MOVING TO THE STREETS
What of Idle No More? Is it a sign of our historic moment? Many people have noticed that among Canadians only the indigenous youth went onto the streets in large numbers to protest the 2012 omnibus bills. Everyone else seemed afraid to: The NGOs. The unions. The various political movements. Do they fear for their jobs? The legal status of their organization? Their funding? Their respectability as middle-class players? Only the Aboriginals, some people say, have nothing to lose.
Is this true? It could be seen in quite a different way. Perhaps this commitment is another sign of growing power and self-confidence. After all, by going onto the streets, indigenous peoples have taken a leadership position. It isn’t fashionable to say this these days, but a willingness to go into the streets shows a commitment to democracy. And Canadian democracy, like so many others, was born in good part on the streets in the middle of the nineteenth century.
It could be argued that the general alienation from our formal system of democracy felt today by many people around the world – one of the outcomes of the globalist period – has pushed young people in particular back into the streets in a way we have not seen since the 1930s. This is not like the demonstrations of the 1960s, 1970s and 1990s, all of which were driven by clear, specific, alternative views. What we are seeing is a broadly conceived protest in countries where a reigning logic of efficiency insists that money spent on the public good is somehow a form of indulgence. There have always been street protests, but if you look at Greece, Spain and even the Occupy movement, something more fundamental is happening. These people are not organized in an ideological way. They are not out there as union members or as party members. Their approach seems to involve an important rejection of democracy as we currently know it. A rejection of the standard democratic electoral process by a growing number of people. A rejection of today’s mechanisms of political debate. A loss of respect for those elected. A rejection of plebiscite-style false democracy. If this continues to grow it could lead anywhere, from the most negative to the intriguingly positive.
Indigenous youth and indigenous women are central to the comeback. Here they are, leading the march on Ottawa on December 21, 2012. © Nadya Kwandibens.
The Canadian position in all of this is surprisingly different. We have long had high levels of citizen engagement through volunteerism, and this includes high levels of youth engagement. That ought to represent a good non-partisan basis for democracy. Today the opposite seems to be the case.
Perhaps the presence of young people working on the ground increases their sense of alienation from formal politics, since they bear daily witness to what they feel is political failure – a failure to respond to the reality of people’s lives, to how they can best live together and in the physical world, and worse still, a simple failure to understand what a society is, what it can be, how it can blossom in its physical reality. Instead there is an insistence on theories of economics and administrative efficiency in which citizens do not find themselves, in which there is little sense of society or place.
On the surface, Canada has a more successful economy with less unemployment than other Western countries. But again, this seems to have little effect on the growing rich– poor divide, except to the extent that our public education and public health-care systems remain reasonably strong and leave little room for the private sector. Many other countries have good public education and health-care systems, but a small number, including Canada, have an additional advantage because there is a fairly direct link between the importance of the private sector and the rise of a formal class system, which in turn accentuates the growth of a rich–poor divide.
One of the signs of a problem in our apparently successful economy is that it has not produced a sense of optimism among young people, a sense of confidence in their working future. And there is almost no sense that our economy is the product of leadership or governmental management.
We know we are very fortunate. We are rich in commodities, particularly in oil and gas. This is luck. Fine, we might be skilful in exploiting our luck. But there is no natural link between this wealth and the sharing of it. The long anti-democratic, anti-environmental, anti-social-justice history of the commodities sector around the world is a constant reminder that even in a democracy it requires severe regulation – and that government is increasingly soft and compliant toward it. This is part of the general lack of confidence in public structures. You could say that there is a depressive link between governmental indulgence toward this industry and the decline of solid, full-time jobs, including benefits, for young people throughout the economy.
On the other hand, we have a continuing infusion of human energy from our long-established immigration/citizenship system. And in the 1990s, when the financial sector was deregulated in much of the world and our own banks, backed by the Conservatives, were pushing hard for deregulation in Canada, the middle-of-the-road Liberal government in power in Ottawa dragged its feet. Eventually it said no to the banks. So when the crisis came, we were saved.
Is our economic situation more complicated than all that? No doubt. But those are our basic strengths and the basic explanations for them: money in the ground, relatively egalitarian and inclusive immigration systems and public services, and long-standing conservative, as opposed to neo- conservative, financial regulations.
The first, most obvious point to be made here is that Aboriginal peoples are put at a disadvantage in all of these areas. That is, they are disadvantaged by laws, regulations, funding and institutionalized prejudice.
The second is that Canada has so far seen a far broader range of street movements than most countries.
It could be argued that Idle No More, the Occupy movement and the Quebec student movement all indicate a growing rejection of politics as we know it in Canada. They signal a rejection of political careerism and of the instrumentalized corruption that goes with it, but also a rejection of the increasing acceptance of social determinism – the return of the class system – that seems to be the natural accompaniment of this careerism. It is worth noting that, as part of the Canadian phenomenon, the Wall Street Occupy movement had its origins in Vancouver in Adbusters magazine.
But what exactly is being rejected? We have to keep thinking about that. For example, there is a growing loss of faith in what might be called managerialism. Here was an approach to social organization that was supposed to keep all of us, as well as our programs, on track. It clearly has not. If anything, it has combined a demeaning form of utilitarian determinism with a sapping of the citizen’s sense of purpose. Why? Because it limits our actions to superficial but complex forms of organization, in which we become enmeshed and lose our ability to argue back.
All of this adds up to the rejection of a great deal more than a few policies or a political party. It suggests the rejection of a system that has dominated us for half a century with increasingly utilitarian assumptions about how societies should function – that is, not really as societies, but as a haphazard bundle of self-absorbed individuals driven by self-interest. The moment the governing elite thinks of society as a combination of self-interest and utilitarianism, you can be sure that attempts will be made to distract citizens from their demeaning situation by the cheap exploitation of populism and nationalism.
Populism becomes essential: bread and circuses; sports elevated from fun and exercise to patriotic purpose; military rhetoric. The most effective populist tool is fear. An inchoate fear of the Other. Authorities constantly suggesting that you will be murdered, raped, beaten up, blown up. Only constant vigilance (institutionalized fear of your fellow citizen) and punishment can save you. Security, not citizenship. Not a strengthening of the public good.
It means the loss of a sense of purpose and responsibility, the loss even of a sense of dignity, of citizen responsibility, of citizen power. After all, once you accept an ideology that places an abstract force like economic theory or race or divinity above the public good, you cannot help but reduce the feeling of human responsibility and human dignity. In that sense we have all been subjected over the last few years to a partial version of the alienating discourse that Aboriginals have lived with for over a century.
Again, let me give a precise example. Many people tried to interpret the Quebec student movement in the narrowest possible way. It was merely about tuition in a province where taxes are high and tuition already low. It was an attack on the provincial government. The then provincial Liberal government was so caught up in management arguments of relative costs and deliverables that it could never understand the message in the streets. The opposition – the Parti Québécois – attempted to co-opt the student movement. This was pure cynicism. They themselves, when last in power, had been the ones to introduce the higher tuition policies later taken up by the Liberals. Their co-opting strategy lasted only a few months after the 2012 election. How could it last? None of the parties were listening to what the students were attempting to articulate. None were trying to understand.
Now, let me bring this back to the specifics of Idle No More. Most people, people with positions in society, respectable people, people who have some degree of power and don’t want to lose it, are in favour of discretion. They tend not to put their faces and their opinions on camera. And Canadians often think of themselves that way – earnest but discreet. This is odd because the history of Canadian democracy has not been particularly respectable. It has been shaped by ideas fought out in public debate. Somewhere in that process people usually find that they have to go into the streets. This was disastrously true of Papineau and Mackenzie, successfully true of LaFontaine and Baldwin. It has been true throughout our history when it comes to major issues. And it could be argued that by spending a lot of time in the streets, in public meetings, in political meetings, in citizen-led organizations, we have avoided the worst sorts of violence that have overtaken other Western countries. I can’t think of another country so given to movements outside of the formal political structures. Much of the best progress in this country has come through this sort of engagement.
Think of the environmental movement: David Schindler on acid rain, David Suzuki, Maurice Strong. Think of the birth of the Canadian approach to foreign policy: Henri Bourassa, J.W. Dafoe. Women’s rights: Nellie McClung and dozens of others. The end of capital punishment. The welcoming of large groups of refugees. And on and on. All of the issues were led from public platforms. From the streets.
The high levels of Canadian volunteerism are usually thought of as expressions of our earnest and discreet characters. In reality this engagement is part of the belief that changes can be made if citizens engage themselves and find non-official ways to lead.
There is one other interesting point. The Aboriginal leadership – whether in the AFN or Idle No More or coming from scattered, independent voices – is demonstrating a clear understanding of parliamentary democracy, far clearer perhaps than the NGOs and the professionals of political science. Aboriginal leaders understand that you must be willing to go into the streets and stay there if your cause is great.
The founders of Idle No More: Nina Wilson, Sylvia McAdam, Jessica Gordon and Sheela McLean, all from Saskatchewan. © www.idlenomore.ca.
What drove the creation of Idle No More were particular parts of two omnibus bills – C-38 and C-45. These contained dozens and dozens of changes to laws in all directions. The first key issue for Aboriginals in C-38 had to do with a massive weakening of regulations governing the use of Canadian waterways. They saw this as the lead-up to an assault on the environment. In other words, after a half century of consensus that we had to clean up rivers and lakes polluted by industrial and urban activity, here was an attempt by your elected government to reverse the trend and go back to polluting. But they also saw it as another one of those clever legal tricks to weaken or get around indigenous rights and responsibilities.
The second issue with C-38 had to do with the weakening of the Fisheries Act. That act was originally conceived to protect fish habitats and therefore fish. The omnibus bill removed protection of habitats; it talked only of fish, and in a largely commercial context. What this does is invert the purpose of the law. The original intent was positive and proactive: if you focus on fish habitats you set the context for a healthy fish population. You are setting a standard for healthier lakes and rivers, which provide drinking water and which host a diversity of plants and insects, of life in general. Animals are dependent on its health. We are all dependent on its health. By reducing the law to an object – fish – you make it negative and defensive. In legal terms, the crime must be committed before you can complain. You must arrive in court carrying, so to speak, a pile of rotting, infected fish. The damage is already done. In other words, the concept of a proactive policy in which we assume our long-term responsibilities, which in turn is central to any sensible environmental approach, is reduced to the old utilitarian model – minimalist and reactive. That approach has already produced a crisis in fish populations around the world. In this model, corporations used to have a VP Environmental and Social Affairs, inevitably a lawyer whose job it was to fight off the lawsuits after incidents like toxic spills. It is worth noting that, before it was gutted, our Fisheries Act was much admired in other countries.
In C-45 the issue is a weakening of the rules over the leasing out of land on reserves. The sense among First Nations is that this land-use change is aimed at undermining their control over their land as formalized in large part under the treaties. In the name of choice and the opportunity to make a buck in the short term, this proviso aims to create a patchwork of holdings on treaty land – held cooperatively or held more or less privately – and so lessen the influence of First Nations in commodity-rich areas. It does this by opening the door for individuals to effectively remove land from the common whole through leasing. Corporations would be able to take advantage of this patchwork. And, of course, this comes before the central question of treaty negotiations has been answered. To put it in historical terms, this could be seen as an old-fashioned attempt to create the legal structures for yet another land grab, this time disguised in market terminology: Everyone should have a chance to make money by leasing out their land.
In other words, this change in land-use rules is seen as a new version of the Manitoba Métis scrip crisis, in which land promised to the Métis in the 1870s, after Louis Riel’s provisional government, was handed out so slowly that it undermined local society and had to be sold off to settlers from Ontario at rock-bottom prices. What is the resemblance to C-45 today? Imagine you are part of a community living on an isolated reserve. It is a poor place. There is the promise of a better situation if only the interminable treaty negotiations could be completed. But there is no sign of that. They have been dragging on for years, perhaps decades. Suddenly one of the negotiating parties – the government – uses its power to change the ground rules. They undermine the treaty process by making it possible for the land-holding rules to be eased. You see that under those rules you could lease out your piece of the land. You are poor. Almost any one of us would do that.
You realize, of course, that the government’s manoeuvre is dishonest. They are betraying the Honour of the Crown, first by prolonging the negotiations and so worsening the effects of the poverty; second by confusing the land-holding system in order to undermine the negotiating position of the community. Is this a deeply unethical conflict of interest on the part of those in power? Absolutely. A lack of respect for citizens? Yes. An attempt to undermine the treaty negotiations? Of course. A betrayal of the Honour of the Crown? Yes.
And why? Well, there is always the desire of Canadian authorities to reduce the amount of land held by indigenous people and, failing that, to weaken their authority over their land. This desire is driven in part by the generic idea of power. But Aboriginal land has always also represented potential wealth for others – agricultural land, forestry land, rights of way. This has not changed. Where impoverished bands hold sway, there may well be mining opportunities. These new land-holding rules aimed at a patchwork holding system are a way to exclude one group from this wealth – indigenous peoples – and shift the advantage to the old combine of urban-commodities corporations and political parties.
As always, the government’s actions are disguised in legal obscurity. And of course, there have been other omnibus bills over the last half century. But nothing like this – at least not in Canada. So perhaps it isn’t surprising that people put at a great disadvantage for more than a century and now gathering back strength should react strongly to this return of the old exploitative ways of Canadian governments.
Aboriginals have a clear memory of this kind of betrayal by the authorities. The rest of us are less conscious, less prepared to believe or understand that the public good is under direct attack. We are more naive. Is it surprising that public leadership on these issues is taken up by the indigenous community?