Canada and the World
Current Events with a Canadian Perspective
Last update
19 November 2010
Aboriginal Timeline 9
1981 to 1996
1981 (November 19)
Native people across Canada stage demonstrations, including a march by 3,000 on Parliament Hill, to protest the exclusion of Aboriginal rights from the constitution. In January, these rights had been affirmed in a draft constitution.
The United Nations Human Rights Committee finds the Canadian government in breach
of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights because of its continuing
failure to reverse the part of the Indian Act that takes away a Native woman’s status
if she marries a non-
1982 (January 29)
Native people are refused permission to take their case for greater entrenchment of their rights in the new constitution of Canada to the British House of Lords.
(April 17)
Queen Elizabeth II proclaims the Constitution Act. The status of First Nations is left vague.
Founding of the Assembly of First Nations.
1983
Metis architect Douglas Cardinal is awarded a $93 million commission to design the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa (right).
1984
The Cree-
The Western Arctic Claims Agreement (Invialuit Final Agreement) is reached, extinguishing Invialuit title to the western Arctic in return for ownership of 96,000 km2 along with payments of $45 million in benefits.
1985
The Indian Act is amended giving Aboriginal women the right to retain their Native
status, and to pass that status on to the their children, if they marry non-
1987
The Sparrow decision finds that Aboriginal fishing, land, and hunting rights have priority over later legislation.
1988
Daniel Tlen of the Yukon sings the national anthem in Southern Tutchone at the opening of the Calgary Olympics.
When the RCMP raided Kahnawake’s cigarette stores, the Warriors rally the Iroquois to block the Mercier Bridge, the first instance of armed Native resistance in recent Canadian history.
Ethel Blondin-
1990
The House of Commons standing committee on Aboriginal Affairs recommends offering an apology and compensation to Inuit people who suffered hardship by being removed from their homes in northern Quebec and relocated in the high Arctic. Tom Siddon, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, responds by saying “The decision made by the federal government, in the early 1950s, appears to have been solely related to improving the harsh social and economic conditions facing the Inuit at Inukjuak at that time.” He adds that neither an apology nor compensation are appropriate.
(June)
Elijah Harper, NDP member of the Manitoba Legislature, prevents the Meech Lake Accord from being ratified by voting no. Eagle feather in hand, Mr. Harper cited the lack of adequate participation by Aboriginal people in Canada’s political process as his reason for blocking the accord.
(July 11)
Start of the Oka Crisis, the 78-
1991
Canadian Oblates apologize for “the hurts caused to some of the Aboriginal peoples by the residential schools.”
Nellie Cournoyea is chosen government leader of the Northwest Territories; becoming the first Aboriginal person to lead a government in Canada.
1992 (May 4)
A plebiscite in the NWT establishes the boundaries of Nunavut and Denedeh, dividing the Arctic between the Inuit and the Dene.
1995 (September)
Shootouts between police and Native people occur at disputes over sacred land at Gustafsen Lake, B.C. and Camp Ipperwash, Ontario causing the death of Chippewa Anthony (Dudley) George, 38, at the latter site.
1996 (February)
After 20 years of negotiations, the Nisga’a Indians of northwestern B.C. reach a tentative agreement with the federal and provincial governments on land claims. The Nisga’a settled for about 10 percent of the 20,000 km2 they claimed and received less than $200 million in compensation.
March
The federal government creates a $10 million Arctic Exile Relocatee Trust fund to help Inuit moved to the High Arctic in the 1950s. The 87 people taken from their homes in northern Quebec and dumped at Grise Fiord and Resolute Bay suffered extreme hardship.
(November 21)
The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples releases its report and calls for sweeping
changes to heal a broken relationship between Native people and the rest of Canadian
society. The six-
- The Queen and Parliament should issue a royal proclamation apologizing for past mistakes and committing governments to a new relationship.
- Aboriginal groups should continue to exist within Canada as “nations” with a right
to self-
government. - The Indian Act should be replaced by a series of laws compelling Ottawa to keep the reform process moving. One of these laws would be an Aboriginal Nations Recognition and Government Act, that would allow the federal government to recognize what could, over the decades, become as many as 60 to 80 separate Aboriginal nations.
- The Department of Indian and Northern Affairs should be closed down. Its place could be taken by an Aboriginal relations department, and an Indian and Inuit services department.
- Natives should be recognized as having a unique form of dual citizenship -
citizens of both Canada and an Aboriginal nation. - An Aboriginal parliament should be created, to be known as the House of First Peoples. It would act in an advisory capacity to the federal government.
- A wide-
ranging public inquiry should be launched to look into the origins of residential schools and the abuse of Native people that occurred in some of them. - All governments should help develop an Aboriginal-
controlled education system. - An Aboriginal peoples’ international university should be created to promote traditional knowledge.
- Ottawa should set up a permanent, independent body to ensure that federal officials are no longer both judge and jury when it comes to negotiating outstanding Aboriginal land claims.
- Governments should be ready to negotiate with Metis people on self-
government and to provide the nations with adequate land bases. - Federal and provincial governments should enter into long-
term development deals with Native nations to provide funding for economic development that leads to self- sufficiency. A national Aboriginal development bank should be set up to help with this work. - Ottawa and the provinces should pay for a 10-
year program for employment training. - Aboriginal leaders should take a firm public stand supporting the right to freedom from violence for all community members, particularly children, women, elders, and the disabled.
- Governments should change their laws to take into account customary Native family laws with regard to divorce, child custody, and adoption.
- An action plan should be developed aimed at improving the health and social conditions of Native peoples. The plan should include the setting up of Native healing centres and lodges under Aboriginal control as well as full access to mainstream medical services. Governments should make a commitment to training 10,000 Aboriginal professionals in health and social services.
- An Aboriginal arts council should be set up to foster Native arts and literature.
- Ottawa should provide $10 million a year for five years to support an Aboriginal-
languages foundation.
© Canada and the World, August 2010
All rights reserved
Return to Aboriginal Timeline Part 8
DEFIANCE
Chief Robert Smallboy dies in 1984. In 1968, he led his Cree people into the wilderness foothills of western Alberta. His aim was to save them from the alcoholism and violence that were destroying them.
At his survival camp, the people re-
Ethel Blondin-
“After some 500 years
of a relationship that has swung from partnership
to domination, from mutual respect and cooperation to pater-
nalism and attempted assimilation, Canada must now work out fair and
lasting terms of co-
Aboriginal people.”
Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples -
“Promises ought to be kept.
Undertakings ought
to be fulfilled.”
Royal Commission on Aboriginal People -
Out of approximately 976,300 Aboriginal people, only about a quarter (235,000 according to the 2001 Canadian census) were able to hold a conversation in an Aboriginal language.
Stephanie Town
The Arctic Relocatee Trust Fund “has since been crippled by years of poor returns and can no longer pay even its own costs, let alone compensation. A Quebec judge has been asked to allow trustees to divvy up nearly half the remaining cash among the 34 aging survivors.”
Paul Watson, Toronto Star, November 29, 2009