Why Pierre Poilievre called the Indian Act 'a racist, colonial hang-over'

The_Foxer

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Interesting move. I mean, he's right. The indian act IS a racist document and it really doesn't benefit either first nations or canadians these days. But you're talking about a pretty fundamental reworking of the relationship between first nations and the gov't - first off i'm not sure the chiefs are going to like this unless you show them how this means they get more power and money rather than less, and second off i'm not quite sure what model you'd replace it with. Not that there aren't choices, just not sure what's best.
 
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Taxslave2

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The Indian act was written primarily to provide jobs for bureaucrats in Ottawa. And reward chiefs that do as they are told.
This is how it went when I was a contractor back in the 80-90s. Working with another contractor friend we were doing civil work on a rez up coast. DIA decided that rather than a contract price they would dry rent the equipment and pay the operators. I had one of my off highway dumps in there for about 5 months. Normally, when you dry lease the first payment is due when the machine goes out. Not so with DIA. They would only pay at the end of the month. What I would do is send a bill to the band, they would authorize it and send it to DIA, who would authorize it again and send it back to the band for payment. THe band would then send it to another department of DIA to get a cheque processed. All this took about 45 days. After they already had the equipment working for a month.
 

pgs

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Nov 29, 2008
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The Indian act was written primarily to provide jobs for bureaucrats in Ottawa. And reward chiefs that do as they are told.
This is how it went when I was a contractor back in the 80-90s. Working with another contractor friend we were doing civil work on a rez up coast. DIA decided that rather than a contract price they would dry rent the equipment and pay the operators. I had one of my off highway dumps in there for about 5 months. Normally, when you dry lease the first payment is due when the machine goes out. Not so with DIA. They would only pay at the end of the month. What I would do is send a bill to the band, they would authorize it and send it to DIA, who would authorize it again and send it back to the band for payment. THe band would then send it to another department of DIA to get a cheque processed. All this took about 45 days. After they already had the equipment working for a month.
I am sure you charged an inflated rate to cover the delay .
 

Dixie Cup

Senate Member
Sep 16, 2006
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The Indian act was written primarily to provide jobs for bureaucrats in Ottawa. And reward chiefs that do as they are told.
This is how it went when I was a contractor back in the 80-90s. Working with another contractor friend we were doing civil work on a rez up coast. DIA decided that rather than a contract price they would dry rent the equipment and pay the operators. I had one of my off highway dumps in there for about 5 months. Normally, when you dry lease the first payment is due when the machine goes out. Not so with DIA. They would only pay at the end of the month. What I would do is send a bill to the band, they would authorize it and send it to DIA, who would authorize it again and send it back to the band for payment. THe band would then send it to another department of DIA to get a cheque processed. All this took about 45 days. After they already had the equipment working for a month.
Isn't that how Bureaucrats work? Efficiency isn't a requirement; it isn't even on their agenda.
 

Tecumsehsbones

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This ain't hard. Full legal equality for Natives. Same schools, same health care, same job opportunities, same old-age pensions, same laws, same cops.

Citizens. . . of. . . Canada. No more. No less. If they wanna celebrate their culture, they can do so on weekends and vacations, just like the Sons of Italy and the Irish Brigade and the German Cultural Association and the Whateverthefuck the Scots have.
 

harrylee

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Mar 22, 2019
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This ain't hard. Full legal equality for Natives. Same schools, same health care, same job opportunities, same old-age pensions, same laws, same cops.

Citizens. . . of. . . Canada. No more. No less. If they wanna celebrate their culture, they can do so on weekends and vacations, just like the Sons of Italy and the Irish Brigade and the German Cultural Association and the Whateverthefuck the Scots have.
Same responsibilities, same taxes?
 

The_Foxer

House Member
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This ain't hard. Full legal equality for Natives. Same schools, same health care, same job opportunities, same old-age pensions, same laws, same cops.

Citizens. . . of. . . Canada. No more. No less. If they wanna celebrate their culture, they can do so on weekends and vacations, just like the Sons of Italy and the Irish Brigade and the German Cultural Association and the Whateverthefuck the Scots have.
What you're talking about is assimilation. That might well be the most viable long term option but after the horrible problems with the last attempt at that (residential schools) there is zero chance of the first nations going for it now.
 

Ron in Regina

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Apr 9, 2008
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Same responsibilities, same taxes?
This ain't hard. Full legal equality for Natives. Same schools, same health care, same job opportunities, same old-age pensions, same laws, same cops.

Citizens. . . of. . . Canada. No more. No less. If they wanna celebrate their culture, they can do so on weekends and vacations, just like the Sons of Italy and the Irish Brigade and the German Cultural Association and the Whateverthefuck the Scots have.
He promised that the proposal would not affect any “treaty rights, inherent rights, self-government agreements, rights under Section 35 of the Constitution, legal claims or funding agreements to do with Indigenous Services Canada.”

Finally, he said none of this would affect provincial taxes or royalties, though, he added, “provinces could choose to match or build upon the First Nations resource charge and offer something similar to it.”

“In essence, we want resources for First Nations communities to defeat poverty and provide for the people, not to fatten the faraway bureaucracy and Ottawa.”
 

Tecumsehsbones

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He promised that the proposal would not affect any “treaty rights, inherent rights, self-government agreements, rights under Section 35 of the Constitution, legal claims or funding agreements to do with Indigenous Services Canada.”

Finally, he said none of this would affect provincial taxes or royalties, though, he added, “provinces could choose to match or build upon the First Nations resource charge and offer something similar to it.”

“In essence, we want resources for First Nations communities to defeat poverty and provide for the people, not to fatten the faraway bureaucracy and Ottawa.”
As I said above, I shoulda kept my mouth shut. Canada will do just fine without me sticking my American oar in.
 

The_Foxer

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He promised that the proposal would not affect any “treaty rights, inherent rights, self-government agreements, rights under Section 35 of the Constitution, legal claims or funding agreements to do with Indigenous Services Canada.”

Finally, he said none of this would affect provincial taxes or royalties, though, he added, “provinces could choose to match or build upon the First Nations resource charge and offer something similar to it.”

“In essence, we want resources for First Nations communities to defeat poverty and provide for the people, not to fatten the faraway bureaucracy and Ottawa.”
this is really going to put Trudeau in a tough spot when it comes to first nations. He's really dropped the ball there (thanks for your donations!) and there's not much he can do but promise more spending they know they'll never get. But PP is putting something really substantial forward and it will be very hard for Trudeau to do one better than that.

PP is starting to box trudeau in on the economy, on gov't service delivery, on housing and now first nations. If justin had a brain he'd call an election next month and take his chances because i'm getting the feeling that the longer PP has to work the worse Justin's chances get.
 

Dexter Sinister

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Oct 1, 2004
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The Indian act was written primarily to provide jobs for bureaucrats in Ottawa.
Not really, its primary purpose was assimilation, to make Indians into good little Euro-Canadians. And it is indeed racist, sexist, paternalistic, and insulting to them, treats them like children. Canada's policy toward what we're now calling First Nations people was quite explicitly cultural replacement. As opposed to U.S. policy, which looks to me like it was, at least originally, extermination. Needless to say, neither worked, and they've left a hideous and shameful legacy of cultural destruction and abuse that has to be set right.
 

Tecumsehsbones

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Not really, its primary purpose was assimilation, to make Indians into good little Euro-Canadians. And it is indeed racist, sexist, paternalistic, and insulting to them, treats them like children. Canada's policy toward what we're now calling First Nations people was quite explicitly cultural replacement. As opposed to U.S. policy, which looks to me like it was, at least originally, extermination. Needless to say, neither worked, and they've left a hideous and shameful legacy of cultural destruction and abuse that has to be set right.
Thomas Jefferson said, in essence, "Assimilate or exterminate." The so-called Five Civilized Tribes tried to assimilate. They were put on the Trail of Tears. Others fought back and were exterminated.
 
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The_Foxer

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The Indian act was written primarily to provide jobs for bureaucrats in Ottawa.

Not really, its primary purpose was assimilation, to make Indians into good little Euro-Canadians.
Two things can be true at once. :) But in many respects especially initially you're probably more correct that it was primarily a tool of assimilation, which is why they dumped running the schools on the Church.

And remember initially school attendance was not manditory, it was optional.

But it DID give the bureaucrats jobs AND it let them control things, which is largely what a beurocrat's job is (in their minds).

Assimilation was the goal in Canada - at least partial assimilation. And who wouldn't WANT to be assimilated by a clearly superior culture! - so they thought in the day. I mean - Europe had law! Culture! Crumpets! Photogenic monarchs! What did the first nations have? Beaver loincloths and long hair - hell they hadn't even figured out how metal worked yet!!!

But never fear - we can grant them the GIFT of our culture and ways, teach them to be "civilized" and learn which fork to use. Then if they still want to run around in the bush like savages, fine! Let them do what they want! But at least they'll be PROPER savages!

Sigh. I mean, in fairness you really can't hold it against them. They honestly though they were doing the right thing, the thing they felt that they'd want someone to do for them if the rolls were reversed. You CAN fault them heavily for the execution tho. And for the following 100 years of turning a blind eye to the problems in the schools. And to the medical experiments in Sask schools.

But initially? I'm sure they thought they were being the kindest kind of people by sharing their knowledge and culture of how to be a proper person with the savages FREE OF CHARGE mind you. At least that's a little less shameful than trying to wipe them out.

Honestly - at the end of the day i've tried to wrack my brains as to what the best thing they could have done would be and i still don't know. Would they have been better off to take a handful and make them teachers and send them back to the reserves? Would they have been better to not provide 'education' at all? (Remembering the first nations at the time demanded it as part of the deal). How should we have handled it to avoid the problems encountered?

Anyway - we are where we are and we should take steps to fix things for the future.
 

Taxslave2

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When you look at how wars raged across Europe for the last couple of thousand years, I would say natives in Canada got off fairly lucky.
 
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