Not on my behalf!
RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme publicly admitted that the RCMP spied on First Nations, Inuit and Métis leaders. Barriers to justice for Indigenous people should make all Canadians angry.
On March 25, breaking news that the RCMP used tax dollars to spy on First Nations, Inuit and Métis leaders grabbed headlines for one day. It warrants more attention, especially by Christians committed to reconciliation. Non-Indigenous citizens should be just as angry as Indigenous people, who were treated as enemies rather than fellow citizens trying to survive and live well in Canada.
Mistreatment continues
Government dismissal of Indigenous surveillance as an old practice from the 1970’s is not convincing because the same pattern continues into the present. In the 1970’s, I heard Indigenous leaders express fears about being followed, and I listened.
Decades later, in 2013, I heard Cindy Blackstock, an Indigenous advocate for children’s rights and a colleague, present evidence of being stalked by government officials because she spoke up for Indigenous children in child welfare. In that case, the federal government was reprimanded by its own Privacy Commissioner and fined $20,000.
In 2013, when the Elsipogtog First Nation in New Brunswick attempted to prevent fracking that was happening on their land without their permission, they were infiltrated by the RCMP. They tried to get justice by filing complaints with the RCMP’s Civilian Review and Complaints Commission. Years later, in 2020, a report on the Commission’s investigations acknowledged that RCMP surveillance practices violated their basic rights, but nothing was done about it. Non-Indigenous citizens should be as righteously angry as the Elsipogtog people are about this suffered harm and denial of justice.
Stalling tactics
Mistreatment of Indigenous people who speak up is one barrier to justice. Another is the more genteel stalling tactics that government officials use to delay and frustrate land claim negotiations. In a new book, On Dismantling Settler Colonialism, John Olthuis draws on 50 years of experience around many negotiating tables to share stories of how government officials stall and obfuscate instead of settling land claims. This is done to protect non-Indigenous interests against Indigenous people, instead of looking for workable solutions that could allow Indigenous people to move forward with their lives, in partnership with non-Indigenous people. Olthuis proposes ways for non-Indigenous Canadians to do their part to remove barriers to reconciliation.
Non-Indigenous citizens need to end our silent complicity with how governments are acting on our behalf.
Words aren’t enough
Standing alongside and listening with respect is not enough to end the barriers that governments put up, supposedly on my behalf. Land acknowledgements and prayers for reconciliation are not enough. To take reconciliation seriously, non-Indigenous citizens also need to end our silent complicity with how governments are acting on our behalf. The words of the prophets about justice before worship ring in my ears. Before celebrating with nice words on the next National Indigenous Peoples Day in June, I feel compelled to join with non-Indigenous Christians and with civil society groups to demand that government officials stop putting up barriers, settle outstanding land claims without delay, and use tax dollars to work in partnership with Indigenous people to care for God’s land called Canada.
