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World Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the Canadian Context: A Study of Conservative Government Rhetoric and Resistance

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Peacebuilding and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Part of the book series: The Anthropocene: Politik—Economics—Society—Science ((APESS,volume 9))

Abstract

Canada promotes itself as a nation of peacemakers concerned with justice. However, in its dealing with Indigenous peoples the reality does not reflect the rhetoric. Despite pressure from both within and outside the country, Canada initially would not sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. When it finally signed in 2010 the government explained to the Canadian public that the document’s goals and recognitions are “aspirational” (and not legally binding). My chapter addresses the Conservative government’s justifications for delay and denial, as well as the ways in which its eventual adoption of the Rights document misappropriates the document’s language and intent. Specifically, I argue that the Declaration’s objectives, to protect/enshrine the rights of Indigenous peoples and ensure processes of participation, cooperation , and consultation between governments and Indigenous peoples have been co-opted and re-directed against Canada’s First Nations communities. This chapter examines the legal challenges of Indigenous women against such discriminatory legislation. I conclude that for peacebuilding to be real and meaningful, Canadian governments must transform rhetoric into reality and vigorously protect (rather than resist) Indigenous rights through law.

K.J. Verwaayen is Associate Professor in Women’s Studies and Feminist Research, and Chair of Graduate Studies in Centre for Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction, The University of Western Ontario, Canada: Email: kjverwaa@uwo.ca. She works in the areas of contemporary Canadian women’s literature, feminist literary theory, and Indigenous women’s writing; trauma and testimony studies; global and Indigenous feminisms. She is currently co-editing (with Wendy Pearson, Ernie Blackmore and Renée E. Bedard) First Women and the Politics of Looking: Gender, Indigeneity and Representation in Canada. She has recently published in Contemporary Women’s Writing; Canadian Literature; a/b: Auto/Biography Studies; British Journal of Arts and Social Science, among others.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The full, unmediated text of the Declaration is available at: http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/home/global-indigenous-issues/un-declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples.html.

  2. 2.

    The Conservative position was in contravention of support for the Declaration by senior bureaucrats, the three opposition parties, and the Parliamentary Committee on Aboriginal Affairs. See Benjamin et al. (2010: 63–4).

  3. 3.

    There is a long history of denial in this country. As Lynne Davis recounts, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) released its final report in 1996; RCAP contended that relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada could change only with radical break from our colonial past toward recognition, respect, responsibility. Governments, Davis argues, largely ignored the Report’s findings and potential (2010: 3). The TRC Executive Summary also notes that the majority of the Commission’s recommendations “were never implemented” (TRC 2015: 7).

  4. 4.

    For further discussion of rhetorical performance as substitutive for government action, see Chrisjohn/Wasacase (2009), Henderson/Wakeham (2009), and Verwaayen (2013), among others.

  5. 5.

    I do not mean to relegate this powerful grassroots-become-global movement—for civil rights, sovereignty, and environmental protection in Canada—to a footnote. See Pam Palmater: “In general, Idle No More was opposition to the immediate threat before us–Prime Minister Harper’s aggressive ‘assimilatory’ legislative plan meant to break up our communities and assimilate First Nations peoples. It also was opposition to the substantial funding cuts to our political and advocacy organizations and communities that were designed to silence our voices when the legislation was brought into fruition” (qtd. in Radia 2012; emphasis added). But as I haven’t scope here to appropriately address the aims, methods, and (sometimes contested) impact of Idle No More, I point readers instead to information on the movement at its homepage: http://www.idlenomore.ca/. This page offers not only a history of Idle and resources, but ongoing/current political activities, and a call to action for all.

  6. 6.

    As Chrisjohn and Wasacase note, there are a number of long-standing examples of deep harm perpetrated by previous Canadian governments against Indigenous peoples in addition to status violence against Indigenous women: the residential school system, the “60s Scoop”, treatment of Native veterans; failures in relation to health care, housing, water, and overall economic responsibility; “the list seems endless” (2009). See also Leanne Simpson (2011: 22) on reconciliation.

  7. 7.

    The federal government had challenged earlier anti-discrimination cases against 12(1)b launched independently by Jeannette Corbiere Lavell (Anishinaabe, Wikwemikong First Nation) and Yvonne Bedard (Haudenosaunee, Six Nations), whose successful claims against 12(1)b in the lower courts were contested by the federal government at the Supreme Court of Canada. The Supreme Court ruled in favour of the government and overturned Indigenous women’s victories in the courts in 1973.

  8. 8.

    Under C-31, there are two classes of registration, 6(1) and 6(2), based on having one or both registered parents. The children of women who married out pre-1985 and had status restored under C-31 were granted 6(2) status; 6(2) registrants cannot pass status to their children per se—unless the other parent has status also, whereas the children of men who married out before 1985 retained 6(1)—full—status. See the McIvor/Grismer (2010) petition to the ICCPR for more discussion of the gendered implications of the 1985 amendment. Further, C-31 (and its successor, C-3) produced new fears of the disappearance of ‘Indian’ altogether with receding registration as an ultimate fulfilment of the government’s original assimilation directive. Indeed, C-31 has been named the “Abocide Bill”: “Like genocide, it refers to the extermination of a people; in this case, the extermination not of Indians per se, but of their status as Aboriginal people” (Daniels 1998). It is important to note also that various Indigenous groups contest the government’s right to taxonomize citizenship; participants at the Union of Ontario Indians (UOI) 2007 conference, “E-Dbendaagzijig (Those Who Belong)” have insisted on the fundamental right of Indigenous peoples’ self-definition (Cannon 2014: 35).

  9. 9.

    The government of Canada argued to the trial judge that “infringement of the applicants’ rights was justified in light of the broad objectives of the 1985 amendments to the Indian Act. The Government contended that the amendments represented a policy decision that was entitled to deference because it was made after extensive consultation, and represented the outcome of an exercise in balancing all affected interests” (“Sharon McIvor and Jacob Grismer V. Canada” 2010: 58; emphasis added). Certainly at stake was critical resource allocation by the federal government for individuals entitled to status return.

  10. 10.

    For more explanation of the 2009 decision, see Verwaayen 2013.

  11. 11.

    This is an especially ironic form of logic, given the government’s decision to name C-3 an ‘equity’ rather than ‘equality’ bill—since ‘equity’ is, by definition, meant to progressively correct for historical oppression.

  12. 12.

    As Benjamin, Preston, and Léger remind us, while a Declaration is not legally binding, it is intended to guide governments in understanding and acting for Indigenous rights—and should “help shape the development of future law and policy” (2010: 60; emphasis added).

  13. 13.

    This claim (which challenges popular media insistence on violence against Indigenous women as fundamentally tied to family violence; see Smith 2015) is supported in the recent TRC Final Report, which specifically identifies “discriminatory practices against women related to band membership and Indian status” as among significant precipitating factors in the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women (2015: 188). The Report urgently supports calls for national public inquiry.

  14. 14.

    The new PM Justin Trudeau, has promised to call a national inquiry in response to this issue. See Maloney (2015). Further, Sharon McIvor, in her presentation before the UNCHR July 2015, addressed the catastrophic number of murdered and missing Indigenous women; she spoke to the recognition of Canada’s record of failure on this issue in relation to calls for an inquiry in both 2015 reports of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the CEDAW Committee (“Sharon McIvor Delivers” 2015).

  15. 15.

    See, for example, Paulette Regan (2010). Regan suggests that most Canadians buy into the Canadian “peacemaker myth”—wherein European settlement into Canada, unlike in the story of US frontier violence, is understood as a practice of negotiation, with officers of the Crown arriving here as “neutral arbiters of British [and Christian] law and justice” bringing “peace, order, good government and Western education” (83)—but, as Regan suggests, this idea of benevolent gift is itself a narrative of violence, whose contemporary neo-colonial return comes in the guise of the reconciliation project; the myth functions as an alibi for our real roles as perpetrators (2010: 106).

References

  • Benjamin, C.; Preston, J.; Léger, M., 2010: “The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Partnerships to Advance Human Rights”, in: Davis, L. (Ed.): Alliances: Re/Envisioning Indigenous-Non-Indigenous Relationships (Toronto: University of Toronto Press): 57–68.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Western Ontario, London, Canada

    K. J. Verwaayen

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  1. K. J. Verwaayen
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Correspondence to K. J. Verwaayen .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

    Heather Devere

  2. School of Education, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

    Kelli Te Maihāroa

  3. Department of Peace and Conflict Studies, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    John P. Synott

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Verwaayen, K.J. (2017). World Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the Canadian Context: A Study of Conservative Government Rhetoric and Resistance. In: Devere, H., Te Maihāroa, K., Synott, J. (eds) Peacebuilding and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Anthropocene: Politik—Economics—Society—Science, vol 9. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45011-7_3

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