The government distributed the informational booklet Choosing a Path to reserve communities, organized community meetings, and in May 1969 brought regional Aboriginal representatives to Ottawa for a nationwide meeting. The federal government began a national program of consultation with First Nations communities across Canada. (Hawthorn’s two-volume report can be read online here.)īased on Hawthorn’s recommendations, Chrétien decided to amend the Indian Act. He also advocated ending all forced assimilation programs, especially the residential schools. Hawthorn recommended that Aboriginal peoples be considered “citizens plus” and be provided with the opportunities and resources to choose their own lifestyles, whether within reserve communities or elsewhere. They were “citizens minus.” Hawthorn attributed this situation to years of failed government policy, particularly the residential school system, which left students unprepared for participation in the contemporary economy. In his report, A Survey of the Contemporary Indians of Canada: Economic, Political, Educational Needs and Policies, Hawthorn concluded that Aboriginal peoples were Canada’s most disadvantaged and marginalized population. Hawthorn to investigate the social conditions of Aboriginal peoples across Canada. In 1963, the federal government commissioned University of British Columbia anthropologist Harry B. The movement also led many Canadians to question inequality and discrimination in their own society, particularly the treatment of First Nations. The civil rights movement sweeping the United States brought public attention to the intense racism and discrimination experienced by African Americans and other minorities. Appoint a commissioner to address outstanding land claims and gradually terminate existing treatiesīy the 1960s, the federal government could not deny that Aboriginal peoples were facing serious socio-economic barriers, such as greater poverty and higher infant mortality rates than non-Indigenous Canadians and lower life expectancy and levels of education.Provide funding for economic development.Transfer responsibility for Indian affairs from the federal government to the province and integrate these services into those provided to other Canadian citizens.Convert reserve land to private property that can be sold by the band or its members.Dissolve the Department of Indian Affairs within five years.The white paper stated that removing the unique legal status established by the Indian Act would “enable the Indian people to be free-free to develop Indian cultures in an environment of legal, social and economic equality with other Canadians.” In this view, the Indian Act was discriminatory because it applied only to Aboriginal peoples and not to Canadians in general. In keeping with Trudeau’s vision of a “just society,” the government proposed to repeal legislation that it considered discriminatory. The federal government’s intention, as described in the white paper, was to achieve equality among all Canadians by eliminating Indian as a distinct legal status and by regarding Aboriginal peoples simply as citizens with the same rights, opportunities and responsibilities as other Canadians. The 1969 white paper proposing the abolition of the Indian Act was formally called the Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy. For many First Nations people, the term ironically implies a reference to racial politics and the white majority. In the Canadian legislature, a policy paper is called a white paper. This white paper was met with forceful opposition from Aboriginal leaders across the country and sparked a new era of Indigenous political organizing in Canada. In 1969, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and his Minister of Indian Affairs, Jean Chrétien, unveiled a policy paper that proposed ending the special legal relationship between Aboriginal peoples and the Canadian state and dismantling the Indian Act.
Chrétien, leads directly to cultural genocide. In spite of all government attempts to convince Indians to accept the white paper, their efforts will fail, because Indians understand that the path outlined by the Department of Indian Affairs through its mouthpiece, the Honourable Mr.
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