Twisting our beliefs to fulfill an economic objective

“The ultimate objective of the First Nations Property Ownership Act is to support the aspirations of First Nations people: to assist them to unlock the tremendous economic potential of First Nations land…”

That’s a quote from Tom Flanagan’s “Beyond the Indian Act.” I think it sounds nice; supporting our aspirations, unlocking our potential. Though I had to ask myself if it was really my aspiration, or that of my people, to unlock the economic potential of our land. Do we want to develop what little land we have left? Do we want to extract resources and lease or sell land? Are these our aspirations as Native people?

Money is nice, but I’m not sure all First Nations are ready to abandon long-practiced policy and start to “sell their holdings.” Land is a touchy issue since most nations know that they weren’t given enough to begin with.

Many people still hold sacred ties to the land. Even the authors of “Beyond the Indian Act” admit that “First Nations fear the loss of current entitlements, especially relating to lands.”

To focus on economic development as the sole purpose for decisions on land, or anything else, can often end up being short-sighted and problematic. This book, however, seems to do just that. Over and over we are told by Flanagan and his co-authors about the economic benefit of their proposed Property Ownership Act.

I can agree with, and see the benefit of, much of the work that many of the First Nations highlighted in the book have done on land management and other self-government type issues.

Westbank First Nations, for example, have their own laws on waterworks, business licences, residential premises, family property, and so much more. I think the authors are appealing to a huge majority of First Nations people when they quote Manny Jules, chief commissioner of the First Nations Tax Commission, as saying, “I see a future in 10 years where there is no longer a purpose for the department of Indian Affairs.”

If you said that at any First Nations gathering you would get a positive response, guaranteed. This book also gives some good insight and history on how Nations have gone about asserting some of their rights on property, and developed some of their own laws regarding land. I appreciated this aspect of the book and saw it as a big positive that many First Nations people could learn from and take pride in.

Still, the motivations that the authors describe for wanting to support a Property Ownership Act don’t line up with most contemporary Canadian First Nations views, which haven’t yet disregarded the past. The authors have considered this fact and the book has an answer.

The truth, according to the authors, is that we’ve always had economic aspirations but we’ve convinced ourselves otherwise in the last hundred or so years and have falsely adopted what we now consider to be our culture.
Make sense? I had to read some parts twice myself. Parts like, “It is both ironic and tragic that this originally European conception of Indians as natural communists has now been accepted by many aboriginal leaders and thinkers and become a barrier to native participation in the modern economy.”

So the Europeans who originally told our story were wrong; the ones who were actually there. But these new Europeans who are now telling our story are right?
I can’t see why we aren’t capable of deciding for ourselves exactly who we are and where we came from. The authors clearly feel that Native culture is counter-productive to their economic goals and are hoping to convince us that we share those same goals and have for a long time.

Here’s the thing: Most anthropologists or economists or other people studying Natives from an economic viewpoint are going to find concepts that support their version of economic activity. It’s what they have been taught to do.

If Natives had large trail networks between different tribes, or ceremonies where they traded items, then these are purely economic activities. As Native people, we know that isn’t the full story. There may be an economic element to the pre-contact lifestyle of many tribes, but it is far from what the authors here, and ones in the past, have tried to suggest.

Often when people rewrite our history it is to show us that we were much better equipped for economics, trade, and intergovernmental negotiations than was previously believed.  But a quick look at the context shows that this is always done to justify something that the author supports.

If the author is trying to say we got a fair deal in the treaties, they will illustrate how we negotiated between nations all the time before contact. If the author is saying, in this case, that we should create our own laws that open up our land to development and economic purposes, they will show how we did similar things in the past. That one is a much harder sell.

Our land is very sacred to us, regardless of whether the authors believe this has always been the case or not. Most elders are fairly secretive about our culture around outsiders, as anyone who has worked on Traditional Land Use studies can tell you. I will share a little bit of insight from my time in Traditional Land Use to illustrate some of the Cree Elders’ views on land since time immemorial.

As it was told to me:
Our people had summer camps and winter camps that were often tied to rivers and lakes. They would camp near the lake in the summer and up river into good moose country in the winter. And every winter the land would be good to them; there would be lots of rabbits and moose and wood for fire, all easy to find. The reason for this is that they would respect the land. Every year they would leave their summer camps at a different time of the season. Two weeks later one year, two weeks earlier one year, and so on and yet they would travel for around the same time and distance every year. By doing this they would arrive for their winter camp in a new place down the river each year, or at least a new place every four years or so. By doing this they gave nature a chance to replenish itself. They didn’t need to kill trees because enough had fallen. They didn’t go hungry because the moose were back in that area. This is how they thought of land.

Now I imagine that economic-minded individuals like the authors of Beyond the Indian Act could find a way to argue that this is a primarily economic activity, but our people know different.

Why do they think we protest pipelines and hydro dams? I know a lot of Canadians consider that a method for receiving handouts, but many First Nations people still hold values that have no expiration date or price tag. It is basic knowledge in much of Indian country that money shouldn’t be a big factor in Land Use decisions.

To make money off the land in most instances means changing it in some substantial way. Look at the Tar Sands area for an extreme example of that. Changing the land in that way is not our aspiration. I honestly feel that we are not assimilated to that point yet.

To Tom Flanagan, “All this land (First Nations land) represents an enormous economic asset…” but to us, it is so much more than that.