Authors: Glen Sean Coulthard
Tags: #SOC021000 Social Science / Ethnic Studies / Native American Studies
The principle of direct democracy was to apply to the economic sphere as well. For instance, the proposal states that a noncolonial economy would not only promote Dene self-sufficiency, but do so in a manner consistent with our cultural values and “way of life.” To this end, the claim outlines an economic vision that would develop a mode of production based on a combination of “continued renewable resource activities, such as hunting, fishing and trapping,” as well as “community-scale activities” designed “to meet our needs in a more self-reliant fashion.”
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In the following years a number of these “community-scale activities” were discussed and proposed, including a combination of locally operated manufacturing ventures, Native-run cooperatives, and worker-controlled enterprises.
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At a 1974 Regional Co-Coordinators Workshop, the IB-NWT noted two perspectives on development that it found compelling. The first was the example of “communal enterprise” and “development” exemplified in the postindependence struggle of Tanzania.
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At one point, the IB-NWT was even in a conversation with the Kahnawake Office of the Indians of Quebec Association about sending a delegation of Dene fieldworkers to learn from the Tanzanian experience.
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The second was drawn from the following observation made by Shuswap activist George Manuel and researcher Michael Posluns in
their book
The Fourth World
: “Real community development can never take place without economic development, but economic development without full local control is only another form of imperial conquest.”
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In the “Agreement in Principle,” these economic models were pitched as culturally relevant alternatives to the “externally initiated economy” imposed on the Dene by the state. “True Dene development,” the IB-NWT argued, “[must] entail political control, an adequate resource base, [and would not] permit a few to gain at the expense of the whole community.” And finally, in keeping with our commitment to strengthening social relations premised on reciprocity, leadership proposed to structure our relationship with the non-Indigenous population according to the principle of
mutual self-determination
.
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Subsequently, the IB-NWT agreed to uphold the political and existing property rights of all non-Native northerners. However, with regard to private property, the Dene Nation would only respect fee-simple title to lands acquired before October 15, 1975; after this date, land would be held in common in accordance with the values and principles set forth in the proposal.
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The Dene Declaration together with the proposed “Agreement in Principle” evoked a range of responses. On the one hand, our communities were greeted with an enormous display of support by progressive political organizations from across the country, including the Canadian Labor Congress, the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union, Oxfam Canada, the United Steelworkers of America, and the New Democratic Party’s “Waffle” movement, which was, at the time, known by many critics for its “strident socialism.”
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At the same time, however, there were many that were openly hostile to the transformative message underlying our claim. The then minister of Indian Affairs, Judd Buchanan, for example, dismissed the Dene Declaration as “gobbledegook that a grade ten student could have written in fifteen minutes.”
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Even respected Cree leader Harold Cardinal blasted the declaration as an “intrusion of left-wing thinking that is perhaps much closer to the academic community in Toronto than it is to the Dene.”
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Much of the criticism leveled at the IB-NWT during this period expressed a similar sentiment, namely, that Dene leadership had been manipulated by white southern radicals and were therefore not acting in the interests of their own constituencies. As one
Edmonton Report
columnist wrote, “A bewildered Canada [is] gradually waking up to the fact that a radical socialist philosophy [has] taken hold of the native
peoples in the Mackenzie Valley. How is it that these territorial natives whose politics up until now were generally considered non-existent should suddenly emerge with such advanced left-wing inclinations?”
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The public expressed a similar point of view. As one gentleman stated to the Berger Inquiry: “Most of [the] hollering . . . done by the Indian Brotherhood . . . [has been directed] by whites, not the majority of Indians. . . . [The Dene] figured they made a real good deal [with Treaty 11] and until the Indian Brotherhood with white backing started stirring things up, there wasn’t any problem.”
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The Government of the Northwest Territories added to the hysteria by suggesting that the Indian Brotherhood “should be renamed the Radical Left.”
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At one point, there were even rumors circulating across the North that some of our community members were being trained in tactics of “guerrilla warfare,”
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and that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) had employed “undercover operatives to infiltrate the Brotherhood.”
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These racist, McCarthy-like accusations held a great deal of currency for many non-Natives during the 1970s and into the early 1980s.
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Aside from allegations of left-extremism, most government officials rejected the Dene position based on the view that it violated the liberal value of equality underwriting universal representation within Canadian political institutions. Initially the most vocal proponent of this argument was the GNWT Legislative Assembly, which expressed its concerns in a position paper titled “Priorities of the North,” submitted to the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development in May of 1977.
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The paper explicitly denounced the Dene claim, arguing that it would amount to the establishment of an exclusionary, indeed “race-based,” jurisdiction in northern Canada. In the words of the legislative assembly: “This is why the ‘native state’ concept is, and always will be, totally unacceptable to the people of the Northwest Territories”; because it “lacks the necessary element of universality of participation in political institutions by any Canadian who chooses to live in the [Northwest] Territories.”
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In response to the GNWT’s repeated charge of racism, the IB-NWT submitted a second proposal to the federal government in July of 1977.
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Like its predecessor, the Metro Proposal stressed the importance of recognition and self-determination for the Dene Nation. However, appreciating that many people had “misinterpreted” our “Agreement in Principle” as discriminatory, the IB-NWT sought to “make it clear” in the new claim that it was seeking self-determination not only for the Dene, but for
all
citizens of the North, and
an “end to racial oppression” as such, whether it be the “oppression of Dene by non-Dene, or oppression of non-natives by Dene.”
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To accommodate this vision, the Metro Proposal recommended that the North adopt a decentralized federative structure based on the following principles: that the NWT be divided into three geographical territories, “one where the Dene are a majority, one where the Inuit are a majority, and finally one where the non-native people are the majority”; that each of these three territories uphold the political rights of all of its citizens through the establishment of government institutions based on each group’s respective traditions and in accordance with the desires and aspirations of their respective constituencies; that each territorial government divide powers and relate with the federal government in a manner similar to the current federal or provincial relationship; and that a “Metro” or “United Nations” governance structure be “organized by the three new governments to deal with matters, issues, and programs of common concern.” Under this model, each newly established government would be responsible for sending “representatives” to negotiate “as equals” with those from the other governments “until an agreement was reached on any joint activity.”
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And finally, in accordance with Dene custom, economic relations within our proposed territory would not be dictated by the reign of capital; rather, all economic principles and values set forth in the previous Agreement in Principle would to apply to the new proposal as well.
It was at this point that the state began to counter our position with a depoliticized conception of Aboriginal “cultural” rights divorced from any substantive notion of Indigenous sovereignty or alternative political economies. In “Priorities of the North,” for example, the GNWT argued that land claims ought to be used as a mechanism to secure the recognition and protection of Aboriginal “cultural” interests, but only if the state agreed to “separate” the negotiation of political rights to self-determination from the process. To this end, the Assembly proposed that a Native “Bill of Rights” be written into the constitution of the NWT. This would serve two purposes: first, it would “crystallize” the rights of Native people with respect to their traditional “use and enjoyment” of the land; and second, it would function to “preserve native languages and cultures in some form of immutable legislation.”
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The federal government advanced a similar position its 1977 opinion paper, “Political Development in the Northwest Territories.”
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The “Political Development” paper was to serve as “detailed terms of reference” to guide the newly
appointed Special Representative for Constitutional Development in the Northwest Territories, Charles (Bud) Drury.
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Like the legislative assembly, the federal government stated that it would be willing to use land claims as a vehicle to “safeguard” Aboriginal “culture” and enable Aboriginal people and communities to pursue their “traditional” practices “to the extent that they may wish to do so.”
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Subsequently, Canada would agree to work closely with Native groups to develop programs within a number of areas, including education, housing, and economic development, as well as “the protection and promotion” of“other cultural interests,” including “Indian and Inuit languages” and “rights to traditional activities such as hunting, fishing and trapping.”
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In securing these rights, however, the federal government insisted that it would not endorse a call for the establishment of political jurisdictions allocated “on grounds that differentiate between people on the basis of race.”
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Instead, Ottawa directed Drury to consider the “possible division of the Northwest Territories” on the basis of “functional” issues, “including economic, socio-cultural, and other relevant factors,” but excluding “political divisions and structures” configured along Indigenous/non-Indigenous lines.
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Thus, if the Dene wanted to participate in the constitutional development of the northern political apparatus, they would have to do so at a local and subordinate level within the common and presumably legitimate institutions of the NWT.
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In short, for both the GNWT and the Government of Canada, cultural rights, not political rights, constituted the core issue to be resolved in the settlement of a Dene land claim.
In terms of political economy, both levels of government sought to tease apart the recognition of Indigenous cultural practices from any socioeconomic scheme that might potentially disrupt the further accumulation of capital through the development of the North’s resource base. The GNWT, for example, simply asserted that the “long term economic development of the Northwest Territories will almost certainly depend on the further exploration and utilization of its natural resource[s].”
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Recognizing the cultural claims of First Nations would be permitted, but only insofar as these claims could be reconciled with this “predominantly private enterprise mode of organization.”
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In a similar vein, the federal government suggested that while land claims would provide “native groups” with financial compensation for any infringement of their property rights, Canada’s “national interest” dictated that the Crown “maintain its ownership and control of the potentially significant
non-renewable resources in the Northwest Territories.” And regarding the intensity of northern capitalist development, the Crown, like the Legislative Assembly, declared that business would continue unabated: “In view of the energy and other resource requirements that are now recognized as becoming increasingly urgent, the Government wishes to maintain some momentum in the exploration and development of northern non-renewable resource[s].” Land claims, according to the Crown, would better enable the Dene to “play a part” in this process, but in no way would they provide the economic and political infrastructure necessary to block or effectively cultivate a nonexploitative alternative to it.
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Instead of participating in Drury’s investigation, the Dene Nation agreed to collaborate with the Metis Association of the NWT to construct a joint settlement claim that they provided the federal government in 1981. The proposal, titled
Public Government for the People of the North
, called for a transfer of power to a “province-like” jurisdiction named “Denendeh.”
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Although the Dene/Métis refrained from invoking the explicit language of self-determination common to the previous two claims, the spirit of the document remains much the same. It demands, for instance, that sovereignty be distributed between Denendeh and the federal government in a manner similar to the current distribution of provincial and federal powers, although in some areas, such as fisheries, family relations, communications, and labor relations, Denendeh would require powers currently claimed by the federal government. The rationale here is that these areas are crucial for the protection and further development of the Dene “way of life.”
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It also calls for a significant return of the Dene peoples’ traditional territory, which the Dene would retain the right to use, own, and manage collectively. Most remaining lands, with the exception of existing private property, would be allocated to the Government of Denendeh and remain under its jurisdictional authority.
Structurally speaking, Denendeh would be “province-like” and consist of two levels of government: a public territorial level, called the National Assembly of Denendeh, and regional governments at the community level.
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Denendeh would be unlike provinces in other ways, however. For instance, the Dene again recommended that a direct democracy or “consensus” approach to political decision-making be instituted at both the local and territorial levels.
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This was pitched as a culturally appropriate alternative to the “elitist” and adversarial form of government imposed on northerners from the South. Also, to
protect the political rights and freedoms of Dene citizens in perpetuity, the Dene/Métis proposed that a “senate” be established as a second chamber of the public National Assembly with guaranteed Dene representation.
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In order to protect the interests of everyone, however, the Dene/Métis proposed that a ten-year residency period be implemented, after which full political rights of all Denendeh citizens would be respected. But regardless of any residency requirement, the Government of Denendeh would be responsible for respecting the fundamental human rights and freedoms of all its citizens, particularly the rights outlined in sections 18, 19, 21, and 22 of the United Nations’ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, of which Canada is a signatory.
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