Feldman's Faves: September 26, 2023

GOOD MORNING EVERYONE

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend (including those of you who fasted yesterday…I can deal with not eating but the “no coffee thing” really hurts).

It looks like Coach Prime and team were brought back to earth while the Dolphins are soaring WAY above sea level.

This week is a special one at Goodmans and in our country more broadly, as we take time to consider and reflect on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (on September 30th).

As you have seen from Ken Crofoot, we are lucky to be welcoming Professor Douglas Sanderson (Amo Binashii) and Andrew Stobo Sniderman for a discussion on the historical use and abuse of law regarding Indigenous Peoples in Canada, as well as legal and governance arrangements that might improve future outcomes and lead to reconciliation. Moderated by our very own Max Laskin, this discussion will centre around the speakers’ book, Valley of the Birdtail: An Indian Reserve, a White Town, and the Road to Reconciliation. The event is taking place in our office at noon on Thursday (Sept 28), and I strongly encourage each of you to attend. As the CBC summarizes Valley of the Birdtail, “Divided by a beautiful valley and 150 years of racism, the town of Rossburn and the Waywayseecappo Indian reserve have been neighbours nearly as long as Canada has been a country. Their story reflects much of what has gone wrong in relations between Indigenous Peoples and non-Indigenous Canadians. It also offers, in the end, an uncommon measure of hope. Valley of the Birdtail is about how two communities became separate and unequal—and what it means for the rest of us. In Rossburn, once settled by Ukrainian immigrants who fled poverty and persecution, family income is near the national average and more than a third of adults have graduated from university. In Waywayseecappo, the average family lives below the national poverty line and less than a third of adults have graduated from high school, with many haunted by their time in residential schools. This book follows multiple generations of two families, one white and one Indigenous, and weaves their lives into the larger story of Canada. It is a story of villains and heroes, irony and idealism, racism and reconciliation. Valley of the Birdtail has the ambition to change the way we think about our past and show a path to a better future. that I strongly recommend you read.”

Today I am going to stray from my usual format and simply recommend that you pick up a copy of Valley of the Birdtail if you haven’t done so already. I have previously written about my own blind spots when it comes to understanding our history. Nowhere has this been more glaring than my understanding of the history of Indigenous peoples of Canada. It was never taught in school and I had no place to learn when I was younger as this topic was simply just WAY outside my radar. It wasn’t until the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission were publicized that we, as a nation, were able to start addressing, understanding and no longer ignoring this history and reality. The history of the treatment of indigenous peoples in Canada and the legacy of residential schools, economic and political marginalization and a legal system that was designed and used to undermine indigenous society and culture over centuries led us to where we are today and at the same time, presents an opportunity. Valley of the Birdtail does a really good job, on both a macro-level and a micro-level, of showing how this history played out in the lives of Canadians and brings to life the notion of intergenerational trauma. The most obvious example of this legacy and trauma is in the area of education in which indigenous people were forced into residential schools (in an effort to assimilate them), then forced into mixed schools (that led to a disaster in success rates) and then forced into their own schools (which the authors compare to segregation that was taking place in the Deep South – separate but not equal, with funding for Federally run indigenous schools being a fraction of what they were for provincial run schools). One of the more interesting people in this book is Linda, who suffered through all three phases of this education experiment and lived a difficult life of exclusion, marginalisation and addiction, as a result. Along the way, she and many of her peers were abused, ignored, not provided adequate resources (including enough food to make it through a day of school) and as a result, as a group, never had a fair shot.

Reading this book is upsetting and difficult. We learn about how the Government of Canada created and imposed laws that led to this intergenerational trauma that we are now trying to dig out from under. There is a good description of the battles that took place between Louis Riel and Hayter “Iron Heart” Reed and the laws that followed including the Pass System (that effectively limited freedom of movement on the reserve), the Permit System (that limited the ability of indigenous people to sell their goods off their reserves in a nation that extols the virtues of freedom of contract) and of course, the Residential School System (a complete horror show).

We also learn how people like Clifford Sifton (who was both in charge of immigration and the “Indian population) in the 1800s, encouraged the Ukrainian people (who were being persecuted at home) to immigrate to Canada with the promise of free land and lots of opportunity. Beyond that we learn that while these Ukrainian settlers of Rossburn where subsidized and given technology to succeed (e.g. threshers for their farms), their indigenous neighbours on the other side of the river in Waywayseecappo were denied anything more than sickles and knives based on the view that the government didn’t think they deserved more or could handle complexity and that “it may make them too lazy”. So the lack of support and the inability to sell their goods without permission led these two communities down very different paths.

But the use of the legal system to create injustices went far beyond that with the Government of Canada doing all it could to eliminate indigenous culture (e.g., Banning Sun Dances) while encouraging the religious freedom more broadly, including of the Ukrainian settlers and their traditions (e.g. folk dances). The authors point out how during WWI the Ukrainian settlers had a rough time as they were linked to Austria Hungary and the “Anglo-Saxons” referred to them as “enemy aliens”. Nonetheless, they were still higher in the pecking order than the “Indians” who they looked down on even then.

This situation was somewhat improved in 2010 when the Rossburn and Waywayseecappo communities entered into a partnership that led to equal financing of education. This benefited both groups because it put more money in the system for all students in both communities, led to some cross-cultural understanding and exchanges and better outcomes for some indigenous students – Maureen (Linda’s daughter), graduated high school with honours, went to university and then came home to teach. Sanderson and Sniderman viewed this success on the micro-level as a success in the context of an overall terrible situation.

The end of the book speaks briefly of the go forward policy prescriptions that Sanderson and Sniderman believe could leverage this success. In essence they call for more self rule and greater access to financing (and autonomy over that financing). My sense is that this will be one of the key areas of discussion on Thursdays so I will leave it at this for today and welcome your thoughts once you have had a chance to read the book and/or attend the event.

Reading this book was eye opening and extremely thought provoking. I can’t wait to meet the authors.

Thank you for your ongoing engagement and participation. And remember to stay safe, stay healthy and to docket daily.

Jon