in
the right direction.
As for the royal commission, it will succeed only if it has
credibility where it counts: from Pangnirtung to the Blood reserve
to Kahnawake to the urban native ghettos of Canadian cities.
Ottawa's agenda can't be imposed.
There has been some talk that Ed Broadbent will be named chairman.
With respect, the job might be better suited to an aboriginal
Canadian with the admiration of the native community. Many names
come to mind, but Elijah Harper might be ideal. If he could put
aside his legitimate doubts, he could help Canadians of all races
find justice in their relationships with one another.
Royal Commission, Part 3 of 3
Attachment #7: re-printed without permission from The Edmonton
Journal, Saturday, April 27, 1991
ONLY ONE QUESTION FOR NATIVE COMMISSION
Patrick Nagle
Southam News
CALGARY
When Prime Minister Brian mulroney's royal commission on native
affairs sits down for its first meeting, they should ask only one
question: What are we doing here?
There is probably more research in federal and provincial archives
on the subject of how the colonists should treat the aboriginal
than there is on the Quebec-Canada situation.
Starting with proclamation from the British crown in 1763 that
promised royal protection for the indigenous peoples, successive
Canadian governors and governments have abdicated and abandoned
their constitutional responsibility to natives for more than two
centuries.
Despite a budget larger than that needed to sustain some third
world countries and a bureaucracy that takes up a 12-page listing
in the federal telephone directory, the Department of Indian and
Northern Affairs has been unable to help either the country or
their charges.
The department, and the Indian Act it administers, are two of the
prime targets modern native leaders want to change drastically and
rapidly.
Liberal leader Jean Chretian, for example, once said to great
applause he wanted to be the last minister of Indian affairs; but
he has been out of that office for more than 15 years and still the
department flourishes.
Since Chretian's day there have bee investigations, commissions and
committees in virtually every national jurisdiction seeking a
resolution to the evident conflict some native people have with the
Canadian way of life.
The native story has been heard and reported accurately by these
investigations but nothing has ever been done in a consistent
fashion to follow through.
Thomas Berger, a British Columbia Supreme Court justice at the
time, spent three years and $5 million on his landmark study of
northern Canada and its relationship to the proposed Mackenzie
Valley pipeline.
Two of Berger's judgments, written in that 1977 report, still
reflect accurately today the unfulfilled aspirations of Canadian
natives:
*"Natives insist on the right to determine their own future, to
ensure their place, but not their assimilation, in Canadian life.
*"Special status for native people is an element of our
constitutional tradition."
Former-prime minster Pierre Trudeau took vigorous exception to the
second of Berger's principles, claiming: "Legal authority and
governmental jurisdiction are not allocated in Canada on grounds
that differentiate people on the basis of race."
The price of royal commissions has gone up substantially since
Berger's time but two of his issues, the right to native self-
determination and the right to native distinction in the Canadian
constitution, are still unsettled.
More recent provincial investigations have proved the appalling
lack of accommodation in the justice system for native Canadians in
conflict with the law.
In Nova Scotia the Donald Marshall inquiry found an institutional
conspiracy deprived a juvenile Micmac Indian of his rights and
jailed him illegally for a murder he did not commit.
The administrators of the system believed the protection of their
institutions was more important than the protection of the rights
of an individual native who plainly did not understand the system
confronting him, the Nova Scotia investigators reported.
In Alberta, two separate inquiries were released this year
examining the relationship between natives and the criminal justice
system, and both reported the authorities had an unacceptable
series of biases against aboriginal people.
One commissioner, Judge Carl Rolf, went so far as to say the Indian
Act should be abandoned, or at least drastically rewritten to
extinguish the memories of "negative measures such as residential
schooling, the pass system and attempted destruction of Indian
spirituality (that) have fostered a distrust and anger toward the
Indian Act."
This is the job the new royal commission on native affairs must sit
down to -- a centuries old record of failed and dilatory attempts
to liberate the native people from their marginalized colonial
inheritance.
The answer to the commission's question has already been addressed
by the Alberta task force on native justice.
"It is the opinion of the task force that the cultural differences
between aboriginals and the dominant society are deep-rooted," the
report states. "Clearly aboriginals are the victims of racism and
discrimination...
"Most aboriginals are located at the low or bottom end of the
economic scale. They have long memories and are unforgiving with
respect to past injustices, most of which are real rather than
perceived.
"Indians are wards of a paternalistic government which has changed
its policies to meet different situation," the Alberta report
concludes.
"The plight of the Indians is proof that the policies adopted have
either been ineffective or have utterly failed."
Attachment #8: re-printed without permission from the Yukon News,
Friday, May 3, 1991
EDITORIAL
MONEY WOULD BE BETTER SPENT ON LAND CLAIMS
Native leaders have reacted cooly to Brian Mulroney's offer of yet
another royal commission on aboriginal issues.
Most are extremely skeptical about the federal government's latest
ploy. And with good reason.
Here's a short list to explain why.
The government almost never follows through on the recommendations
of its royal commissions.
Native people have already been subjected to several of them over
the years, with few, if any, tangible, results.
Unless native people are given a big say in the selection of a
chairman and its terms of reference, it will only rehash old
ground. And who needs that.
The money would be better spent on settling native land claims or
holding a first ministers' conference to address the entrenchment
of aboriginal rights in the Constitution.
Mulroney dangled the royal commission carrot in front of Elijah
Harper, the destroyer of the Meech Lake accord, last June in a vain
attempt to get him on side. Harper, the only aboriginal member of
the Manitoba legislature, refused and the offer was forgotten.
Until now.
The Mohawks near Montreal who took up arms last summer to prevent
their ancestral graveyard from being turned into a golf course have
yet to et title to the disputed land.
Mohawks and their supporters are being prosecuted for a variety of
criminal charges stemming from the lengthy standoff. Meanwhile,
the white Quebecers who stoned a busload of women and children as
they were leaving one of the reserves were let off scot-free by the
courts.
Native political organizations, like the Council for Yukon Indians
in Whitehorse, the Dene Nation in Yellowknife and the Tungavit
Federation of Nunavut in Iqaluit, have had their core funding
slashed to the marrow.
This has been done while they're trying to reach a comprehensive
land claims agreement with Ottawa.
The negotiations in each of the three cases have dragged on for
nearly 20 years, due largely to the government's intransigence and
lack of commitment.
Native-run radio stations and newspapers across Canada have been
completely cut off from federal financial support. This was done
just when native groups were starting to demand justice with a
united voice.
Harper has denounced the federal government as "totally lacking in
credibility."
Judy Gingell of the CYI feels her people have been studied enough.
"We want to look for solutions," she said. "We already know what
the problems are."
Georges Erasmus of the Assembly of First Nations has called
Mulroney a hypocrite and a master of doublespeak.
The skepticism that greeted Mulroney's latest announcement is
thoroughly justified by experience. You just can't expect to fool
native people indefinitely.
--- FD 1.99c
* Origin: Lubicon News Station: Edmonton, Alberta Canada (89:682/432)
--
Terri Kelly - via IMEx node 89:681/1
Terri.Kelly@f432.n682.z89.onebdos.UUCP