Celebrating the Nothingness of Aboriginal Sovereignty

Celebrating the Nothingness of Aboriginal Sovereignty

(Far left) Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Grand Chief Cathy Merrick

“Today, we reflect upon a pivotal moment in our journey toward self-determination and sovereignty. In 1971, the Manitoba Indian Brotherhood (MIB), now the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs (AMC), took a bold step by presenting the influential position paper, Wahbung: Our Tomorrows, to Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau and the Government of Canada.”

On Oct. 7, the AMC released a statement commemorating the publication of the manifesto, Wahbung: Our Tomorrows. Written as a response to the 1969 White Paper which generally sought to reconcile the reserve system and Indian status with the egalitarian principles of the Just Society, Wahbung boldly iterated that Indian reserves should be regarded as aboriginal sovereign territories. Drawing on romantic notions of social justice of the period, Wahbung glorified aboriginal sovereignty in the abstract while glossing over the actual: many reserves were small, isolated and entirely dependent on the federal government for their day-to-day operation.

Chafed at being rebuffed in his attempt to revisit Canadian Indian policy, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau quipped that he would let Indians live in their ghettos for as long as they wished. He kept his word and the treaty status quo has been maintained ever since at great expense. Indian reserves remain under federal jurisdiction albeit with increasingly distended federal oversight. 

In their press release, the AMC hailed Wahbung as “a testament to the unwavering spirit and determination of our First Nations people… More importantly, we articulated our vision for a future where self-determination would be our guiding principle.” The AMC presents itself as speaking on behalf of all of Manitoba’s First Nations people but it is, in fact, a lobby group for 63 of the 64 reserve chiefs in Manitoba. The one chief left out is John Thunder of Buffalo Point who, through adoption, found himself in the extraordinary position of being a hereditary chief without connection to the ruling bloodline.

The AMC’s Grand Chief is elected by the 63 chiefs so it is disingenuous of the AMC to present itself as a representative voice of ordinary band members. Self-determination may well be a guiding principle of the AMC, whose treasury relies solely on federal largesse, but is self-determination really the goal of most status Indians living on reserve?

“In the 52 years since this document was released, our First Nations leaders have consistently drawn inspiration from Wahbung: Our Tomorrows. We honour the legacy of those who came before us and the vision they had for our people. The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs proudly upholds the views and recommendations outlined in this historic position paper, using it as a compass in our leadership.”

In 1969, the Trudea government characterized reserves as ‘islands of despair.’ The 54 years since have seen reserves generally sink further into that abyss. Although the budget for what used to be known as Indian Affairs has ballooned to tens of billions of dollars annually, social conditions on many reserves have greatly deteriorated. Substance abuse, for instance is worse than ever on most reserves and we now often hear of reserves declaring states of emergency over overdose deaths and suicides. Indigenous people regularly comprise the majority of society’s ‘worst’ lists. The ideological opposition of a few activists in 1969 has come at a horrible price for three generations of band members and counting.

“As we commemorate this anniversary, let us reaffirm our commitment to the principles of self-determination and the pursuit of a better future for all our people. Together, we will continue to build on the foundation laid by Wahbung: Our Tomorrows, striving for a brighter and more self-determined tomorrow.”

What foundation? Self-determination for places like Shamattaw or Pauingassi is a chimera. What the MIB then and the AMC now gloss over is the sheer economic impossibility of most reserves. Many reserves were established in the infancy of the Industrial Age when it was conceivable that status Indians could maintain themselves through trapping and fishing. Governments back then believed people would gradually leave the reserves to seek gainful employment elsewhere. Many did but after a period of losing residents, reserve populations stabilized due to higher birth rates overall. The lack of an economic basis other than federal dependency remained and unemployment rates on reserve are typically over 75% of the population. The reality is that for most band members  on reserve, their source of income is band welfare.

In the 1969 White Paper, it is clear that Liberal thinkers of the day believed in the dignity of work and the therapeutic value of the sense of self-worth derived from being a productive member of society. Back then, the White Paper regarded the lack of employment and ensuing poverty as a sure path to anger and frustration. The burgeoning catalog of social pathologies afflicting many reserves now attests to the correctness of that concern.

With self-determination as their guiding principle, the AMC has been pursuing a future that hasn’t yet materialized by their own admission. That bright future will probably never materialize because when the lobby chiefs talk about sovereignty and self-determination, they generally mean a continuation of the existing state of trusteeship that has existed on reserves since their inception. Self-determination really means letting the chiefs and band councils manage the trusteeship. Some chiefs and councils could exploit self-determination to further consolidate their families’ control of band governance.

To the extent that the AMC has allowed itself to reckon with the cognitive dissonance between the dream of reserve sovereignty and the negative reality of increasingly dysfunctional reserves racked by compounding social problems, the lobby chiefs and their co-activists have squelched the roaring disparity with louder cries of colonization and systemic racism. Indigenous people are increasingly depicted as victims of colonization with Indian Residential Schools being cast as the primary and often the singular cause of problems within aboriginal communities. Essentially, the AMC et al have blamed the loss of traditional culture as the reason why so many problems exist now and they attribute this loss of culture to the IRS. This line of argument requires seeing assimilation as a negative for Indigenous people.

Besides ignoring the fact that many native families were already voluntarily assimilating prior to their children’s attendance in an IRS, the corollary of their argument is that segregation or separation is the proper course for them to take.

In 1971, the MIB justified self-determination in part on the basis of aboriginal distinctiveness. In Wahbung they stressed being their own identifiable group which could not be understood by those outside of the group. It was a counterargument to the principle of social integration popular in the 60s and a repudiation of the universalism informing Canadian public policy across the board at the time. Essentially the MIB was saying that Canada cannot know us and therefore should not govern us.

However, in 1971 when Marxist ideas dominated MIB’s views on justifying sovereignty, the authors of Wahbung envisioned a modern and forward-looking culture: “(W)e are 20th Century people, not a colourful folkloric remnant,” Progress for the MIB was not defined as an atavistic return to the past whereas for the AMC now, the return to traditional culture has become a political mainstay. The AMC has painted themselves into an ideological corner. If the loss of culture is the problem, restoring culture is the solution. Consequently, the AMC now finds itself promoting the identity the MIB shunned: a colorful, folkloric remnant.

It may be the case that just from being immersed in the immensity of an increasingly multicultural milieu, aboriginal nationalists have turned to emphasizing traditional culture in order to maintain the vestiges of being an identifiable group. Preserving that traditional culture does serve as a reason for maintaining the reserves as repositories for that culture. Serving as living cultural artifacts isn't what the MIB had in mind in 1971 but then the MIB weren’t seeing the consequences of the separatism they were advocating. The AMC has had to reckon not only with the failures of the sovereignty fantasy but also the worsening social conditions of the reserve system that were greatly exacerbated by further decades of the intrinsic economic hopelessness of the reserve system.

However, as the fantasy of sovereignty still guides the lobby chiefs, a sort of compulsory objective has arisen. The quest for sovereignty requires, above all, a land base and reserves are the de facto land base. The aboriginal sovereigntists need to preserve their land base and cannot permit any closures of any reserves no matter how hopeless or costly in human terms. Absent any criticism aside from such that you are reading, the lobby chiefs have an easy go of rationalizing the reserves as safe spaces for cultural restoration and otherwise blaming negative conditions on colonization.

It is too easy for the lobby chiefs and their co-activists to while away the time East of that sovereign Eden. Few of these people actually live on reserves because they like being able to get mortgages and own homes. The ‘tomorrows’ MIB envisioned became AMC’s future: finding lucrative careers pursuing a nationalist dream from well-appointed offices in the city. What does it cost them if the sun never rises on a sovereign First Nation? They’re not the ones who have to live in the long night before that fantastic Dawn..