Wab Kinew says that status cards have no place in Canada and that it is time to eliminate status cards and the entire Indian Act.He’s right. A few of us have been saying that for decades and were vilified for saying it. Kinew is a status Indian and receives praise for the bold suggestion.But Kinew is not suggesting that the Act be phased out — ending all race-based legal distinctions between Indians and other Canadians. He’s suggesting a process that will actually entrench those legal distinctions and even add to them. He doesn’t want the Indian Act abolished — he wants it replaced with a “modern” version of the Indian apartheid system that became Canadian law with the passage of the Indian Act in 1876.What Kinew also made clear is that the process to end the Indian Act and create a modern version must involve the full participation and consent of all of Canada’s 630 Indian bands (First Nations).Simply put, Kinew is suggesting something that will never happen. Years of expensive meetings in Ottawa and elsewhere will simply lead to calls for more meetings and more money.But it might be useful to take a look back at what Canada’s founders were trying to accomplish in 1876 by placing Indians in a separate category from all other citizens. Were they attempting to create a permanent apartheid system based on the sovereignty of 630 separate Indian “nations”?Definitely not. They were trying to do the exact opposite. They wanted Indians placed in a protected class until Indians were ready to compete and cope in the modern world. The system was meant to be temporary only and would naturally end when Indians had been assimilated into the mainstream. In fact, it can confidently be said that Sir John A. Macdonald and the other founders would be horrified to see what their “temporary” system has morphed into..Macdonald made his position clear: “The great aim of our legislation has been to do away with the tribal system and assimilate the Indian people in all respects with the other inhabitants of the Dominion as speedily as they are fit to change."[1]Here’s a brief description of how the founders expected things to work out. Indians needing special protection would be temporarily given a special status as “wards in tutelage.” In simple terms, this means that these Indians would be treated like children in school. Even the elected chiefs were placed in this category. An Indian agent would sit in on meetings of the chief and council and would be able to disallow any band bylaws that Ottawa didn’t think were in their best interests. The reasoning was that the chiefs and the councillors were being trained in how to function in a modern democracy. This might be considered demeaning today, but at the time it made sense. The Plains Indians had been thrown quite suddenly into the nineteenth-century version of the modern world and were simply not ready to successfully compete and cope without special help.But not all Indians were placed in this junior “status” category. Indians who had graduated from university, as well as ministers, doctors, and enlisted soldiers, were all ineligible for “status” for the simple reason that they didn’t need special protection. Similarly, an Indian woman who married a white man lost her status because it was assumed that her husband had some education, and she would not need the special protection the Indian Act offered uneducated Indians.The framework underlying the Indian Act was found in the Gradual Civilization Act of 1857 (a later version of this was the Gradual Enfranchisement Act of 1869). The Indian Act must be read with knowledge of those two pieces of legislation because they explain how our founders expected all of the temporary Indian legislation to come to an end.In a nutshell: Indians would be voluntarily assimilated by means of enfranchisement. Enfranchisement means not only that the Indian would get the right to vote but also that he would give up all special Indian status and become just an ordinary Canadian citizen.An Indian living on a reserve who chose to enfranchise would receive his share of the band proceeds and 50 acres of land. He could keep that land or sell it to anyone he chose to. This would mean that non-Indians would gradually move onto reserves to farm the sold land. In time, Indian reserves would just merge into surrounding municipalities. Indians who enfranchised could use their share of the band proceeds and proceeds from the sale of their land however they chose to. That would help those who chose to move off reserves (most did) to have a bit of a nest egg for their move..None of this worked out. Enfranchisement failed for many reasons, but mostly because chiefs made it clear that they were not going to willingly turn over the 50-acre parcels and the share of the band proceeds to Indians who wanted to move from the reserve.The result was that more than 50% of reserve residents who moved away from Indian reserves to find a better life left with nothing. One can imagine that if those who left had at least received a decent monetary settlement, they might have had an easier time setting up homes in the cities that they moved to. Anyone familiar with the neighbourhoods where they wound up in cities such as Winnipeg and Regina will know that these people arrived in those cities with nothing and did not do well.But that was the plan. Canada was meant to be a country of equal rights for all. Tribal rights (collective rights) were expected to die a natural death. That’s not what we have in Canada today. Increasingly, we see a separation between “First Nations” and everyone else.So, Wab Kinew is to be commended for advocating the end of the Indian Act. Prime Minister Carney is to be commended for commending Mr. Kinew.But neither man is advocating what most Canadians want — an end to all race-based distinctions and a country where everyone is equal under the law.
