From Haida Gwaii to the Arctic Sea to the east coast of Newfoundland, there are over 600 First Nations in Canada. But with so many unique Indigenous communities within the greater nation, how can they be individually respected as Canada progresses through the 21st century?
This topic was addressed at a candidates forum in Vancouver Island’s Courtenay-Alberni riding on April 15. Hosted by the Alberni Valley Chamber of Commerce and the Alberni Valley Transition Towns Society, the event brought hundreds to Port Alberni’s RimRock Casino.
UNDRIP implementation
Among the topics submitted by the audience to candidates was Canada’s ability to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This came into law on June 21, 2021 with the passing of the UNDRIP Act, legislation that requires Ottawa to “take all measures necessary to ensure the laws of Canada are consistent with the Declaration.”
Since 2015 Gord Johns has represented the riding as the NDP Member of Parliament. During the candidates forum he pointed out the work of former NDP MP Romeo Saganash, who introduced Bill C-262 in 2016, proposed legislation that closely resembled what became the UNDRIP Act.
“He started his cross-country tour right here with Nuu-chah-nulth,” said Johns.
Green Party candidate Kris Markevich stressed the need for the federal government to work closely with Aboriginal communities on a “nation-to-nation” basis, protecting rights to harvest shellfish and implement “Indigenous-led restorative justice” systems.
“We believe that this country was founded on stolen land,” he said.
Markevich emphasized the importance of “letting them lead the conversation in terms of how we need to remediate the historical wrongs that we have in this country.”
“Until we’re working with the First Nations, the original people of this land, we are not the country that we are seen on the world stage,” noted Liberal candidate Brian Cameron.
Cameron illustrated this point by recalling a time when he was working in Nunavut. A Parks Canada-led investigation was searching for the wrecks of the HMS Erebus and Terror. Led by English Captain John Franklin in an Arctic expedition, the two vessels became icebound and were abandoned in 1848.
The Liberal candidate recalled that the large Parks Canada ships merely had to heed the words of a local elder to guide their search.
“She said, ‘Why are they looking there? You go to this point, and it’s one kilometre off the point’,” Cameron recalled. “Guess where they were? Exactly where she said they were. Just because it’s not a written history, oral history is equally as valuable.”
The United Nations was founded in 1945, in the aftermath of the Second World War. During the candidates forum Thomas Gamble of the Peoples Party of Canada questioned the appropriateness of a United Nations declaration being applied to the inner workings of Canada.
“It has gone well beyond what its mandate was originally supposed to do; the purpose of the UN is to keep us out of hell, it’s not to bring us to heaven on earth,” he said. “They think they know how to run our countries better than we do. We have enough trouble just sorting out our national politics, our provincial politics.”
Gamble added that the PPC’s policy is to get rid of the Indian Act “and the other federal dependency structures that lead Indigenous peoples to be wards of the state.”
“We can see how top-down governance from the federal level had completely failed Indigenous communities,” he said.
“I think that we need to give more power to our First Nations,” said Jesse Musial of the Christian Heritage Party of Canada.
But he also cautioned about the government taking responsibility for a First Nation’s welfare, something that can cause Indigenous communities “not to take more licence and agency over their well-being.”
“The more that we depend on the government as a means to do that, the more that we’re depending on an entity that will make mistakes,” said Musial.
Notably absent from the forum was Conservative candidate Kris McNichol. When asked why he wasn’t there, McNichol informed Ha-Shilth-Sa that he was attending a public meeting in Nanoose Bay, where over 300 residents discussed public safety after two violent home invasions in the area.
Gord Johns pointed out that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre voted against the UNDRIP Act, citing concerns over how the “free prior and informed consent” stipulation will impact resource development.
“So what’s he going to do when he gets back into power, if he gets into power?” asked Johns of the Conservative leader. “I wish Kris McNicol was here, so we could ask Kris, ‘What are their plans?’”
Residential school denialism
On the B.C. coast, this election campaign has been marked by the surfacing of past comments from Aaron Gunn, a Conservative candidate in the North Island-Powell River riding. From 2019 to 2021, Gunn posted comments on Twitter downplaying the harm of residential schools.
“Residential schools were asked for by Indigenous bands,” he wrote on the platform, which is now called X.
“There was no genocide. Stop lying to people and read a book,” wrote Gunn in another post. “The Holocaust was a genocide. Get off Twitter and learn more about the world.”
The topic of criminalizing residential school denialism was put to the Courtenay-Alberni candidates who were present on April 15.
“You can’t compare genocides,” said Gord Johns. “It was clear in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that it was cultural genocide. When we sit and listen to survivors in our community, you know that it was genocide.”
“The Holocaust was atrocious, and also what happened to the First Nations, the original people of this land, was atrocious and disgusting and it was genocide,” said Brian Cameron, who stressed the need for Canada to implement the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action.
Last year NDP MP Leah Gazan tabled legislation that would amend the Criminal Code of Canada, proposing to criminalize the willful promotion of hatred against Indigenous people by condoning, denying or downplaying the Indian residential school system through public statements. The bill went through first reading, but has yet to be passed.
“In Germany it has been a crime since the Second World War to show Nazi symbolism,” said Green candidate Kris Markevich. “It is a capital offence, and we don’t do anything close to that here.”
“Comparing this directly with the Holocaust is a bit of an uneven comparison,” remarked Christian Heritage candidate Jesse Musial, although he said that the residential school system does fit the definition of a genocide.
“You’ve got to be careful when your mission is to label yourself as a victim,” he noted. “When all your effort goes into proving that you’ve been wronged, then your effort does not go into trying to pick yourself up and move forward with the greatest strength that you can.”
“The problem with putting anything like this into the criminal code is that it restricts our very basic freedoms of expression,” said PPC candidate Thomas Gamble. “There’s multiple sides to the story, a lot of what we’ve defended in the last few years around this has a lot of murkiness to it. To all of a sudden make that into a criminal offence is repugnant to our rights and freedoms.”
His comments aroused some boos from the audience.
“I don’t care if you boo, because I know what makes you cheer,” responded Musial.
Also present at the forum was Teresa Knight from the Animal Protection Party.
“It’s a fine line,” she said on the residential school issue. “Yes, I think that if somebody is being ridiculous in saying that there’s no genocide in the case of Indigenous people here, don’t vote for him.”
