Category Archives: Indigenous–Reconciliation

Trickle-down Economics

Capitalism, Economics, Indigenous--Reconciliation, Right-wing Extremism

 

 

The Powell manifesto or memorandum set the stage for Ronald Reagan to support supply-side trickle-down economics.  Famously, Reagan said, “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” That was a bedrock part of the right-wing movement that emerged in the United States. It still is very important.

 

The idea was to put in place policies, particularly tax policies, that would benefit primarily the wealthy, and then the money spent by the wealthy would trickle down to those with less wealth and all would benefit. In time.  This economic theory has since been largely discredited, except by people like Donald Trump and his friends who benefit greatly from those policies. Benefits to the wealthy are obvious. Benefits to the less wealthy are much harder to find. Naturally, people like the wealthy have been quick to find the benefits.  It is hard not to like something that benefits you.

Thanks to the vast network of right-wing organizations however, these views have been so widely promulgated that that even those who don’t benefit from them are frequently heard arguing in favor of them. People like Senko’s father The Brain Washing of my Dad.

Studs Terkel said in the 1990s, “the only thing I’ve seen trickle down is meanness.” Jeff Cohen, also interviewed by Jen Senko in the film  was a professor of Journalism at Ithaca College, and he said by that Terkel meant, the kind of Country Club cronies “looking down on the less fortunate”. Cohen said, people like Russ Limbaugh tried to get white middle-class males as angry at vulnerable groups in the film  as some people did in country clubs in the 1950s.  Terkel meant that this mean streak was what was disseminated in the 1980s.

Someone else said, “the only thing I’ve seen trickle down is the rich pissing on the middle class.” The reality was that money was taken from the middle class and given to the rich.

Ronald Reagan, we must remember, was the one who brought us the expression, “Make America Great Again,” that was later adopted by Donald Trump. Reagan advocated for a return to a simpler time, a mythic time, when white males were in control, unencumbered by worries about others such as black Americans, gay, lesbians, and when Evangelical Christians did not have to worry about catering to other religious groups such as Muslims. They could be safely ignored. Donald Trump has tried the same thing, with a lot of success.

According to Claire Connor, author of Wrapped in the Flag,

“they saw America of 1900 as the apex of when we were great as a nation. 1900. Before the income tax. Before the fed. Before any progressive legislation was considered or passed. Before child labor laws. Before women had any rights. Before women even had the right to vote.”

 

According to Connor, Robert Welch, the founder of the John Birch Society,

“talked a lot about 1900, as this glorious time in American history, and he said, ‘there were pockets of poverty, but it was a healthy kind of poverty. Poverty free from government interference where every man understood that relief from dire want was entirely his own responsibility. Thus the blessings of liberty outweighed the poverty.”

 

Ronald Reagan, known as the Great Communicator,  said this:

“Looking back, we lived in poverty or pretty close to that all the time, but we didn’t know that at the time, because the government didn’t come around and tell us that we were poor.”

As Rick Perlstein said,

“Conservatives were all about balanced budgets. They were all about making people eat their spinach. They came up with this new theory called ‘Supply-side Economics.’ And Supply side means basically that you give money to business and that way they’ll produce more plenty that will trickle down to ordinary people. And it was what George H. W. Bush in 1980 who called this  “voodoo economics” because it sounded like magic. It was like he was promising you the candy store. He said he could lower everybody’s taxes and by doing so everybody would benefit. It was like the miracle of the loaves and fishes. In actual fact how it turned out was hurting the very working-class voters who trusted Ronald Reagan with their economic future. Of course, inequality just sky-rocketed. The rich got richer and the wages of ordinary people just stagnated.”

 

It did after all, sund like magic.  And people wanted it to be true. So they did not demand evidence. In fact, the message was so powerful that Donald Trump used the same discredited claims to sell his tax cuts that mainly benefited the wealthy during his first presidency and again, most recently, in the second. And once again, poor people, who were not getting the breaks, got screwed again.

Funny how that happens.

Are Land Acknowledgements worth the Effort?

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, Indigenous Treaties, Indigenous--Reconciliation

Brockville, like so many other places in Canada is treaty land and the people who live there are treaty people, as are we in Steinbach. Some of my friends are tired of land acknowledgments. Not me. I find them interesting and I believe they are worth thinking about when you hear them.  Here is the land acknowledgment I found on the website of Southeastern Ontario tourism the region where Brockville is located:

Land Acknowledgement

“We would like to acknowledge that the land we identify as South Eastern Ontario is the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee (Ho-de-no-sau (“sho”)-nee), Anishinaabe (“anish-naw-bee”), and Huron-Wendat Peoples. South Eastern Ontario honours and respects the land, the people, and the Treaties. We are extremely thankful for the original tour guides of these lands and all that they have shared. All those that reside, work, and play on these lands are treaty people and we must honour the treaties in a mutually beneficial and equitable manner.”

 

What I want to acknowledge is that various peoples live here. Not just descendants of European settlers.  The settlers and their descendants are here because they entered into agreement with the local Indigenous groups to occupy it. Those European settlers and their descendants benefited tremendously from those treaties. The Indigenous people also benefited from those treaties. Everyone who lives there today, is a treaty person. We should not take those treaties for granted. Treaties are important for everyone. And as I have been saying, we should keep them up to date, or we will regret it.

The problem is that too many liberals see an injustice, mouth platitudes agains them and do nothing real to address thinking the find words are enough to prove their moral worthiness. Indigenous people and Canada need more than that.

Treaties have their deficiencies too. It all fine and good to signal our moral worthiness by making fine sounding statements. Acknowledging that one is aware of the fact of dispossession that occurred in America, and Canada too, when European settlers arrived in vast hordes but as

However, having said that, land acknowledgments have their deficiencies too. Kathleen DuVal wrote an interesting and critical article for the New York Times about land acknowledgements from an American perspective.

Du Val said, all too often, “they’ve begun to sound more like rote obligations.” That doesn’t mean the acknowledgements should be abandoned, it does mean those of us who like them need to get real. We have to actually do something or persuade our political leaders to take action on our behalf.

Du Val said this, “Instead of performing an acknowledgment of Native peoples, institutions should establish credible relationships with existing Native nations. What I disagree with is the word “instead.’  Rather I would say, “In addition to.” We need to do both. The acknowledgments alone are clearly insufficient.

She also pointed out, that the Native Governance Center in the U.S. said that unfortunately land acknowledgements have often “become an excuse for folks to feel good and move on with their lives.” Journalists Graeme Wood and Noah Smith have criticized such acknowledgements as “moral exhibitionism.” Land acknowledgements that lead people to think that is all they need to do  can become harmful and we must work hard to make sure we don’t fall into that that trap.

For example. Du Val claims that land acknowledgements can reinforce the harmful “myth of Indigenous disappearance. That myth is a long-time mental block in the US but I am not sure it is as common and in Canada. Perhaps my Canadian indigenous friends can tell me if I am wrong about that. If I am, then we must take active measures to disable the myth too and must not allow land acknowledgements to stand in our way.

Indigenous People in Canada and the U.S. deserve more than that. They deserve sincere engagement on the part of their countrymen and women. Its time for action following our words.

 

 

 

Treaties from and Indigenous Perspective: Renewing the Treaty Relationship and Restoring the Crown’s Honour

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, Colonialism, Indigenous People After Contact, Indigenous Treaties, Indigenous--Reconciliation

 

The Supreme Court of Canada in the Robinson Treaties case also commented on treaties from the Indigenous People’s perspective. It is sometimes a little different from that of other Canadians. On behalf of the unanimous Supreme Court Justice Jamal said,

 

I am also guided by the fact that the Robinson Treaties were not only about securing land in exchange for a monetary annuity. As the trial judge found,

 

“[f]rom the Anishinaabe perspective, the central goal of the treaty was to renew their relationship with the Crown” …. For the Anishinaabe, “the Treaties were not a contract and were not transactional; they were the means by which the Anishinaabe would continue to live in harmony with the newcomers and maintain relationships in unforeseeable and evolving circumstances”

 

 

Actually, the Indigenous people that brought forward the claim on behalf of their people, said it best in their formal claim,

 “What the Treaty promises is . . . an ‘ongoing relationship’ with procedural and substantive aspects. The Crown cannot fulfill its duty by paying an arbitrary sum of money without engaging its Treaty partner”

Meaningful consultation and negotiation were essential, from their perspective, to a proper treaty relationship.  As a result, the Supreme Court did not specifically tell the governments of Canada and Ontario how they had to satisfy the claims of the Indigenous People of the Superior Treaty, but it told them how they had to go about it and if the Indigenous claimants are not satisfied within 6 months they can bring the matter back to the court for final determination by it. If that becomes necessary however the governments will have failed to “to effectively renew the treaty relationship and restore the honour of the Crown.” By giving the governments a short time line, it was giving the government a chance to encourage the restoration of the treaty relationship. I thought this was very wise on the part of the Supreme Court.

Justice Jamal gave one more final word to the parties:

“Although I recognize that the augmentation promise does not expressly require the parties to negotiate and agree on an annuity increase, it is undeniable that negotiation and agreement outside the courts have better potential to renew the treaty relationship, advance reconciliation, and restore the honour of the Crown. After all, historic treaties represent the “establishment of a relationship of trust and mutual assistance” between Indigenous peoples and the Crown, but the details of that relationship “must be the object of permanent negotiations, in view of fleshing out the general principles governing the relations between the two peoples”

 

In this way, the judgement of the Supreme court allowed the parties a final chance to restore trust, a crucial ingredient of a healthy treaty relationship.  We will have to wait to see if it is possible for both governments to do that.

 

In this case the two governments, Canada and Ontario, did the worst thing they could have done. For 150 years they refused to negotiate in good faith with the First Nations. They stuck their heads in the sand.  And now we will have to pay the price.

 

I must admit I have my doubts that negotiations will succeed because the relationships are so bad. It’s like a husband and wife who can no longer talk to each other. The future looks grim. Lets hope I’m wrong. Canada and Indigenous people must really solve this problem that seems unsolvable.

 

 

True Reconciliation

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, Colonialism, Indigenous People After Contact, Indigenous Treaties, Indigenous--Reconciliation

 

The issue of reconciliation was also relevant to the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in the case Ontario (Attorney General) v. Restoule  often called the Robinson Treaties case.

Canada has apologized to its Indigenous People through a declaration to that effect by its Prime Minister at the time Stephen Harper. It also accepted the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report that was delivered to it by the Commissioners. In that process Canada promised to work towards reconciling with the Indigenous People of Canada whom it acknowledged had been badly treated by Canada.

From time to time, the Supreme Court of Canada has spoken about Canada’s duty to reconcile with its Indigenous People. It did so as well in this very recent  case  involving the Robinson Treaties of Canada. When the court considered to what extent if any, and how, it would intervene in the Robinson treaties it also reflected on the proper role for courts to play in Canada’s legal system as part of the judicial branch in this reconciliation process.

It accepted what a previous court had said, namely, “[r]econciliation often demands judicial forbearance. Courts should generally leave space for the parties to govern together and work out their differences.” In other words, sometimes it is better for the court to stay on the sidelines and let the parties work it out. Such working out is often best for all concerned, and in the case of treaties, it is often best for the country to have its courts allow them the space to reach an amicable agreement, rather than having the court impose its view on the parties.  That is how the parties hopefully can learn to reconcile.

In other words, the court concluded that through negotiated settlements, in good faith the parties would be much better equipped to reconcile with the First Nations. That is what the First Nations of the Huron Robinson Treaty did.  The court also noted that “true reconciliation, is rarely, if ever, achieved in courtrooms.”

In fact, in the Robinson Treaties case, Madam Justice Martin said during the oral arguments, “accountability most certainly does take place in a courtroom.” Of course, that does not mean the courts should refrain from doing their job. In some cases, courts must do their job. Sometimes it is essential that they do.  As

Mr. Justice Jamal said,

“Indeed, judicial forbearance should not come at the expense of adequate scrutiny of Crown conduct to ensure constitutional compliance… As in the present case, litigation may sometimes be the only way to bring an intransigent party to the negotiating table with a view to reaching a settlement and advancing reconciliation.”

 

For example, when it takes a government 150 years to do its job, clearly required by the Treaty it signed, the court must compel that government to do the right thing.

Justice Jamal wisely put it this way,

“Although it is not the business of the courts to force the Crown to exercise its discretion in a particular way, it is very much the business of the courts to review exercises of Crown discretion for constitutional compliance — to ensure that the Crown exercises its discretion in accordance with its treaty obligations and the constitutional principle of the honour of the Crown. It is appropriate in this case for this Court to order the government to repair the breach of its constitutional obligations, while leaving it up to the executive branch to determine the best means of doing so.”

 Sometimes the court must just make it clear to the government, that it must do what it has promised to do in a sacred treaty. We hope the parties can work it out as that might help the reconciliation process. We must wait and see.

 

Given that Canada took 150 years to agree to do what it ought to have done from the beginning, this sounds a bit like Polyannish wishful thinking.  I hope I am wrong.

Quantum: A Wicked Problem

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, Indigenous People After Contact, Indigenous Treaties, Indigenous--Reconciliation

 

In such difficult and complicated circumstances of trying to determined the proper compensation for  a large number of First Nations who had been treated dishonourably for 150 years as was the case for the Robinson Treaty First Nations, how can a court determine, or the government for that matter, determine, the proper amount to be paid?  Clearly that is a wicked problem. A problem brought on entirely by the dishonourably conduct of the Crown.  To give you a bit of an idea about how much money is involved in the dispute you should consider that the Robinson-Huron Treaty case but not the Robinson-Superior case,  has been settled by agreement out of court by the First Nations involved and the government of Canada and Ontario.

Canada, Ontario, and the Huron plaintiffs  on June 17, 2023, publicly announced that, as a result of negotiations that had been ongoing since April 2022, they had successfully concluded out of court negotiations  to settle those claims under the Robinson-Huron Treaty for $10 billion! Each of Canada and Ontario agreed to pay $5 billion from each of Canada and Ontario. The proposed settlement was described in a joint press release as “a major milestone in the ongoing collaborative work to renew the treaty relationship and honour a treaty promise that dates back to 1850”

The other treaty claimants are demanding for compensation of the breach of the augmentation clause an astounding $126 billion! The Supreme Court of Canada acknowledged that “This figure is equivalent to approximately two-thirds of the total reported annual revenue of the province of Ontario, from all sources, in the 2022-23 fiscal year.’ A judgement for $126 billion might bankrupt Ontario and severely harm Canada.

Justice Jamal acknowledged in his judgment on behalf of a all 9 judges of the Supreme Court  that

“Naturally, where the Crown has defaulted on its payment obligations for almost 150 years, the amount due will be substantial. The Anishinaabe signatories cannot now be short-changed by the Crown’s sticker shock, which is solely the result of the Crown’s own dishonourable neglect of its sacred treaty promises.”

 

 

 

Justice Jamal on behalf of the entire Supreme Court also acknowledged that the Augmentation Clause constitutes a promise by the Crown to exercise its discretion as to possible future increases to the annuities it pays beyond $4 per person where it can do so without incurring a loss. And he said,

“This discretion must be exercised honourably, but also in accordance with Her Majesty’s desire “to deal liberally and justly with all Her subjects” — to do justice to the Anishinaabe treaty partners and Her Majesty’s other “subjects”. Accordingly, in exercising its discretion, the Crown will have to engage in complex polycentric decision making that weighs the solemnity of its obligations to the Anishinaabe and the needs of other Ontarians and Canadians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike. This is well within the expertise of the executive branch, but is much less within the expertise of the courts.”

 

The Crown (government) must act for the benefit of all Canadians too. Not just Indigenous people. This amount must now be negotiated within 6 months or less after which the government must advise how much it will pay the Indigenous claimants and on what basis that amount has been determined.

This should be fun Not.

The Proper Role of the Courts in settling disputes

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, Colonialism, Indigenous People After Contact, Indigenous Treaties, Indigenous--Reconciliation

 

The case involving the Robinson Treaties  went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada two times [the first time for the courts to determine which government should pay] ended by making some remarkable decisions  about the proper role of the courts in treaty disputes.

The Supreme Court in the most recent case, relied on the writing of Law Professor Kent Roach about Aboriginal rights as follows:

 

“. . . courts that enforce Aboriginal rights must also consider a range of other factors and competing interests. Courts should provide remedies that respect institutional roles including the limits on the judiciary. In many cases, courts are hopeful that issues can be resolved out of court by a process of consultation and negotiation. This approach is particularly attractive in the Aboriginal rights context because of its potential to allow Aboriginal nations to exercise some degree of self-determination and because of the complexity of the issues and the broad range of reasonable solutions and forms of reconciliation. At the same time, Aboriginal rights may ultimately have to be enforced by the courts, albeit in a way that respects institutional roles and is fair to all those affected.”

 

That really is uncommonly wise. The Supreme Court was very reluctant to impose its view of how the Crown should exercises its discretion to compensate the Indigenous plaintiffs. It wanted to ensure that the legislature, and the executive branch, and the judiciary all stayed in their own lanes.

 

The Supreme Court even acknowledged its own limitations in this respect. It realized that it would be a very difficult task to determine how much the Crown should pay for 150 years of malfeasance. It suggested the Government would be best equipped to make such a complex analysis, but it recognized that after 150 years of dishonour it might be difficult for the First Nations to accept the government’s decision. The Mr. Justice Jamal on behalf of the unanimous Court put it this way:

 

“The amount by which the Crown might increase the annuity is a polycentric and discretionary determination that will inevitably reflect many social, economic, and policy considerations that may change over time, affecting the frequency and nature of net revenue and annuity calculations. Determining the amount of compensation owed for the past will involve similar considerations. I stress that courts are not incompetent or unable to entertain these considerations when necessary. Indeed, I acknowledge the jurisdiction of the courts to order compensation… if appropriate to do so. However, I also recognize that courts are generally not well equipped to make polycentric choices or to “evaluate the wide-ranging consequences that flow from policy implementation”

 

As a result, the Supreme Court said courts must be modest and humble and “accordingly, courts should exercise considerable caution before intervening in such circumstances.”

 

A hodgepodge

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, Indigenous--Reconciliation

This is a badly burned hotel that has been abandoned it would seem along side the Trans-Canada Highway in northern Ontario.  I must admit, sometimes I think of Canada this way. Not always, thank goodness., but too often. Is this what Canada is like?  I will come back to this photo later.

I love travelling, and an essential part of travel, for me, is learning. I want to learn new things about new places from new people. Or, learn more about places I already know to some extent.

One of the things I wanted to learn about was Canada.  I lived in Canada my entire life except for the last 10 years where we lived in Arizona for 3 months and Canada 9 months each . Give or take.

I thought I knew Canada. But did I really know it?  Of course, not. I had a lot to learn. One of the things I have been trying to learn more about for at least a decade and even more, is the relationship between indigenous people and the descendants of the European settlers as well as an amazing array of immigrants and their descendants who came to live in Canada a country that was already clearly occupied. They have all made for an incredibly interesting place here in Canada. Not a melting pot. Rather, a hodgepodge.

What is a hodgepodge? According to Vocablulary.com

“A hodgepodge is a random assortment of things. A dorm room might be furnished with a hodgepodge of milk crates, antique mirrors, and a poster of a kitten hanging on a branch with one paw. Hodgepodge is a funny-sounding word for a somewhat funny occurrence — a grouping of things or people that don’t fit together.”

 

They don’t fit together. Yet they do. Somehow, inexplicably, they do. They make it work.  The phrase is partly French and partly English.  Pretty appropriate to Canada. We have been trying to put the French and English together for hundreds of years. Lately, we have come to realize there is another very important group of people we neglected for too long. These of course are the indigenous people who were here all along. Yet painfully, awkwardly, and wrongly forgotten or neglected. Again, according to Vocablulary.com,

“In the case of hodgepodge and hotchpotch, the rhyme is not an accident. These words came to English from early French in the form hochepot. The spelling was changed to make the second half of the word rhyme with the first. In French hochepot was a stew of many foods cooked together in a pot.”

 

I love stews. Through ingredients into a pot heat them up and enjoy. Great in theory. But does it work? We must admit it has not worked very well in the past. But we can do better. I think we want to do better. First, we must be willing to learn and willing to change. We must in humility admit our mistakes of the past and honestly try to do better. That is what reconciliation is all about.

How can we do that? I wanted to think about that and how we got into this hodgepodge in the first place. As Chief Justice Murray Sinclair, the Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada often said, “You can’t understand where you are unless you understand how you got there.”

I wanted to consider that on this journey through the eastern part of Canada. How did we get into this hodgepodge? Is there a way out?

 

A Voice for Justice: Murray Sinclair

Indigenous--Indian Residential Schools, Indigenous--Reconciliation

 

I first heard about Murray Sinclair when he and I were both pretty young lawyers who both worked in the same judicial district of Manitoba. He worked out of Selkirk and I worked in Steinbach.  He became an associate for Howard Pawley a lawyer and cabinet minister in the Ed Schreyer government and later a premier of Manitoba. I had a modest rural practice.

 

Justice Sinclair was born about 2 years later than I. He was appointed a judge of the Provincial Court of Manitoba, later of the Queen’s Bench in Manitoba. I vaguely remember that I was a bit jealous when he was appointed a judge. After all, I thought, he was younger than I was. How could that be?  Well, its simple. He earned it. He later became Associate Chief Justice of Manitoba and served on the Manitoba Justice Inquiry looking in to the unjust treatment of indigenous people by the provincial judicial system.

We only met once many years later after he had been appointed as Chair to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (‘TRC’) of Canada. I vaguely remember when that Commission was established, I thought people were making too much fuss about those schools. It was my ignorant evaluation that those schools were a matter of a few Catholic priests who were bad apples and who had horribly sexually abused children. What they had done to the children in their care was awful, if true, but no one else was to blame. I was wrong—dead wrong as it turned out.

A few years after the TRC was established and stories starting coming out that things were much more serious than we had realized. It was much more than  a few bad apples. Those schools were a result of systemic racial segregation, white supremacy and suppression of many indigenous children by the government of Manitoba and often by schools operated by various Christian churches.   Many children had been taken against their will from out of the love and care of their parents or guardians.

I remember the first time I heard Justice Sinclair speak on the history of residential schools, to a group of people who had been appointed to various government commissions and administrative bodies. Then I heard him a second time when he spoke to a group of Canadian lawyers at a meeting of the Canadian Bar Association. Those were  eye-opening experiences. I realized then that the issue of residential schools went deep into Canadian society and was a serious mark on that society. It was a stain on our honour.  After his talk I went up to thank him personally for opening my eyes.  Had he not opened my eyes I might have remained ignorant of the injustices created in the name of Canada against some of its most vulnerable citizens. We owe him and his fellow commissioners a great debt for the work they did on our behalf.

Justice Murray Sinclair was a giant of Canada who together with his fellow Commissioners brought to the attention of a nation the horrendous abuse, discrimination, and suppression of indigenous children in Canada. In doing that he did a great service to our country because he brought these injustices to the attention of the world and opened a path toward reconciliation. Otherwise, many white people like me would have remained ignorant of this great injustice. Justice Sinclair was a powerful voice for justice and the world should be grateful.  He was a true hero of Canada who made the world a better place. of Canada.

Lately I heard Justice Sinclair say there will always be those who deny history.  I agree. we see that all around.  After all, there are always those who prefer comfortable myths to the truth. For example, a few years ago the premier of Manitoba at the time, Brian Pallister, believed the myth that European settlers who came to Manitoba came solely to build and not destroy.  I wish it were that simple.

I remember what Justice Sinclair said: “this nation must never forget what it once did to its most vulnerable people.” Who has ever uttered a greater truth?  Justice Murray Sinclair was a great and clear voice for justice. He was a Canadian treasure. A Canadian hero if ever there was one.