BREAKING THE TYRANNY OF SILENCE
If people on First Nations reserves are so oppressed, you might ask, why don’t they rise up and demand change? They don’t because many remember what happened when all the angry mothers and grandmothers rose up in protest in 1999. They saw those women labelled as liars, Satanists and terrorists. They saw them punished by being evicted from their homes, fired from jobs, and forced to leave their home reserves for their physical safety. They had to take the death threats seriously. Those women had their families’ safety to consider, too.
People on First Nations saw at the time who came to the women’s defence, and who didn’t. It is true that some politicians, particularly in the Reform Party, used their positions to amplify the women’s voices and raise their concerns in the House of Commons and the Senate. Political pundits added their voices. But a year later, the media had wearied of stories of band corruption and election fraud. They moved on to other issues. People on reserves also saw who didn’t defend the women and rally behind them. The Assembly of First Nations dismissed the women as troublemakers who were just making Indigenous people look bad, and a number of band chiefs threatened the women with lawsuits.
People on First Nations saw what happened after all the shouting and finger-pointing died down and the RCMP and Indigenous Affairs investigations ended. A few people were charged with crimes like fraud and misappropriation of band funds, but it seemed like the worst punishment faced by most chiefs, councillors, band administrators and consultants suspected of wrongdoing was the temporary embarrassment of being held up as bad examples by the media.If ordinary Indigenous people still harboured a lingering hope that they could make their voices heard, the results of the women’s protests pretty much killed it. What was the point of going up against IA or their own political leaders? Nothing was going to change. It was better to stay silent. It was safer to stay silent.
Well, you might ask, why didn’t they leave the reserves if life there was so bad? Many did, but nearly half stayed. It has to do with the land. For people who have walked the land for Always (or about 10,000 years), the land is their connection to everyone who came before. The attachment to the land can be powerful, and not just for Indigenous people.
In the early 1990s on the Prairies, many farmers whose land had been in their families from not long after the land was ceded in treaties were facing bankruptcy. High interest rates were killing them, and some farmers were killing themselves. It was so bad that Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta set up crisis hotlines specifically for farmers. These were men who would rather commit suicide than face being the one who failed the generations who had gone before and lost the land.1 People who experience the pull of the land understand just how powerful it can be. Now, imagine being the person who gives up the land that had been in your family for several millennia. That’s why people stay.
It is the land, again, that is at the nexus of the conflict between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, just as it has been from the start.
“The issue that came ashore with the French and the English and the Spanish,” said author Thomas King, “the issue that was the raison d’être for each of the colonies, the issue that has made its way from coast to coast to coast and is with us today, the issue that has never changed, never varied, never faltered in its resolve is the issue of land. The issue has always been the land.”2
It would seem fitting that the value of modernized annuities should also be about the land.
It is a testament to the spirit of Indigenous people living under the Indian Act that they have endured for more than 150 years, but not without casualties. Overlooked in all the attention that is paid to the ugly side of reserve life — high unemployment, band corruption, crime, suicide and social dysfunction relative to mainstream society — are all the people in reserve communities who are employed, raising their families, drumming and dancing, and simply getting on with their lives. All but the most desperate reserves seem to have a core of quiet, steady people who are the backbone of their communities. You won’t hear much about them because they’re not the ones involved in the crises that attract media attention. And you won’t hear much from them on the political scene, either. They have deliberately avoided the toxic internecine warfare between the families who battle it out every election to see who will control the money and power devolved to the band by IA, and all the jobs that go with it. And they haven’t involved themselves in the political power struggles in the provincial and national representative organizations either, as those entities were often viewed with suspicion.
The AFN has long been sensitive to accusations that it does not represent ordinary First Nations people. National Indian Brotherhood leaders knew their legitimacy was questionable as far back as 1973 when Jack Beaver helpfully pointed it out to them.
The AFN might have officially declared itself the sole voice of all First Nations people, but there have always been some obvious holes in that claim. Status Indians who were not members of a band had no means of representation within the AFN structure. Neither is there a place for other First Nations organizations to have a say in AFN policy or get their voices heard in policy negotiations with IA or the government. In 2004, the AFN undertook a renewal process, with a $2 million consultation across the country that involved twenty-seven meetings and about 1,000 grassroots participants.3 The results produced by the renewal commission were delivered to the AFN in December 2004 in a report called “A Treaty Among Ourselves.”4
The commission recommended that the AFN not alter its membership structure, but rather that the organization work on developing a positive working relationship with groups representing other Indigenous voices. There would still be no place for Status Indians without band membership.5
The contentious question of allowing individuals to have voting powers was addressed in the report, with the commissioners noting that the unresolved issue was creating tension within the AFN. The commission recommended “that the National Chief be elected to office for a four-year term through the process of a universal vote of eligible First Nations citizens.”6
The report laid out the process for electing the National Chief with voting on reserves and in urban areas, although individuals would have no say in nominations. The chiefs would continue the same process of nominating a National Chief as they usually did.7 Grassroots people would get to choose only among the chiefs’ selected candidates.
There was considerable excitement and anticipation in First Nations communities that they would be allowed to vote for the National Chief in the July 2006 elections.8 However, the hope that grassroots people would finally have a say in electing the national voice for the AFN was quickly dashed. A 2008 review of the restructuring efforts indicated that, while options for electoral models were completed, extensive consultations would be required before any change could be made. And it would cost a lot of money.9 And that was that.
Of course, the problem did not go away. Following the 2009 AFN elections, a journalist for the Montreal Gazette noted that the National Chief who claims to be the spokesperson for all First Nations people is not elected by them; he is elected by the chiefs.
“What’s needed is simple: Direct election of a national chief by all status and treaty Indians across Canada, bypassing the chiefs. The Assembly of Chiefs, as it should properly be called at present, has fought ferociously against even simple reforms.”10
While it is understandable that the chiefs would want to retain control of the organization that represents them, it is illogical for the “Assembly of Chiefs” to continue to claim that it speaks for all First Nations people, while at the same time silencing them. The AFN knew it was not the legitimate voice of ordinary First Nations people. So too did Indigenous Affairs bureaucrats, the IA minister, the federal cabinet, First Nations people on and off the reserve, other Indigenous groups, and the chiefs. The only people who did not know were ordinary non-Indigenous people. They heard the AFN National Chief declare that he was speaking for all First Nations people and had no reason to doubt that it was true. If it weren’t, surely the AFN would be called out on it.
Maybe that’s the point. It was, after all, the tens of millions of ordinary non-Indigenous people who had the power to sway elections and influence the priorities of the federal government of the day. If the general public could be led to believe that AFN was the legitimate voice of First Nations people, then it was as good as being true. There’s a saying, attributed to George W. Bush, that you can fool some of the people some of the time, and you can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.11 It would seem that IA and the AFN were placing their bets on continuing to fool the public. However, that tactic only works as long as the public isn’t paying attention, and the interest across the country in participating in reconciliation was fuelling a desire by non-Indigenous people to learn about Indigenous issues. There was a risk they would not be fooled any longer.
If the AFN did not represent the grassroots, how did band chiefs themselves measure up as legitimate representatives of the people who elected them? In 2008, a report by the National Centre for First Nations Governance noted that just over half of First Nations were still running elections under the Indian Act rules, which had no provision for independent oversight. The rest had custom codes.12 However, the custom codes did not have a requirement for an independent electoral officer either. In advising bands on how to write their own codes, the National Centre stressed the importance of electoral-officer impartiality in ensuring that election results be accepted as legitimate.
“As the person charged with overseeing the election process, the electoral officer carries a heavy responsibility. Because of this, a number of communities have looked at ways of helping to ensure the impartiality of this position. While the majority of codes give council the role of selecting the electoral officer, at least one code requires electoral officers to be selected by a show of hands at a meeting of voters.”13
The Centre’s analysis of band codes showed that only one of the 276 codes in effect in FN communities across Canada in 2008 required that the electoral officer be someone from outside the community. A number of others required that the electoral officer, once chosen by council (whose members might be running in that same election), had to promise to be fair and neutral.14
The problems with elections on reserves got a thorough hearing in 2010 by the Senate Standing Committee on Aboriginal Peoples. It was led by Senator Gerry St. Germaine, a Métis who hailed from the same French village west of Winnipeg where Jean Allard’s grandparents bought their farmland.
There were multiple issues raised by the resulting St. Germaine report, including IA’s control over the election process on reserves and its authority to nullify elections, a deeply flawed appeals process for challenging disputed election results, a mail-in ballot system open to abuse and fraud, the constant election mode created by holding elections every two years, and the lack of band government accountability to members.
The senate committee recommended that more First Nations move toward adopting community-designed election codes, which “offers a satisfying way to address the weaknesses of the Indian Act electoral system, while respecting the great diversity of circumstances, priorities and aspirations of First Nations.”15
During the Senate hearing, it was noted by several presenters that there was little provision for governance models that did not involve elections. Law professor Bradford Morse, a specialist on Indigenous governance issues, said that the absence was notable because First Nations had once been global leaders in democracy — before the Indian Act.
“Democracy in my mind does not mean elections with ballots; it means the voice of the people in the selection of their leaders and in the decision-making of governments. First Nations were extraordinarily democratic.”16
Morse was talking about the traditional forms of governance. It would seem to make sense for FN communities to develop their own election codes. However, custom codes approved by IA were not necessarily offering much change, mainly because IA required they align closely with the Indian Act model. One of the serious flaws in band elections remained — the lack of any requirement for free and fair elections overseen by an independent electoral officer. The incumbents were in charge of election machinery. A band chief could appoint her brother to be the electoral officer overseeing the election she was running in, and there was nothing community members could do about it.
By 2014, only about a third of bands were still operating under the Indian Act electoral system. Indigenous Affairs updated the election rules to allow elections every four years, but there was still no requirement for an independent electoral officer. Nor was there any suggestion that elections should be free and fair.
As time passed, it became apparent the custom code elections were actually turning out to be worse for some communities. As soon as a custom code was approved, IA divested itself of any further responsibility for how the elections were managed. Or mismanaged.
A 2017 review of custom codes suggested they were a double-edged sword. Some bands, such as the Mississauga First Nation, had successfully developed their own codes. In the Mississauga case, the community had created a constitution, and defused the monopolistic power of council through creating parallel councils and other governance institutions, thereby reducing its ability to do harm or abuse its power.17
Under the control of IA, said researchers Joseph Quesnel and Kayla Ishkanian, band governments have lacked the checks and balances of other governments that are generally taken for granted, and those imbalances have been continued in many custom codes.
“The executive and legislative functions are fused in the chief and council and there is no official opposition to hold the government to account. And not only are the voluntary and private sectors underdeveloped, but there are few independent review mechanisms such as ombudspersons, First Nations-run courts, auditing agencies, or ethics commissions. Finally, media in First Nation communities… are not independent of First Nations governments.”18
It is exactly the kind of climate that is likely to continue nurturing Harold Cardinal’s “village-level tyrants.”
The lack of any requirement that band elections be free and fair serves to further entrench the sense of hopelessness for people who must live under such regimes. The whole system leans towards abuse instead of democracy. As American theologian and ethicist Reinhold Niebuhr once said, “Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”19
Just before Arthur Manuel died in early 2017, he shared his view on Indigenous political organizations and their lack of leadership. He didn’t pull any punches.
“Indian organizations are led and staffed by an Indian elite who have used our people’s poverty to leverage their own government-funded jobs. In their eagerness to please the ones who are paying them, they have forgotten about the people who they are supposed to be serving. Our leaders have abandoned our people and many of them have simply boarded the Trudeau train and disappeared from Indian country into cushy jobs in Ottawa. They are no longer hanging around the Liberal fort, they have disappeared into it.”20
However, times are changing. In an era of high-speed internet and cell phones, information is much more readily accessible for those seeking it. Indigenous people are generally better educated than ever.21 There is a new generation of Indigenous leaders who are looking for new solutions to old problems, who want to empower their people, and to take back power from the AROs.
In 2017, IA minister Carolyn Bennett conducted a consultation on transparency and accountability with elected and administrative officials from FN bands and tribal councils in twenty-seven meetings held across the country.22 Ordinary FN people could attend the meetings as observers. The problem with government consultations is that the people invited to speak are often those who will say what the government wants to hear, so the conclusions are preordained to fit the government’s agenda. This may well have been the case with the accountability consultations. However, it is noteworthy that the AFN did not participate in the meetings but rather filed a separate report prepared in consultation with Indigenous Services.23
Up for discussion at the accountability consultations: an ombudsman, free and fair elections, and FN band government accountability to FN people. Yes, these were the exact same issues at the heart of the protests by the angry women some twenty years earlier when FN leaders had denounced the women and tried to silence them. This time, it was the leaders putting those important ideas on the table, resulting in a consultation report with recommendations that included the following:24
· an accountability framework must recognize First Nations governments’ primary accountability to their members, first and foremost,
· a mutual accountability framework must be put in place that holds both First Nations and the Government of Canada to account, and
· consultation must be carried out to determine an independent ombudsperson and Aboriginal Auditor General.
The FN and tribal council leaders were explicitly acknowledging the need to be accountable to their people. For the AFN’s part in the accountability consultations, its separate report made no mention of an ombudsperson or free and fair elections.
But it’s not enough to say the right words. The means of empowerment so that the people can hold their leaders accountable has to be there, too.
Rating the politicians
It isn’t often that ordinary Indigenous people get their voices heard, but they did in a survey by Probe Research in 2017, aptly called Indigenous Voices. The 500 Indigenous people surveyed by telephone in Manitoba were asked to rate their political organizations. About 60 percent of respondents were First Nations and 36 percent were Métis. A handful of people identified as Inuit.25
The political and government organizations being rated were the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, the Manitoba Métis Federation, “your Chief and council,” and the federal and Manitoba governments.
When asked to rank the effectiveness of the organizations in helping Indigenous people overall in Manitoba, only 16 percent of First Nations people ranked their chief and council as helpful, and only 18 percent ranked the AMC as helpful. As low as that might sound, it was still better than the ranking of both the Manitoba and federal government by all respondents at 12 percent.26 The Manitoba Métis Federation performed better, with a 29 percent helpful rating, but that may be attributable to the fact that the organization has limited control over the lives of most Métis people, other than having the authority to issue Métis harvesting licences for hunting, trapping and fishing.
The takeaway from this survey is that ordinary Indigenous people are not very happy with their political organizations, the federal government or the Manitoba government. Although the survey applied only to Manitoba, it is not difficult to believe that surveys in other provinces might reveal a similar result. Indigenous political groups have generally proved themselves to be disappointments to the people they claim to represent.