Brief Background Aboriginal peoples were experiencing higher infant motility rate and poverty than the rest of the Canadian population. Civil rights movement.

Brief Background • Aboriginal peoples were experiencing higher infant motility rate

and poverty than the rest of the Canadian population.• Civil rights movement was happening in the United States during

this time, which directed public attention to discrimination of minorities.

• In 1963 A Survey of the Contemporary Indians of Canada: Economic, Political, Educational Needs and Policies was published. The conclusion of this report was that Aboriginal peoples were the most disadvantaged among the Canadian population.

• Hawthorn, the anthropologist who did this research claimed that the disadvantages came from failed government policies. He believed that the residential school system was a major contributor as it failed to prepare students for participation in the economy.

Brief Background• After its publication the federal government

began consulting Aboriginal communities across Canada in pursuit of an amendment of the Indian Act.

• A nationwide meeting was held in Ottawa in May 1969 that consisted of Aboriginal representatives expressing their concerns regarding Aboriginal and treaty rights, land title, self-determination, education and health care.

• In June 1969, the white paper proposing the abolition of Indian Affairs, was produced.

What is the White Paper?

• The federal government’s intention, as described in the white paper, was to achieve equality among all Canadians by eliminating Indian as a distinct legal status and by regarding Aboriginal peoples simply as citizens with the same rights, opportunities and responsibilities as other Canadians.

• In keeping with Trudeau’s vision of a “just society,” the government proposed to repeal legislation that it considered discriminatory. In this view, the Indian Act was discriminatory because it applied only to Aboriginal peoples and not to Canadians in general.

• The white paper stated that removing the unique legal status established by the Indian Act would “enable the Indian people to be free—free to develop Indian cultures in an environment of legal, social and economic equality with other Canadians."

The White Paper, 1969Presented to the First Session of the Twenty-eighth Parliament by the Honourable Jean Chretien,

Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development:

To be an Indian is to be a man, with all a man's needs and abilities. To be an Indian is also to be different. It is to speak different languages, draw different pictures, tell different tales and to rely on a set of values developed in a different world. Canada is richer for its Indian component, although there have been times when diversity seemed of little value to many Canadians. But to be a Canadian Indian today is to be someone different in another way. It is to be someone apart - apart in law, apart in the provision of government services and, too often, part in social contacts. To be an Indian is to lack power - the power to act as owner of your lands, the power to spend your own money and, too often, the power to change your own condition. Not always, but too often, to be an Indian is to be without - without a job, a good house, or running water; without knowledge, training or technical skill and, above all, without those feelings of dignity and self-confidence that a man must have if he is to walk with his head held high. All these conditions of the Indians are the product of history and have nothing to do with their abilities and capacities. Indian relations with other Canadians began with special treatment by government and society, and special treatment has been the rule since Europeans first settled in Canada. Special treatment has made of the Indians a community disadvantaged and apart. Obviously, the course of history must be changed. To be an Indian must be to be free - free to develop Indian cultures in an environment of legal, social and economic equality with other Canadians.

What it proposed to do• Eliminate Indian status• Dissolve the Department of Indian Affairs within five years• Abolish the Indian Act• Convert reserve land to private property that can be sold by the band or

its members• Transfer responsibility for Indian affairs from the federal government to

the province and integrate these services into those provided to other Canadian citizens

• Provide funding for economic development• Appoint a commissioner to address outstanding land claims and gradually

terminate existing treaties

Response• Aboriginals feared this stance would undermined their special

rights and status within Canadian society.• Aboriginal peoples were not convinced by this proposition. It

overlooked many of the concerns raised during the consultation process such as recognition of First Nations’ special rights. The white paper proposed further suppression of these special rights.

• The request for Aboriginal representation in Canadian policy making was also ignored.

• For many Aboriginal peoples, the white paper represented another attempt to assimilate them into the majority. Instead of pursuing the promise the federal government made to amend the Indian Act, the proposal became complete abolition and a hand off of responsibilities to the province.

Indian Chiefs address The White Paper

• The Indian Chiefs of Alberta meeting in Calgary addressed a letter to the Honorable Pierre E. Trudeau dated January 22, 1970. That letter said:

“This assembly of all the Indian Chiefs of Alberta is deeply concerned with the action taken by the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, the Honorable Jean Chretien, regarding the implementation of the Indian policy. Time and time again, on the one hand, the Minister has declared publically to the Canadian people that the Indian Policy contained proposals to be discussed with the Indian people. On the other hand, Indian Affairs officials have been recruited for implementation teams to go ahead with the implementation of the policy paper. We find this double-headed approach contradictory. A glaring example is the appointment of the Claims Commissioner. Another example is the concentrated public relations program being conducted to impose the White Paper on the Canadian public. We find this incompatible with the Just Society. Discussions between the Federal department of Indian Affairs and provincial governments have also initiated. This assembly of all the Indian Chiefs of Alberta reaffirms its position of unity and recognizes the Indian Association of Alberta as the voice of all the Treaty Indian people of this province. As representatives of our people we are pledged to continue our earnest efforts to preserve the hereditary and legal privileges of our people. At this meeting of Alberta Indian Chiefs, we have reviewed the first draft of our Counter Policy to the Chretien paper. We plan to complete our final draft in the near future, for presentation to the Federal Government. We request that no further process of implementation takes place and that action already taken be reviewed to minimize suspicions and to make possible a positive and constructive dialogue between your government and our people.”

Response • Harold Cardinal headed the Indian Association of Alberta, he

referred to the white paper as “a thinly disguised program of extermination through assimilation.”

• He also said; “In spite of all government attempts to convince Indians to accept the white paper, their efforts will fail, because Indians understand that the path outlined by the Department of Indian Affairs through its mouthpiece, the Honourable Mr. Chrétien, leads directly to cultural genocide. We will not walk this path.”

• The rejection of the white paper by the Indian Association of Alberta in 1970 provided huge support for the opposition of its impaction.

• They provided a document entitled Citizen Plus, which was later referred to as the Red Paper.

Response to the White Paper

Citizens Plus a.k.a. The Red Paper, 1970

Key Points:• The legislature and constitutional basis of Indian status and rights

should be maintained until Aboriginals are prepared and willing to renegotiate them.

• The only way to maintain Indian culture is remain as Indians.• Aboriginals already have access to the same services as other

Canadians, plus additional rights and privileges that were established by the British North America Act, various treaties and governmental legislation.

• Only Aboriginals and Aboriginal organizations should be given the resources and responsibility to determine their own priorities and future development lines. The federal government has a distorted view of treaty rights and is not to be trusted on this issue.

Citizens Plus a.k.a. The Red Paper, 1970

• The government wrongly thinks that the Crown owns reserve lands. The Crown merely "holds" such lands, though they belong to Aboriginals. The government also thinks that Aboriginals only can own land in the Old World, European sense of land ownership. Therefore, the Aboriginal peoples should be allowed to control land in a way that respects both their historical and legal rights.

• The Indian Act should be reviewed, but not repealed. It should only be reviewed when treaty rights issues are settled and if there is a consensus among Aboriginal peoples on such changes regarding their historical and legal rights.

• The Department of Indian and Northern Affairs should cease to exist in its archaic and paternalistic form. A similar federal agency should be established to look more closely at and be more attuned to the needs of the Aboriginal peoples - particularly when it comes to ensuring that treaty and land rights promises are kept.

• Aboriginals reject the appointment of a sole commissioner in a Royal Commission, because he will be appointed by the government itself to protect its interests without Aboriginal consultation. The government, instead, should call an "independent, unbiased, unprejudiced" commission that should have the power to bring any witnesses or documents that it or the Aboriginals wish to present. Its judgments should be legally binding.

YouTube Clip on the White Paper

The White Paper