06) ASSIMILATION: A RACIST TORY POLICY - Editorial

People's Voice Editorial

     The federal funding cuts to Aboriginal organizations show that the Harper Tories are moving quickly to silence and assimilate Indigenous peoples. For example, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs faces an 80% cut to its core funding, from $2.6 million to $500,000 a year. Over half of the AMC's staff may be cut, affecting lobbying efforts on behalf of missing and murdered women and for clean drinking water. AMC Grand Chief Derek Nepinak rightly calls this "a direct attack on the political voice of First Nations communities."

     The Harper government also intends to turn reserve lands into "fee simple" individual holdings. The First Nation Property Ownership Act (FNPOA) would turn the collective ownership of reserve lands into small pieces of land owned by individuals, who could then sell it to non‑First Nations peoples, land‑holding companies and corporations.

     This idea goes back to the Dawes Act in the United States, where reserve lands given to individuals became subject to state laws. The purpose was to assimilate Indigenous peoples by breaking up their governments. In the Canadian context, the FNPOA will open up "Indian lands" for oil, gas and mineral extraction by transnational capital.

     This racist concept is being pushed by people like far-right Tory academic Tom Flanagan, and Manny Jules, a former chief of the Kamloops Indian Band who is now the federally-appointed head of the so-called "First Nation Tax Commission" (at a salary of $200,000 per year, untouched by the funding cuts).

     As First Nations activist Pam Palmater says, "Canada needs to stop trying to assimilate us, and focus on fulfilling its legal and treaty obligations instead of trying to find ways around them." The labour movement and all progressive forces must give full support to this struggle against the racist Tory policy of assimilation.

(The above article is from the September 16-30, 2012, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)