"I am Canadian", and I engage in "Nice Racism"

I've been reading "NICE RACISM: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm" by Robin DiAngelo.

As I read, I can't help but have that "I Am Canadian" Molson slogan and commercial from a few decades ago in my mind.

 

• I'm not a lumberjack, or a fur trader, but I support unrestricted resource extraction no matter what the harm
• I don't live in an igloo, or eat blubber, or own a dogsled, and I have no concerns about the genocidal policies by Canadian Governments against the people who do. (This ramped up in the 1950's, even after Europe started to grapple with the concept of genocide in the late 1940's)
• I live under a Constitutional Monarchy, not a self-determined responsible democracy
• I believe it is perfectly reasonable to require someone to "swear (or affirm), That I will be faithful, And bear true allegiance" to a White Supremacist institution as a condition of becoming a Canadian Citizen, or to hold a wide variety of positions of authority (member of parliament, senator, etc).
  
• I partly define my identity by thinking I, as a Canadian, am better than a citizen of the United States -- That Canada is better than the United States
  
• I believe Canadians are polite people
• I believe Racism is a US and not Canadian problem
  
• I believe Canada is a "just society" and respects human rights domestically and internationally, even thought I have never read the Canadian Constitution, Canadian Charter, or the reports of any Human Rights body discussing Canada
  
• I believe all Indigenous Nations on the northern part of this continent lost a war and ceded all their land to Britain and/or Canada in some distant past (that has nothing to do with today), even though nobody can name the wars, offer dates, or provide any documentation for these alleged events
  
• I believe "We are a multicultural society"
• I believe "We pay respect to Indigenous people"
• I believe "Canada never had slavery"
• My name is Russell, and I am Canadian!!!
  

The last three (before my name as the expected finale) were taken from page 98 of "Nice Racism", in a chapter discussing the moves to innocence of White progressives.

As a generalization, Canadians think of themselves as more "progressive" than citizens of the USA. Rather than this being a reason for Canadians to believe this book by a US author has nothing to do with them, it is actually part of what makes this book (as a percentage of the population) more about Canadians than US citizens.

US citizens tend to be more loud and proud patriotic people : Canadian identity includes the belief we are more "nice" and "polite".

I could go through each of the bullets I threw in above, but the ones from the book are a good start.

We are a multicultural society?

The Dominion of Canada is a bi-colonial (Britain, France) series of institutions.

During the P.E. Trudeau era, bi-colonialism was rebranded biculturalism (meaning English and French), and then dishonestly marketed as multiculturalism.

Even the notion that Canada is a "just society" was used as a rhetorical device by the Trudeau government as part of the marketing of what was essentially racist bi-colonial policies.

Culture is narrowly defined as food, clothing/fashion, and other more superficial things which people are allowed to maintain. When it comes to less superficial things it is made clear in the new so-called "Charter of Rights and Freedoms" passed as part of Canada Act 1982 that the official languages, worldviews and laws of Canada remain British and French.

Even though this continent has been a polyglot for tens of thousands of years, with many nations and worldviews, two foreign European worldviews are aggressively imposed by the Dominion of Canada governments.

While Canadian loyalists are quick to call Quebec's Bill 96 racist, they are generally unwilling to recognize that Canada's Charter and most of the core policies of the Trudeau government are far more racist. The Charter isn't a temporary provincial bill that can easily be changed, but part of the racist Canadian legal framework that other bills (including Bill 96) are judged by.


If you have done some of the work to learn about Racism and White Supremacy (systems, not about individuals), you will notice what qualifies as "Rights and Freedoms" has a clear White racial frame that is narrowly focused on the concerns of peoples that emerged from the unique history of Western Europe (a focus on Britain and France).

We pay respect to Indigenous people?

Also during the P.E. Trudeau Era, Trudeau's Minister of Indian Affairs, Jean Chrétien, tabled what ended up being called the "1969 White Paper". This was the then Liberal government's "final solution" to the so-called "Indian Problem". It would be a final "Kill the Indian, Save the Man" policy that wiped out any respect or recognition of Indigenous peoples.

The Trudeau Government tried this again in the 1980's during the so-called "patriation" of the Constitution, and required the Constitutional Express to ensure that the Trudeau's governments Racist/Genocidal ideology wasn't fully encoded in Canada Act 1982.

I mention P.E. Trudeau as many Canadians believe he was a "progressive" Prime Minister. His attitude towards Indigenous Peoples, who he regularly claimed were a conquered people and his support of many genocidal policies, is actually quite informative for understanding what qualifies as "progressive" by Canadians. The younger Trudeau uses more careful and "politically correct" language, but upholds the same general policy goals of his father's government.

I was born in 1968, the same year P.E. Trudeau first became Prime Minister. I believe that P.E. Trudeau was the most visibly racist Prime Minister during my lifetime, as the marketing of racist policies has radically changed over my lifetime even if the overall policy goals have not.


Some individuals may have stopped openly calling for "Kill the Indian, Save the Man" genocidal policies, and some believe in "Diversity, Equity & Inclusion" of Indigenous peoples into Canadian society.  They may not recognize that advocating for inclusion into colonial "Canadian" law/society is itself disrespectful, and is in fact the goal of most of Canada's "Kill the Indian, Save the Man" genocidal policies.


There are some individual Canadians who are advocating the recognition of the Right of Self-Determination of Indigenous peoples. This is a right recognized in the UN Charter that Canada has aggressively opposed starting before the (Eurocentric) League of Nations became the United Nations. Canada was one of the 4 offensive nations that voted against the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) which also recognizes the Right of Self-Determination.

As punishment for sending a representative to the League of Nations in 1923 to have their Right of Self-Determination recognized, Canada sent in the RCMP in 1924 to forcibly depose the Haudenosaunee Confederacy -- the oldest Participatory Democracy on the Planet. Canada still refuses to recognize the right of self-determination, or allow any responsible government to be seen to represent Indigenous nations to the Canadian government under Section 35 of Canada's own constitution. Opposing democracy and responsible governments, Canada still relies on the fundamentally racist section 91(24) of Canada's Constitution to determine who to limit "consultation" of Indigenous individuals to.

Imagine for a second if Germany had a section of their constitution that granted Power to a specific level of government for "Jews, and Lands reserved for the Jews". Once you do, you can begin to understand how Racist Canada's Constitution and laws derived from it are.


Note the "s" in peoples: This isn't related to individuals or Canada's alleged multiculturalism. This involves many different nations/peoples and not some pan-Indigenous concept. Canada was one of the Eurocentric "nations" that opposed the rights of "peoples" being protected in the so-called "Universal Declaration of Human Rights", which itself constituted a rejection of the notion that UN UDHR is universal. Rights recognized in that declaration are focused on individuals.

These are basic Human Right of peoples that Canada actively denies: Canada is not respectful of Indigenous peoples or their rights, and many genocidal policies are ongoing.

Some individual Canadian genocidal policies like Residential Schools have recently (within my lifetime) ended, but the overall genocidal policy goals simply moved to the child welfare and other systems.

Most Canadians, however, believe the myth that Canada (the system, the governments, etc) are a force for good and justice in the world, and do not feel any personal responsibility for ongoing genocidal policies that these governments do in their name (and thus they DO have responsibilities, even if they are unaware of the harm from their individual action or inaction).

Canada never had slavery?

I have heard this my entire life, and even when growing up the dates never matched up in my head. I assumed, because of what I now recognize as Autism, that I was somehow wrong and didn't understand.

In 1833 Britain started on a gradual project to abolish slavery. It was not made immediately illegal in the entire of the British Empire, and Britain even compensated so-called "owners" for this gradual policy change.

The USA claims they abolished slavery in 1865, at the end of what they called the "American Civil War", the second of such civil wars where British colonies on this continent fought each other to separate from each other.

Britain unilaterally created the Dominion of Canada in 1867: without the permission or even awareness of the vast majority of inhabitants of the lands that were alleged to be governed by "Canada" at the time. There was then the massive violent colonial expansion of Canada on this continent that happened after that date. (The gc.ca map shows the dates, but the explanations are pretty much propaganda.  Canada never legally acquired "Rupert's Land and the North Western Territory", etc).


A component of the belief Canada never had slavery is that anything that these individuals or their colonial governments did prior to the passage of the first of 11 BNA Acts doesn't count. Somehow what people in these colonies thought and did magically changed between that bill receiving Royal Assent on 29th March 1867 and going into effect 1st July 1867.


The Underground Railroad went both ways across the imaginary line drawn between colonies who remained loyal to Britain and the 13 British colonies that launched the first civil war between British colonies on this continent to separate (what the USA labels a War of Independence 1775-1783).

The primary differences between the United States, Canada, and the Confederate States was not morality, but economic: The economies of the most southern British colonies on this continent were more dependent on cheap labor (slavery is primarily an economic policy), while the more northern regions were moving into other industries.  Where the south relied on cheap labor, the north relied on cheap resources (and thus more aggressive dispossession of Indigenous jurisdiction over land from which these resources would be extracted without concern for any future consequences).

---

 

As I discuss each of these aspects of Canadian Culture, I am including myself. I have been part of and indoctrinated by Canadian Culture. It is only recently that I have become aware of and capable of questioning some of those myths.

One of the book chapters is titled "Let's talk about shame".

DiAngelo included a quote from an article by Joseph Burgo Ph.D..

Although many people use the two words "guilt" and "shame" interchangeably, from a psychological perspective, they actually refer to different experiences. Guilt and shame sometimes go hand in hand; the same action may give rise to feelings of both shame and guilt, where the former reflects how we feel about ourselves and the latter involves an awareness that our actions have injured someone else. In other words, shame relates to self; guilt to others.

DiAngelo discusses how White people are often more comfortable expressing shame than guilt as guilt suggests we are personally responsible and that they need to do something (do better, be better). Shame doesn't suggest there is anything to do -- you are what you are, and that's it.

I have realized that I don't feel shame or guilt when it comes to my Whiteness. It is possible that the way that I think might help fellow White people move away from trying to protect their personal comfort/feelings/reputation/etc and move on to helping fix structural problems.

I look at Racism and other systems/policies like I do technology.

What I am, my phenotype including my lack of melanin in my skin, is hardware. Biology is hardware.

Isms, like Capitalism, Socialism, Colonialism, Racism, Androcentrism, Anthropocentrism are software.

I personally categorize some of these systems as malware, and societies with these systems are in need of anti-virus and other anti-malware work.



I know for a FACT I'm deeply personally infected with Racism. This malware causes me to have harmed and continue to harm other people, and I have further infected other people because Racism is contagious.

I am publicly admitting I have engaged in Racist activities. For most of my life I have actively upheld Racist policies because I had not yet recognized this set of software/policies as malware.

It will take a long time, if it is even possible in my time remaining alive, to entirely rid myself of the impacts from the malware infection of Racism. That is not an excuse to do nothing, but a recognition that I must put considerable time into anti-malware work.



These systemic/software problems are not about biology/hardware, and they are not something that we are. This is all software which can (an in the case of malware, must) change.

We should not feel shame, and we should never feel like there is nothing we can do.

I am quite angry with "Canada" (A set of policies, not a place or a group of people) which not only actively spreads and enforces malware, but seeks to make it illegal to work on anti-malware strategies. There is so much funding to spread Canadian malware, including entire Canadian Federal government departments.





I Am Canadian, but not a loyal, patriotic or proud Canadian.

Should you be upset at individual police officers who support the "Thin Blue Line" concept?

The concept of the "Thin Blue Line" comes up regularly.

I posted about this on Facebook on Dominion Day, what the P.E. Trudeau government re-branded as "Canada Day" in 1982 to help hide the truth about the Dominion.

 

I consider the Thin Blue Line to be another discussion about systems vs individuals.

The job of Law Enforcement is to enforce the law, not to interpret it or to ignore the laws the police departments or individual officers don't like. If a law is racist, then it is still their job to enforce that law.

Whether US or Canadian law supports the idea that Every Child Matters or Black Lives Matter is a matter of law and other systems, not law enforcement. This is even true if some law enforcement officers start a "Blue Lives Matter" movement in response to the feeling they are personally being targeted by the "Black Lives Matter" and other human rights and social justice movements.

Canada and the United States are founded and still exist today as an ongoing expression of the White Supremacist notion that Europeans and European systems have more of a "right" to govern over this land (Reminder: not part of Europe) than the Indigenous Nations and peoples who have governed and stewarded this continent for tens of thousands of years.

The Canadian Constitution hasn't been modified significantly since the one the British unilaterally imposed in 1867 with the first of the 11 British North America Acts. This was done without the permission of, or even notification to, a majority of inhabitants and citizens of existing nations. There have been minor changes, but not away from White Supremacy within the Canada Act 1982, and other Acts of the British Parliament.


The United States is similarly fundamentally flawed, with their constitution being one of the most outdated on the planet.

Lets use a concrete example. APTN recently did an in-depth called:
Behind the Thin Blue Line: Meet a secretive arm of the RCMP in B.C.

We could read that article and get all angry at the RCMP for this, but lets remember: they are law enforcement.

Where is the source of the conflicts with the sovereign nations in that part of Turtle Island (the name the peoples near where I live, such as the Haudenosaunee and  Anishinaabe call this continent)?

That would be the British Columbia NDP government. That is the allegedly democratic body that is in charge of these systems, and passed the laws (and unlawfully approves "development" on land they don't have jurisdiction over) which the BC RCMP is then required to enforce.

 

The BC NDP even passed a law promising to change BC's racist laws to conform with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, but thus far has refused to do anything other than virtue signalling and theater. They could immediately cease the violations of human right being carried out by the RCMP, with simple changes to the injunction process on unceded lands, but refuses to do so even with their majority government.

BC (currently NDP government, allegedly the most "progressive" party that forms governments in Canada) and Canada (currently a "Liberal" government) are regularly called out by UN agencies for ongoing human rights violations. (PDF Posted by APTN, You can also go to the Treaty Body Database, limit to Canada, and look at April 29, 2022)



Note: What Canada and BC are claiming about Indian Act band councils granting them "permission" is in fact unconstitutional. Those federally created/regulated corporations administrating Canadian government services delegated to the federal government under the racist Constitution section 91(24) do not have any jurisdiction over activities outside of their reservations. They are not examples of self-determined responsible governments.

Blaming the police, and especially blaming individual police officers, is part of flawed Western worldviews which have a narrow focus on individuals rather than recognizing systems.

Police departments within "Canada" and "United States" are not law enforcement systems which contains some racist (the oddball "Bad Apples" narrative), but the enforcement arm of racist governance systems. Individual police officers are not the problem. If there are individual officers that are more overtly racially prejudiced, that can easily be understood as being the most loyal to Canadian systems (Patriotism).

What about the claim that law enforcement is the "line which keeps society from descending into violent chaos"?

First you need to recognize that Canada has a legal system, imposed by Britain based on British laws, religion and worldviews, and not a justice system. This set of systems called the Dominion of Canada have been carrying out a slow Genocide since it was imposed by the British.

Law is not the same thing as order, and sometimes laws and law enforcement itself can be the cause of violent chaos


(I have taken a course where Kim Tallbear was my professor. She is an amazing Indigenous academic who does anthropology of white peoples. )

Law enforcement in Canada is part of the ongoing colonialism project. Carrying out racist activities is in fact their job, given the laws they are required to enforce are examples of systemic racism.

 

Why I trust Jody Wilson-Reybould, and never again Justin Trudeau

A few ideas are in my head.

Jody Wilson-Raybould is also known as Puglaas, a title she explains in the speech I link to below.  I knew she had written a second book in the spring when it was announced, a process that had already been underway for quite some time.

For those confused about the timing of this book that coincided with the election, it is important to recognize that books are not written and published in a few weeks, and the timing was decided months ago. Even the timing of his election to coincide with the planned launch of this book is Justin Trudeau's personal mistake.

When her first book came out, I didn't notice as I had not yet started my anti-racism journey, and had not leaned about Indigenous Canada or become engaged in leaning about, thinking about, and helping in any way I can to fight for Indigenous Rights.

The attention this election is on the second book, which is focused on her time as an MP, joining cabinet, and being forced because of Justin Trudeau's lack of ethics felt forced to resign from cabinet.

I feel like much of the partisan talk is missing the context that she can offer, and that is more visible in her first book which was organized as a collection of speaking notes.

I want to highlight and suggest everyone read the speech she ended her first book with: Each of Us, In Our Own Way, is a Hiligax̲te. - Wilson-Raybould, Jody, 1971-. (2019, June 6). Feminists Deliver “Standing in Your Power, Using Your Voice” [O]. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0380803

 

This speech resonates the most with me as it summarizes what went wrong in cabinet.  She was trained from an extremely early age for a critical female role in her culture and nation, the Hiligax̲te, which is one that "correct the Chief's path".

Unlike in Western European culture and worldviews where women weren't granted political rights and responsibilities (and only recently partially gained), Puglaas is from a much more mature culture where women have specifically allocated political roles (which colonialism attempted to strip).

What happened with her relationship with Justin Trudeau was that Puglas did her job: as an MP, as a member of cabinet, as Attorney General, as Hiligax̲te, and as an Indigenous woman.

When I met Justin Trudeau in 2010 at his constituency office, I was also optimistic. He said all the right things, and as a technical person I thought it was amazing that a politician had a signed XKCD cartoon on his wall.

I think for much of the decade Canadians were enamored with Justin Trudeau.  He said all the right things.

Except, one by one, I think we all started to notice that his actions didn't match those words.

My previous article highlighted books by Arthur Manuel, which spoke about Justin Trudeau as well as his father.  What I read there about the Trudeau Prime Ministers has been confirmed from so many other sources.  While they speak progressive, including on Indigenous Rights, their actions are actually the opposite.


I have come to believe that, adjusted for the time period, Pierre Elliot Trudeau was more racist than Sir John Alexander Macdonald (I discuss why I believe that in the earlier article). Statues of John A are being removed, and I expect we will want to revisit a more honest version of the historical record of P.E. Trudeau.


Justin came into power in 2015 with an extremely large amount of political capital. Demonstrating what I have now come to believe is his extreme sense of entitlement and privilege, he burned through that political capital as if he thought it was infinite.

But.. the real world the rest of us live in has limits, and now Trudeau exist as an anchor pulling the Liberal party under. Much of the problems with the centralization of power into the leaders offices, including the Prime Ministers Office (PMO), is fallout of policy initiated by and deliberately not fixed by the Trudeau family.

• Lets work to fix parliamentary flaws which block holding a Premier or Prime Minister accountable.
• What did Justin Trudeau and the 2015 Liberal platform team do wrong on electoral reform

While there are people talking about other types of strategic voting, such as trying to avoid vote splitting which is caused by the lack of ranked ballots, I consider all of this to be short term thinking.

Canada has some serious problems to deal with, and on all counts: whether it is Women's Rights (he is a fake feminist), Indigenous Rights (he is a fake ally), or Democratic Rights (he is a fake progressive) -- Justin Trudeau is in the way and must be removed.

Arthur Manuel's books as a lens to the 2021 general election.

Some people are calling this the Seinfeld election -- an election about nothing. I don't see a significant change in the parties since the 2019 election, even if 2 of the parties with seats in the last parliament have changed leaders (Conservatives, Greens).

On the other hand, I have changed. I started self-directed anti-racism learning in 2020.  Some of what I had to say about the 2019 general election applies today, but I have a very different lens when looking at Canada.

• Federal Election 2019: Right-wing parties and leadership 
• Federal Election 2019: Politically center parties and leadership
• Federal Election 2019: Left-wing parties and leadership
• What did Justin Trudeau and the 2015 Liberal platform team do wrong on electoral reform

While I have read several relevant books in the last 14 months, there are two written by Arthur Manuel which I believe are particularly relevant to this election.
 

Arthur Manual (1951 – January 11, 2017) wrote about some of the general history of colonialism against this continent, but focused on events he and his father George Manuel (February 21, 1921 – November 15, 1989) had personal experience with.

While many try to put colonialism and the genocide that inevitably comes from colonialism into some distant past, the real story starts in the Roaring Racist 1920's and continues to this day.

Liberal Party of Canada, and the Trudeau Family

I was born in 1968, and my father in 1936. Justin Trudeau was born in 1971 and his father in 1919. We and our fathers are of comparable generations, and thus could have had similar experiences. We didn't.


The second book includes a quote from Leo Tolstoy (From "What Then Must We Do?") that was included in the 1983 Penner Report (PDF) on Indian(sic) Self-government in Canada.

I sit on a man's back choking him and making him carry me and yet assure myself and others that I am sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all possible means -- except by getting off his back.

(Note: The picture of Trudeau on the back of a black boy was fake, but for obvious reasons given Trudeau's personality and continuous expressions of entitlement and White Privilege we all believed it was true)


Canadian governments were unilaterally imposed on this homeland by the British as an ongoing act of overt racism and white supremacy. Canada continues to push Indigenous peoples down so they can't built back their nations and economies.

I don't, however, believe that quote applies to all Canadian Prime Ministers and the governments they lead. Of all the Prime Ministers of Canada, with all the ephemeral parties with the word "Liberal" or "Conservative" (or sometimes both) in the party names, the above really only applies to recent Liberal PMs. Prior to that time no PM would claim to feel sorry for Indigenous peoples. They believed the only human right Indigenous Peoples should have is the right to be forcibly assimilated into European worldviews and governance systems (clear genocidal policies of "Kill the Indian, Save the Man", "Kill the Indian in the Child", stealing land and converting to European "Fee simple" property, etc, etc).


Much of these two books are dedicated to talking about P.E. Trudeau and Justin Trudeau. Each had a Trudeau Mania backing them and having them be considered "progressive", all the while they were actively carrying out overtly colonial and genocidal activities against Indigenous Peoples.

While Europeans like to believe their history is universal, European history is actually quite unique. Growing racism and related violations of human rights in the 1920's in Europe (between "world" wars and during the second) had serious implications on European colonies. This included European colonies in what the Europeans called the Americas (after Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian "explorer" who claimed to have "discovered" the continents many thousands of years after Pacific Islanders are likely to have been doing trade with peoples from this continent).

In the 1940's, Europeans finally started to better understand some human rights concepts, and in the context of the United Nations (which the Europeans actively blocked Indigenous nations from joining) started to recognize that colonialism and the inevitable genocide that it causes must be considered crimes against humanity.

This brings us to Pierre Trudeau starting in 1968.  Europeans had been thinking about, started to adopt, and understand human rights in the 1950's and 1960's. We even saw a Civil Rights movement in the USA to try to gain equal rights for African Americans. Even with this context, Trudeau thought he would get away with a forced assimilation "final solution" to the alleged "Indian Problem" with the 1969 White Paper he launched along with then Minister of Indian Affairs, Jean Chrétien.

There has never been an "Indian problem", only a colonialism and genocide problem.

Also starting in the 1960's was movements towards so-called "Patriation" of the Canadian Constitution.  I suspect it was concern over a growing international movement against racism and colonialism that sparked these mostly Liberal Party leaders to seek to ensure that Britain could not make Canada less racist as they did when the British abolished slavery.

Prior to the passage of the Canada Act 1982 (Please read the actual text, not what Trudeau and others claimed it was about), the UK parliament had more authority over the laws of Canada than any governing body on this side of the Atlantic. While jurisdiction was divided between the federal government and provincial government in Canada, the UK could change any legislation including the constitution.

Arthur Manual discussed the Constitution Express, where Indigenous peoples fought against the "patriation" of the constitution and the exclusion of the rights of Indigenous people.  It was Trudeau yet again trying to wipe out any recognition of Indigenous rights.

It was with the lobbying in Canada and Britain that the British required a recognition of Indigenous Rights in the Canadian Constitution, and thus section 25 (Aboriginal rights and freedoms not affected by Charter), section 35 (Recognition of existing aboriginal and treaty rights), section 37 (Aboriginal peoples included in constitutional conference clarifying rights) were included in the Schedule B replacement of the Constitution.


If the Canada Act 1982 had not passed, the UK could have passed a single act of their parliament to incorporate the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into Canadian law in the same way that the replacement Canadian Constitution including a Charter of Rights and Freedoms was a schedule of the Canada Act 1982. Unfortunately, since Britain made that step to try to absolve itself of any responsibility for its creation and maintenance of Canada, it is now much harder to force the federal and provincial governments to honor internationally recognized human rights and international law.

I may wish that Britain would rescind the Canada Act 1982, and fix some of the problems they created, but that is politically unlikely. Canada finally fully adopting UNDRIP will require a constitutional amendment, which is unlikely in the current overtly racist climate in Canada (especially in some of the provinces).

Arthur Manuel discussed Pierre more in the first book, and then sets the record strait on Justin Trudeau in the second book.

Not discussed as much as I would have liked is additional dishonesty about UNDRIP by Justin Trudeau. Given the Canada Act 1982, it wasn't possible for the federal government to directly pass UNDRIP into Canadian law as it wouldn't be compatible with the constitution, including the division of powers. The federal government and each provincial government must carry out a process to change all the existing human rights violating laws, as well as not pass any new rights violating laws. Solving even this problem in a more permanent way to disallow parliaments to pass human rights violating laws will require a constitutional amendment.

So passing a bill to force governments to change human rights violating laws is what was tabled multiple times in the federal parliament since 2008, and a version finally received royal assent last June in the form of Bill C-15.

In typical Liberal style, Justin Trudeau campaigned in 2015 on moving forward with TRC calls to action which included moving forward with UNDRIP.  This was clearly a lie. While he could have tabled a government bill immediately after the 2015 election based on Romeo Saganash's Bill C-469, he did nothing.  After waiting a year, Romeo Saganash re-tabled his bill which received the number C-262 and the Liberals deliberately delayed the passage of the bill in the House of Commons and Senate.  Then, again typical Liberal lies, they claimed that even though they had a majority government in the House of Commons and control of the Senate that somehow it was the Conservative party that delayed the bill.


"except by getting off his back"!


The only critique I have of either book is how statements made by then Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould about UNDRIP were interpreted.

Simplistic approaches such as adopting the United Nations declaration as being Canadian law are unworkable and, respectfully, a political distraction to undertaking the hard work actually required to implement it back home in communities,

(See: Notes for an address given at an AFN meeting in July 2016, and page 72 of From Where I Stand)

Given the unfortunate passage of the Canada Act 1982, what Jody Wilson-Raybould was discussing is merely a statement of the legal situation within Canada. There is no mechanism by which the federal government could unilaterally pass a law that would allow Canada (which has multiple levels of government and a constitution) to immediately adopt UNDRIP.


These statements are sometimes merged with statements regularly repeated by Carolyn Bennett, then Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs (Now Crown-Indigenous Relations), starting in May 2016.

The Honourable(sic) Carolyn Bennett, Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs, today announced that Canada is now a full supporter, without qualification, of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Today’s announcement also reaffirms Canada’s commitment to adopt and implement the Declaration in accordance with the Canadian Constitution.

So which is it -- are there no qualifications, or will they be attempting to implement the declaration only in accordance with the Canadian Constitution which is partly responsible for the ongoing violations of human rights?

The Canadian Government had been discussing for some time the concept of a "Canadian definition of UNDRIP", which is simply not possible. There is only one Declaration from the United Nations which is UNDRIP, and that is the text adopted by the General Assembly on Thursday, 13 September 2007.  Nothing written before or after is UNDRIP, no matter what anyone claims or attempts to declare.

Canada (or some activists groups) can pretend all it wants that something other than UNDRIP is UNDRIP, but it is up to the United Nations to evaluate that -- it is not up to Canada or anybody else.



If you take these two statements together as if the Liberal party is one happy family (and we know how happy things went for Jody Wilson-Raybould), you would think both were statements pushing back against UNDRIP. I disagree. All evidence suggests that Carolyn Bennett and Justin Trudeau are fully aware of their roles in deliberately delaying Canada coming into compliance with human rights and international law.  I do not see evidence this was the case for Jody Wilson-Raybould, who was simply discussing yet another aspect of the dishonesty of the Trudeau family and the pro-colonial/genocidal aspects of the so-called "Patriation" of the Canadian Constitution.


Now... just imagine if instead of Justin Trudeau as the Liberal Party leader that it was Jody Wilson-Raybould.  I know which one of these people I wish weren't running in this election, and which was. Without the fake-feminist, fake-anti-racist Trudeau barking commands from his colonial throne, we have no idea what this powerful Indigenous woman might have been able to accomplish.

I look forward to when the international embarrassment of Justin Trudeau being the Prime Minister of Canada is over.

Conservative Parties of Canada

Whether I agree or disagree with a conservative (or Conservative), they tend to believe in what they are saying and are far more honest than the Liberals. I know where they stand, and it is easier to work with (or against) them.

One of the mistakes I made in 2019 was to be too narrow in what history I was contemplating. I noticed in 2011 that many people who otherwise voted for the Bloc Québécois nominated candidate ended up voting for the NDP nominated candidate. I incorrectly put the Bloc in my discussion of left-wing parties.

Canadian conservatives have split many times since the first of 11 British North America Acts imposed the governments of Canada against the interests (or even awareness) of the majority of the population. The antiquated electoral system Canada uses which retains the concept of vote splitting forces them to regularly attempt to merge into a coalition party rather than more regularly being able to form coalition governments. Due to this I don't understand why they don't have ranked ballots as a priority reform, but what they consider priorities regularly don't make sense to me.


Western Canada has wanted to dominate Canadian politics for a long time. The Reform Party was a splinter group that formed in 1987 as a Western-Canadian protest movement, and while they separately had seats they continue to have success as it is more correct to say the Reform party took over what was previously the Progressive Conservative party than the claim they merged.

For my views on so-called Western Alienation, the basis of that protest movement, see:

• Why I don't believe Alberta is bullied by extractive industries such as Big Oil

Even if most of the Conservative party MPs aren't from Western Canada, this European Supremacist ideology as it relates to Indigenous peoples and this land and her resources dominates the party.

The Bloc Québécois was a splinter group of mostly Progressive Conservatives that crossed the floor to form a new party in 1991 after the failed Meech Lake Accord.

I have read Sovereign injustice: Forcible inclusion of the James Bay Crees and Cree territory into a sovereign Quebec which clarifies with considerable references the illegality of a provincial government separating from "Canada" and retaining a land base. I have done quite a bit of other anti-racism reading, and finally recognize the Quebec sovereignty movement for what it is:

Yet another White Nationalist movement.
 

According to international law, as well as Canadian law confirmed in Supreme Court rulings, the Government of Canada doesn't exclusively own title over the land it claims to.  This includes what was considered Lower Canada, part of the former colony of New France that was conquered by Britain in the Seven Years' War. The Government of Canada has even weaker title claim over the extensions it unilaterally made to Quebec in the Quebec Border extension Acts of 1898 and 1912 (or the extensions to Ontario including 1912, or the unilateral creation of Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1905, etc).

The notion that part of this land would be allowed by the international community to be conquered by a newly separated European derived government in a modern example of colonialism is absurd. If the French colonists wanted to naturalize to this homeland as the Métis did it would be an entirely different story as Indigenous peoples have a right to self-determination separate from the colonialists. There is simply no method for the French colony of Quebec (with or without the border extensions) to separate. Any attempt to forcibly do so would be met with international peacekeeping, and likely a civil war.

In the context of Canada, British Canadians, Irish Canadians, Scottish Canadians, French Canadians, Somali Canadians (, etc) are all merely part of Canadian colonial multiculturalism.  I'm of Irish, Scottish and French descent, and all of these ancestors are multicultural settlers and colonists -- these groups have ancestral lands and nations in Europe, but not here.

I'm not fully convinced Canada is a legitimate nation, so obviously reject the notion that Quebec or any other colonial division can be considered a nation.  There are many legitimate nations on this homeland, but none of them are of European descent. This is not Europe, and it is far past time some Europeans took their second foot off the boat.


If Quebeckers are relying on good relationships with the right-holders to the land that the Quebec government currently occupies, they had better improve that relationship quickly.  The relationship thus far has been horrendous, and their government has been lying to them about it. They should not assume that if various Indigenous title holders (peoples, not individuals) are asked if they want to remain in Canada rather than be part of Quebec that they will side with Quebec and want to form treaties with French colonists.


There are other more recent conservative splinter groups running candidates in this election.

The People's Party of Canada formed after Maxime Bernier lost the 2017 leadership vote, and he embarrassed himself even further than he had when he was a Minister during the Harper Government years. He decided to form his own cult (Umm... Political party). It is hard to take anything relating to this party seriously, given candidates seem to be spending much of their campaign time protesting hospitals and the public health of fellow citizens. They seem to take memes likely originating from Russia or China as if they were fact.

The PPC platform on "Indigenous Issues", which they claim is a "New Relationship based on mutual respect", is simply a repeat of the illegal colonialist ideas expressed in P.E. Trudeau's 1969 White Paper.  It is sad that our "educational system" is so poor that there are any Canadians who are so confused as to think that P.E. Trudeau's racist ideas are new or useful. I don't know how long this "party" will last.


The Maverick Party was originally called Wexit Canada, and founded in 2020. An even sadder White Nationalist version of the Bloc Quebecois, there is no ability for unilaterally imposed western provincial governments to separate from Canada and retain any land base.  Without the protection of the Canadian Constitution, that land reverts to being part of the North West Territories -- which is already running a far more advanced governance system than Alberta or Saskatchewan.  I may agree with the idea of ending the 116 year failed foreign workers program and replacing those governments with something less racist, but that is clearly not what Maverick is intending. Given the similarities to the Bloc (other than the floor crossing and ability to immediately send their leader to debates), I won't be surprised if they gain seats in parliament.

New Democratic Party

What I said about the party and leader in 2019 still applies in 2021.

There are individual MPs and candidates that are worthy of taking notice and supporting.  Most notable in my mind are:

• Leah Gazan (Winnipeg Center).  I've already maxed my federal donations to her. On twitter she calls herself "Proud Lakota", and has been an activist in this area of policy long before she considered becoming an MP.
  
• Matthew Green (Hamilton Center)
• Charlie Angus (Timmins-James Bay).  I've known him since he became an MP and caused the NDP to do a 180decree shift on Copyright policy (temporarily bringing the party into this millennium).  I have been very happy to see how well he does on Indigenous Rights, which I agree is more important.

As is typical with this mixed-bag party, I also noticed how Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona) spoke at the Heritage committee. She was strongly in support of granting the department responsible for colonial "Canadian identity and values" and its industry cheerleader CRTC more control over media than it does already.  As far as I'm concerned Bill C-10 will violate UNDRIP, but somehow Heather convinced her caucus to support this horrendous bill.

What needs to be said about the NDP is that when they are in government, as they have been in provinces such as BC, they don't act any different when it comes to the overt rejection of Indigenous Rights. Arthur Manual grew up on a reserve in the BC interior, and wrote about the BC provincial government throughout the books. It is an NDP government in BC that has been sending in the RCMP to forcibly and violently remove land defenders (IE: representatives of the rightful collective owners of the land - injunctions should be against the province and "developers"). As with the federal government, the NDP provincial government is trying to terminate Indigenous rights as a condition for land title negotiations.

Green Party

As a past supporter I have been sad to see the party failing. While the media has seized on the idea that the problems with the new leader relate to gender or race, it is the fact that the party has drifted even further from the Global Greens movement that is causing it problems.  I will be surprised if they have any seats left in parliament after this election.

The party could have learned from having a sitting MP with close ties to east coast indigenous peoples, but failures of the new leader forced Jenica Atwin (Fredericton) to cross the floor. Failures with the NDP (top-down party structure, currently disallowing floor crossing) meant that Jenica Atwin crossed to the Liberals which was not likely the most obvious choice.

Given we can't solve problems within the same mindset/worldviews that created them, I have come to believe that decolonization is a prerequisite to solving current environmental issues on this continent -- including our contribution to climate change. The Green Party has been extremely White over the years, and the party and movement in Canada has not done the work it needs to form good relations with Indigenous Peoples. Sometimes the ideas from conservationist types within the Green movement directly conflicts with the rights and longer-term experiences and sciences of Indigenous Peoples, and this was discussed by Arthur Manuel.

I believe the green movement in Canada must adopt decolonization as a core principle, and not be pushing European environmental notions, given it is European anthropocentrism which is the core of the problem.

When it comes to sustainable economies and democratic governance, the Indigenous peoples of this continent are centuries beyond where European thought is.

We should be following and supporting Indigenous peoples, not falsely suggesting we as peoples have the necessary experience to take the lead.

How I analyse and why I support Bill C-15, the UNDRIP related bill.

Since I discovered the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) I have been reading people's views about it. I later came to my own conclusions on UNDRIP, which is that while the declaration could have been better, it remains a critical recognition that the UN's 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was never "universal", and was authored (first draft by Canadian John Peter Humphrey) from a western worldview perspective.

I consider UNDRIP to be a modernization of our understanding of human rights, and not something that creates special rights for anyone.  In fact, I believe the UDHR granted special rights to a specific subset of peoples, a problem which UNDRIP starts to correct.

I pretty much reject all opposition to UNDRIP from western worldviews, as being opposition to human rights.  Western worldviews have received excessive privilege globally for hundreds of years, and I believe we as a species must modernize away from this injustice. For no other human right do people even entertain the concept of whether the protection of that human right constitutes a "veto" against an economic interest, and I do not consider that a valid conversation to have in this case.

I understand the frustration that indigenous peoples feel in how the version of UNDRIP that passed the UN General Assembly in 2007 was watered down from earlier drafts that were strongly opposed by specific countries. The countries that opposed this recognition of human rights are Canada, USA, Australia, and New Zealand. These are all creations of the British Empire, imposing British derived legal and governance systems outside of Britain, and where foreign descended settler populations currently outnumber indigenous.

I don't consider this a closed area of policy, but I believe it is harmful to wait until we have a perfect resolution before we support any resolution.  The world doesn't change overnight, and the human rights violations induced by colonialism have been ongoing for hundreds of years.

I also learned about a bill that Romeo Saganash and others have been working on for decades that relates to work to bring Canada in conformity with UNDRIP. I also became aware of opposition to this bill from the Truth Before Reconciliation Campaign (See First Nations Strategic Bulletin June - Dec 2020), in cooperation with Idle No More.

While this is not an area of policy I had prior experience with, I wanted to describe my process and thinking for anyone else who is trying to understand any controversies surrounding this area of policy.

The overall sections.

• My background
• My experience with federal government policy
• The design of the bill
• The text of this specific iteration of the bill
• What is in the bill vs what people claim is in the bill
• What is in the bill vs what people wish were in the bill
  

 

My background

My training and profession is as a systems administrator and software author. I harness the skills and experience I have from this technical work into policy work. 

In a way, computer software is a set of instructions for what computers should do and policy (laws, procedures, etc) are instructions for what people should do.  This concept of comparing computer code and legal code is expanded upon by law professor Lawrence Lessig in his book "Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace" (which received a "Version 2.0").

While I have been politically active since the early 1990's on peace, environment and technology related policy, it wasn't until 2001 that I started to become more familiar with the workings of the federal government.

In the summer of 2001 I was alerted to the fact that Canada was planning on bringing the anti-circumvention aspects of the USA's Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to Canada.  This is a policy I was aware of since the mid 1990's that was part of the USA's National Information Infrastructure (NII) policy from 1995/96.  The theory was this: New communications technology could be abused to violate copyright, and thus private citizens shouldn't be allowed to control this technology. This communications technology would be locked down with digital locks, and the manufacturers (rather than the owners or users) would retain all the keys to those locks.

Those with a technology and human rights background immediately opposed this policy, given we understood the impacts of having the technology we often use to express our human rights (democratic, property, privacy, etc) under the control of private corporations would allow those corporations to regulate those human rights.

While people didn't believe us at the time, we can look to recent events where the executives of companies such as Amazon, Apple,  Facebook, Google, and Twitter were the ones deciding if a controversial world leader and controversial social media platform (Parler) should be allowed to communicate. All the harms we are starting to feel from so-called "Big Tech" are rooted in this problematic policy, and unless this policy is reversed the problems will only get worse.

 

My experience with federal government policy

 

From 2001 until Bill C-11 was passed in 2012 I was active in this area of policy. This included a bit of a speaking tour, writing multiple submissions, giving presentations to government bureaucrats, talking to many politicians face-to-face, attending all the committee hearings (and live tweeting them as well as blogging each meeting (C-32 and C-11), as well as being a witness.  Many of the submissions and my intervention as a witness are available via a search of the House of Commons website.

Rina Sen, Russell McOrmond, and Justin Trudeau (July 18, 2010, when Mr. Trudeau was still a backbench MP)

Some key things I learned:

• External pressure works on the Canadian Parliament
  
  The primary motivation for tabling any bill was to implement two treaties (WCT, WPPT) Canada signed at the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). At the time I was unaware of the hypocrisy of Canada being concerned about treaties, given its disregard of treaties with First Nations.
  
  
• The larger the bill, the worse the policy.
  
  A bill to implement the two treaties would have allowed for adequate scrutiny and debate about the implementation of the treaties. What happened instead was a 68 page bill was tabled with a massive amount of controversial policy, the vast majority unrelated to the treaties.  As the submissions to the government and time allowed to witnesses was restricted, everyone had to pick a small number of key areas to either support or oppose.  The vast majority of the bill did not receive any scrutiny.
  
  
• Waiting for perfect might get you worse policy
  
  It was a Liberal government when the first bill was tabled in 2005 (C-60). Those of us on the technology/human rights side of the debate opposed it because it was a bad bill. Then there was an election and the Conservatives came to power.  The Conservatives tabled Bill C-61 in 2008 which was far worse, so bad that they rewrote it when yet another election later in 2008. In 2010 Bill C-32 was tabled, and then re-tabled as C-11 in 2011 after another general election.
  
  As it related to the implementation of the WIPO treaties and technological measures, Bill C-11 was far worse than C-60.  Bill C-60 was worse on actual "Copyright" policy, but that is a separate issue related to the fact that the bill was an omnibus bill, which generally produces worse policy.
  
  
• The politicians studying the bill are not subject matter experts
  
  Who is assigned to each committee is sometimes up to individual MPs, but often the parties have specific interests they want promoted and will put in the person best able to push that perspective. It is hard to convince these people of alternative ways of understanding the policy, or even in the case of technology having them understand the difference between science and science fiction (How most MPs understood "technological protection measures" was more like Harry Potter magic fiction than science).
  
  In the case of this bill the same was true of the bureaucracy.  While the bureaucrats assigned to author and explain the bill were Copyright experts, they also lacked sufficient technical knowledge to differentiate between science and science fiction.
  
  
• The individual politicians in the committee studying bill matter
  
  When discussing Copyright, as an example, the differences between MPs on the Heritage committee and the members on Industry committee were greater than the differences between a Conservative MP and an NDP MP.
  
  This may become an important factor for this bill, given the bill could be sent to the "Justice and Human Rights" committee or the "Indigenous and Northern Affairs" committee.

The design of the bill

The exact wording of the bill has changed several times since it was first tabled.  The House of Commons website lists all the times it was tabled so far.

• Tia Keeper (Churchill, Liberal) in June 2008 (less than a year after UNDRIP passed the UN General Assembly)
  
• Denise Savoie (Victoria, NDP) in February 2009, March 2010, March 2010 (reinstated from previous session)
  
• Romeo Saganash (Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, NDP) in January 2013, October 2013 (reinstated from previous session), December 2014 (defeated at second reading), April 2016 (passed house, filibustered in the Senate)
  
• Minister of Justice (Liberal government) in December 2020
  

The overall design has remained consistent over this 12 year period, and those following the process will have provided their feedback:

• Preamble discussing the overall purpose of moving Canadian law toward complying with UNDRIP
• Government must take measures to amend existing laws to be consistent with UNDRIP
• Newer versions more clearly state "in consultation and cooperation with indigenous peoples"
• That there would be an annual report to parliament on progress.
• Include the full text of the UNDRIP passed resolution as a schedule.
  

This basic design meets what I would consider design criteria for a successful bill.

• It is a smaller bill that tries to do one thing.
  
  It is not an omnibus bill which can't receive adequate scrutiny, which would likely be much more harmful than if a larger number of small bills were passed over time.
  
  
• It can be passed by the Parliament of Canada
  
  This is a necessary condition for any bill.  You can write anything you want in a bill, but if it has no chance of passing through parliament then it doesn't really have a point.  This includes bills which are inconsistent with the Constitution which, even if they mysteriously passed, would not stand up in court.  These types of bills are a protest, or part of an election campaign strategy, and not useful law making.
  
  It is already proven that this design can pass, as it already passed in the House of Commons in it's C-262 incarnation in May 2019. That incarnation would already be law if it were not for a filibuster (procedural trickery) carried out by dishonest Conservative Senators.
  
  
• It does not presume to know anything about the outcome of the necessary series of collaborations and amendments to law.
  
  It requires measures to be made "in consultation and cooperation with indigenous peoples", but says nothing about what types of changes might be contemplated through that cooperation.
  
  I don't consider it valid for any government or parliament to believe they currently understand all the ways in which Canadian law violates the current standard for human rights. Canada automatically incorporated laws passed by the British Parliament until 1982, and those laws obviously didn't take indigenous peoples into consideration.
  
  Active indigenous cooperation is mandatory for any type of success.
  
  
• It does not try to implement UNDRIP.
  
  My analysis has led me to the conclusion that actual implementation of UNDRIP will require a constitutional amendment. This is a separate process (a bill can't amend the constitution, and must obey the constitution), and will likely take decades. I believe this bill is an important activity that can happen early (this year if we are lucky, but maybe next year), knowing that other work will still be needed before Canada can actually implement UNDRIP.
  
  Canada's systems as a European-derived government imposed outside of Europe is an example of White Supremacy, so there is no single immediate change that can be made to bring Canada into compliance with international human rights. All of these changes must be in cooperation with First Nations, as well as international oversight given how untrustworthy Canada has been since it was created by Acts of the British parliament.
  
  In my Fact Checking of the 2019 Liberal platform commitment on UNDRIP I included the "The Six-Step Program to Decolonization" that Arthur Manuel (1951 – January 11, 2017) included in his book The Reconciliation Manifesto: Recovering the Land, Rebuilding the Economy. I consider it obvious that this is a long process that will require many activities within each step to do it correctly, and obviously should not be attempted to be done in a single action.
  

The text of this specific iteration of the bill

Amendments to bills can be made up to the point where they pass the senate and then receive Royal Assent to become law. Amendments have been made prior to many of the new tabling of the bill, and amendments can be proposed and passed by vote in a committee of the House of Commons or (less common) Senate.

While Bill C-262 was reported by the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs without amendment, this may not happen this time. This isn't the identical bill as C-262, and there may be cause to discuss and change some of the amendments that the Liberal Government made between C-262 that passed and Bill C-15.

While I may have opinions about the specific language, I will remain supportive of the bill as long as the overall design stays intact.  If, for instance, the bill is modified to impose policy that is not "in consultation and cooperation with indigenous peoples", or tries to limit what areas of law may be modified (presumes outcome of collaboration), then I may change from support to oppose.  

This is not yet known at this time, but I'll be honest to suggest I believe this to be unlikely.  In this minority situation the Governing Liberals and the NDP are the same parties that need to agree to amendments as well as to agree to pass the bill.  Neither party would benefit from being blamed for delaying the passage of this bill.
 

What is in the bill vs what people claim is in the bill

This is a huge source of pain, and the largest source of anger and confusion.

I already wrote a Fact Check of the 2019 Liberal platform commitment on UNDRIP, and the summary is that their platform commitment was nonsense. They promised to re-table Bill C-262 because "Andrew Scheer blocked legislation", but they claimed multiple times in their platform that C-262 was legislation to implement the declaration.  That is misleading at best.

Pretty much every time Justin Trudeau himself or a spokesperson from the Liberal government talks about C-15, it feels like they are campaigning against the bill by misinterpreting or misinforming about what is in the bill.

While this doesn't suggest we should oppose the bill, it does suggest we need to scrutinize what Liberal caucus members are saying about the bill as if they were an opposition party.  We need to consider that the Government of Canada, including the Trudeau Government, doesn't actually want to protect human rights -- they only want to be seen to be doing so by the international community and potential voters.

This becomes clear when you look at other government activities. The bulletin from the Truth Before Reconciliation Campaign  (also on the Idle No More website) gives a small sampling of the many violations of the human rights articulated by UNDRIP by the current and all past governments (provincial and federal).

Canada is "Very Clearly" guilty of genocide against Indigenous Peoples, and if anyone claims that passing this bill alone will solve this problem then they either don't know what Canada is or are lying to you.  This bill is at the beginning of a long process towards changing Canadian law to no longer violate human rights, and can in no way be considered the end of any process.

Violence against Indigenous people "very clearly" is genocide, says Dr. Kim TallBear, an associate professor of Native studies. Here's why. pic.twitter.com/bU6peo3jfn

— AJ+ (@ajplus) July 23, 2019

If you believe the Trudeau government that this bill alone implements something, and yet doesn't (and can't) modify the constitution, then obviously it is not UNDRIP that is being implemented.  The Truth Before Reconciliation Campaign suggests that it is implementing CANDRIP, a version of UNDRIP that sits under the Canadian constitution.  I disagree, as I don't believe Trudeau, and there is no evidence that this bill implements anything.  It sets up a process to incrementally change Canadian law to eventually become consistent with international human rights. Fully implementing UNDRIP is a later process that is separate from this or any other bill.

 

Where I differ from the Truth Before Reconciliation Campaign and Idle No More is that I don't consider this misrepresentation of the bill to be a reason to oppose the bill, only reason to treat the government as opposition. This includes considering the Trudeau Liberal Government as opposition to the bill, delaying so it can't pass before the next election, even though it was tabled as a government bill. I don't consider separate actions taken by the Governments of Canada (federal and provincial) which continue to violate human rights to be reasons to oppose the bill, only to cause separate anger about those human rights violations.

 

I recognize that this is potentially not going to be an indigenous way of thinking. If you are thinking about the relationship between various First Nations and the Government of Canada, it is obvious that it continues to be very poor.  People are still dying or otherwise being harmed from ongoing genocide. Many people believe reconciliation is dead.

In this case I am not thinking about the overall relationships between nations, but the specifics of this bill and who has been working on it.  The Government of Canada is a large system which seems to move in multiple different directions at the same time, and can't be thought of as an individual relationship.


Another spokes-group that is controversial is the Assembly of First Nations (AFN).  This is an assembly of Indian Act band council leadership. Band councils are a creation of Canada, and they are accountable to Canada. While the bureaucrats are "elected", this cannot legitimately be considered responsible government: these band councils are not responsible to the people, but responsible to the Canadian Crown.

Given the current formation of the AFN, it cannot be seen as representing indigenous peoples.  I reference a press conference after the tabling of the bill, and it should be noted that the government primarily used AFN and other similar representatives in their presentation.  While this is helpful to settlers in making them feel there is indigenous support, this isn't helpful with indigenous people who often do not trust the AFN and similar organizations.  In fact, there is a common opinion that it was AFN that is behind the bill, thus the poor relationship with AFN is causing people to not trust the bill.

There is also a related dynamic that many Canadians may not be aware of. As part of the silliness of the Canadian "democracy", elected Members of Parliament must swear or solemnly affirm allegiance to the Queen as Sovereign of Canada. Many people, including some settlers but mostly indigenous, will have a hard time trusting anyone who swears allegiance to a foreign monarchy. Even as a settler Canadian I have problems with this as anyone who takes it seriously feels like they are either a traitor or a liar.

There are many people who look at the bill and oppose it based on "guilt by association".  The association with the Government of Canada, Liberal Party, Justin Trudeau, AFN or even indigenous MPs may cause opposition based on that relationship and not based on anything in the actual text of the bill.

The Conservatives will oppose any bill that prioritizes human rights over resource extraction, and the Bloc may oppose any bill that recognizes the existence of systemic racism.  A whole set of odd interpretations will come from people representing these special interests which make no sense, aren't in the bill, or are sometimes even offensive.  While there may be individual Conservatives that support protection of human rights, the party isn't likely to put these individuals on the committee (or allow them to speak their conscience) as the current narrow policy focus of the Conservative Party seems to be on unimpeded and greatly subsidized resource extraction.

What is in the bill vs what people wish were in the bill

 

People wish Canada could just honor the treaties, respect human rights, and stop the genocide!

That feels like it should be simple!


I wish that as well, and now that I have learned the truth about Canada and its ongoing genocide, I am disgusted that Canada isn't what I was always told it was. I believed the propaganda that suggested that even if some mistakes were done in the past, that Canada is long past that -- this is false and human rights violations continue today.

Unfortunately, I know how oblivious most Canadians are -- partly because I was one of them until recently.  While I know there are Canadians who know the truth and receive personal benefit (often financial) from these known violations of human rights, I don't think this is the majority of Canadians. I believe that if we can break people free from government propaganda they will want Canada to eventually become the country they always believed it was.

 

If not for for their own moral reasons, Canadians will be concerned that Canada's reputation globally is going to decline as more people realize the truth. This could easily impact Canada's economy, where so many seem narrowly focused, because law and human rights abiding countries don't like to do business with scofflaws and human rights abusers. Those who want to push this policy forward should be helping to alert the international community to what Canada is doing.

I also have experience with the systems of Canada, and know how hard it is to get good policy passed through this system.  Even if indigenous peoples and their many nations came together and drafted a consensus bill, and it was constitutional, I doubt such a bill would pass through parliament. Many First Nations people feel it is inappropriate for them to participate in Canadian politics (Two Row Wampum, etc), and with few indigenous politicians in Canadian governments what we are left with is largely oblivious settler politicians who won't be able to recognize the need to amend Canadian law such that it doesn't continue to violate human rights.

This all leads me to support a bill that will push the process forward, including to help Canadians to recognize that Canadian law and even the constitution needs to change for it to become the law abiding and human rights protecting country they think it is.

Actually implementing UNDRIP is a long process, but it will be longer if we aren't able to start.  Any opposition to this bill because it doesn't do more that is outside of the design of this bill is effectively a delay.  If we can't pass this level of bill, then I seriously doubt we can ever pass anything stronger.  Only by passing this bill, and then the next, and then the next, will we ever see progress.