"The Indians have done nothing in over 100 years and now they wanna tell us how to run Alberta."
That's what a banner near Spruce Grove, AB said this week.
This already feels like old news but I needed time to collect my thoughts and gather some data.
1863β2000: Federal Indian day schools operated across Canada, many run by the same churches as residential schools.
1883β1997: Residential schools were funded by Canada for 114 years. Attendance became compulsory by law in 1920, for kids as young as 7.
1885β1935: The pass system required First Nations people to get written permission from an Indian agent just to leave their own reserve. For 50 years.
Alongside it, the permit system required a permit to sell your own livestock, grain and produce, enforced by the same agents.
1927β1951: It was illegal to hire a lawyer or raise money to pursue a land claim against the government. Two full decades where seeking justice was a crime.
1920's -1980s: Segregated "Indian hospitals" operated across the country, admitting patients by race, not need.
1951-1980s: The Sixties Scoop. Thousands of Indigenous children apprehended from their families and placed in non-Indigenous homes, often losing all connection to their language, culture, and identity.
Ceremonies including the Potlatch and Sun Dance were criminalized under the Indian Act. Children were punished for speaking their own languages β for generations.
Status First Nations people couldn't vote in a federal election without giving up their status until 1960.
This was all in the"last 100 years".
Itβs only been LESS THAN 30 YEARS since the last residential school and Indian federal hospital closed their doors.
Organized nationally and defeated the 1969 White Paper, which tried to eliminate Indian status and treaty rights outright
Built the Assembly of First Nations, Native Women's Association of Canada, MΓ©tis National Council, and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami
Got Aboriginal and treaty rights written into the Constitution in 1982
Negotiated modern treaties and self-government agreements, including the creation of Nunavut in 1999
Pushed through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the National Inquiry into MMIWG
Ran Idle No More and held the line at Wet'suwet'en to protect the land
Got UNDRIP adopted into federal law in 2021
Are still in court right now, defending Treaty rights against Alberta's own separation referendum. The same rights that banner is mad we still have.
We didn't sit still for 100 years. We survived a legal system engineered to erase us, and we are the reason Canada has ever had to answer for any of it.
You don't get to spend a century trying to legislate a people out of existence and then complain when they show up to the table anyway.
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