Nationalism
in Canada
Dr. Zoltan Grossman
Geography & Native American Studies,
The Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA
http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz
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Labrador
10 Provinces, 3 Territories
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Labrador
• 4 Maritime provinces:
– Nova Scotia
– New Brunswick (bilingual)
– Prince Edward Island
– Newfoundland & Labrador (1949)
• Quebec
• Ontario
• 3 Prairie provinces:
– Manitoba
– Saskatchewan
– Alberta
• British Columbia
• 3 Territories in far north:
– Nunavut (1999)
– Northwest Territories
– Yukon
Not a Melting Pot, but a Mosaic
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Language Politics in Canada
• Anglophones (English-speakers: 59%)
– Including recent immigrants: Jamaicans, etc.
– Anglophone minority in Quebec
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• Francophones (French-speakers: 23%)
– Majority in Quebec; Minority in N.B., Man., Ont., etc.
– Including recent immigrants: Haitians, etc.
French
• Allophones (Other immigrant languages)
– Italians, Greeks, Chinese, etc. in cities
• Aboriginal (First Nations)
– Most speak English too, a few French
Inuit (Eskimo)
(Inuit)
(Athabascan)
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French Colonization
Economic:
Cooperation for fur trade,
Deals with “middlemen”
Cultural:
Conversion by “black robes”
Political:
Cohabitation
(resulting in mixed-race Métis)
Ecological:
Exploration (China Passage);
Fur Trade
New France
Quebec, Great Lakes, Louisiana
French
long lots,
based on
river frontage
Quebec, Great Lakes , Louisiana
Fur Trade
Merchants created Euro. market for American fur
Native market for Euro. manufactured goods
-Beads, guns, alcohol, metal pots, cloth
Euro. dependency on Native labor ;
Native dependency on Euro. goods.
Fur Trade Era (1600s-1700s)
Economic: Interior trading posts, mutual dependency
Political: Alliances vs. European rivals;
Encouragement of intertribal rivalries
Cultural: Natives adopt
material culture; seasonal
cycles disrupted
Ecological: Human disease
spreads, animals depleted
Russian Fur Trade
Aleut sealers in Alaska & California
Horse &
Gun Frontier
Spanish brought
horses from Mexico
French brought
guns from Quebec
Overlapped by 1750
in Northern Plains
Middle Ground (Richard White)
Fur Trade in Great Lakes region
transformed both sides
Native culture
influenced French, English too
Métis as “middle men”
Euro.-American slowly
gained dominance,
esp. as animals disappeared
French & Indian War
• Canada as one front in
Anglo-French world war
between empires
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• Most tribes sided
with French
• Iroquois, a few others
sided with English
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British defeat French, 1759
• Battle of Plains of Abraham in Quebec City
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(I Remember)
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Constitutional Act, 1791
• Lower Canada (Quebec)
• Upper Canada (Ontario)
• British colonization of Francophones
– Anglophone/Francophone
settler colonization of First Nations
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British Divide & Conquer
British recognize
Native sovereignty
But divide tribes
from each other
Divide tribes’
internal factions
Americans,
Canadians
inherit strategy
Early wars
Native nations
initially dominant
(Pontiac Revolt)
Crown wants trade
Settlers want land
Interests converge
& diverge
Recognized Indian
land title, reserved
unceded lands for
tribes, and affirmed
Crown protection
for First Nations
Set Proclamation
Line 1763, in response
to Pontiac Revolt
American colonists
resented Proclamation
Line, leading to 1776
Royal Proclamation, 1763
British Era before American Revolution
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American Revolution
as aftershock
of Anglo-French war
Tecumseh’s Unity
in War of 1812
Unified tribes to
fight vs. Americans
with British, 1812
Allied with Prophet
to spread word
Shawnee leader
killed in 1813;
unity never regained
British North America Act, 1867
• Independence of Canada within British Empire;
British monarch is still Head of State
• British and French are “founding peoples”;
their elites in partnership in new “Confederation”
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Indian Act, 1876
• Status Indians registered with Crown (federal gov’t)
• System of reserves and Band Councils, administered
by Department of Indian and Northern Affairs
• Establishes legal rights and limitations (wardship),
but therefore denies rights to “Non-Status” Indians
Made Canadian citizens in 1933. But until 1960s,
Indian status could be lost by voting, or by being women or children
with Non-status Indian husband/father
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Louis Riel’s
Métis Rebellions
• Red River Rebellion
(Métis republic in Manitoba), 1869-70
• North-West Rebellion (Saskatchewan), 1885
• Executed for treason;
Martyr for Métis, hero to many Indians
Canadian Treaties
1,200 (mostly tiny) reserves today
Canada owes its expansion to First Nations?
Reserves
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Main rail lines
Almost no
treaties in BC
xxxxx
UNITED STATES
CANADA
Armed conflict
Less military conflict
Small & large reservations
Small reserves
States relatively weak
Provinces relatively strong
Treaty rights restricted
Gathering rights less restricted
Cultural assimilation strong Assimilation weaker in “remote” areas
Blood quantum divisions
Status vs. Non-status Indians;
Indian vs. Métis
Least discussed “minority”
Francophone & Native challenges
to Canada’s identity/existence
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Quebec Secessionism
vs.
Canadian Federalism
• Many Quebec francophones support secession (separation);
have been historically poorer than Quebec Anglophone minority
• Other minorities in Quebec oppose independence,
favor “federalism” (association with Canada)
• Francophones outside Quebec oppose--would be alone
• Parti Québécois elected but 1980
independence referendum failed
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Francophones
French-speakers are majority in Quebec
but minority in Canada
(largest communities in N.B., Manitoba, Ontario)
Parliamentary system in Ottawa
• Not winner-take-all; Parties can vote together as coalition.
Leader of largest vote-getting party is
Head of Government: Prime Minister (Premier)
House of Commons (lower house; most powerful)
Senate (upper house)
Ottawa
• M.P.: Member of Parliament
• Senator: Member of Senate
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Parliamentary system in provinces
• Provinces have much more power than U.S. states;
Provincial Premiers very powerful.
• M.P.P.: Member of Provincial Parliament
or
M.L.A.: Member of Legislative Assembly
• Ridings: Electoral districts
Victoria
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Political Parties
• Liberal (left-of-center, 1871)
• Conservative (right-center/right, 2003)
– Progressive Conservatives (right-center, 1867)
– Reform Party / Canadian Alliance (right, 1987-2003)
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• New Democratic Party (left-social democrat, 1961)
• Bloc Québécois (separatists in Parliament, 1991)
– Parti Québécois (provincial party, 1968)
• Others in B.C.
– Social Credit (right-populist, 1935-1993)
– Greens (environmental-populist, 1983)
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National Native organizing
• Minister of Indian Affairs Jean Chrétien’s “White Paper”
proposes abolition of Indian Act, all land claims, 1969
• For assimilation of Native peoples as individual citizens
• First Nations organize and defeat proposal, 1971;
leading to Assembly of First Nations (AFN), 1980.
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AFN proposed First Nations
self-government as
“Third Order” of gov’t
(like federal, provincial)
“Aboriginal” peoples
• xxxxx
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Constitution Act, 1982
• Constitution replaced British North America Act;
included Bill of Rights; Full independence of Canada
• Affirmed “existing treaty rights and aboriginal rights”
• Quebec wanted guarantees for French culture/language
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Quebec a “Distinct Society”?
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• Québécois demand to have special status
as “distinct society” to protect language
• Meech Lake Accord, 1987-90
– Anglophone & First Nations opposition
– Cree Manitoba MLA Elijah Harper blocked
• Charlottetown Accord, 1992
– Recognized Native self-government too
– Failed in referendum
“If French Quebecers can assert a claim to the
territorial integrity of Quebec ......then First Nations
who used and occupied the land for over 5,000 years
have a better claim to the land.”
--Quebec attorney Diane Sokolyk
Oka (Quebec), 1990
Armed standoff between
Mohawk Warrior Society &
4,400 Canadian Army troops over
burial site threatened by golf course
(only 800 troops in Gulf War)
Hydropower dams on
Quebec Cree lands
Huge diversions of rivers
Hunting lands flooded
Mercury contamination of fish
Shorelines inaccessible
NY, VT consumers objected, delayed
Near-Secession of Quebec, 1995
49.4%
Nunavik
Inuit
50.6%
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Nitassinan
Innu
Eeyou
Astchee
Cree
Most French-speakers (blue)
for independence from Canada
English-speakers and
immigrants voted “No”
English
Mohawk
First Nations against dams, etc.
Cree & Inuit vote to stay Canada
Free Trade Agreements
Free Trade Agreement (U.S.-Canada), 1988;
North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) adds Mexico 1994
Corporate
Globalization
State power and
identity threatened
from above by
globalization, and
from below by
ethnonationalism
STATE
Ethnonationalism
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Indigenous ethnonationalism
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“Native communities.....have been quite successful in
organizing political activity around their specific national
identities.....Structural integrity and continuous
saliency are provided through the preservation of ancient
cultural
values and the persistence of traditional forms
of social organization within the communities.....Political
representation is an established fact among Native
peoples, either through the re-implementation of traditional
forms, or
through adopted Western-style
institutions.........Native politics is the self-assertion of
nationhood on different
axes and to differing degrees by
various distinct political communities....... integrating the
concept of a spectrum
of assertion ranging from very
limited local endeavours to comprehensive demands for
territorial sovereignty and
state power.”
--Taiaiake Alfred (Mohawk political scientist)
Heeding the Voices of Our Ancestors
(1995), pp. 12-13
Gustafsen Lake (B.C.), 1995
• Ts’Peten Defenders fight eviction from
Secwepemc (Shushwap) ceremonial grounds
• Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)
used armored carriers, percussion land mines,
fire 77,000 rounds
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B.C. Logging Injunction Blockades
Ipperwash (Ontario), 1995
• Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) occupy
provincial park burial ground
• Provincial police kill Dudley George
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Inuit territory of Nunavut, 1999
1999
Inuit fully control 18% of new territory;
What will happen to Dené region of NWT?
Canada
Greenland
Kalaallit Nunaat
• Eskimo (Inuit)
territory of Denmark
• Achieved Home Rule
as Kalaallit Nunaat, 1981
• Separated from EU;
minority favors independence
Full sovereignty?
Some tribes, individuals
did not accept Canadian
citizenship.
Six Nations approached
Indigenous passports have been honored
by some countries.
League of Nations after
1924 invasion
“Most of these groups seek not to secede from the territories of the states in
which they reside, but rather to wield greater control over matters such as
natural resources, environmental preservation of their homelands, education,
use of language, and bureaucratic administration.”
--Corntassel and Primeau, Indigenous Sovereignty and
International Law (1995), p. 344
Burnt Church (N.B.), 2000
• Supreme Court’s Marshall Decision affirms
Mi’kmaq treaty rights, 1999
• Conflict between Mi’kmaq and non-Native
lobster fishing communities in New Brunswick
• Federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO)
attack Mi’kmaq lobster boats
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Caledonia (Ontario), 2006
• Six Nations oppose subdivision construction
on land claim; blockade roads / rail line
• Local non-Natives vigilantes,
provincial police confront blockade
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• Yet feds recognized traditional
Six Nations Longhouse government,
(not Band Council imposed in 1924)
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Federal policy little changed
“The federal government is actively marketing the myth that
its conduct of Indian affairs has progressed from colonial
wardship and cultural assimilation to Indian self-government
and coexistence. The reality bears little resemblance to this
myth. Contemporary Indian policies, in particular the ‘Indian
self-government’ initiative, are designed....to undermine and
diminish, and ultimately to eliminate, Indian special status
and to achieve their full institutional assimilation.”
--Menno Boldt, Surviving as Indians (1993), p. 114
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P.M. Harper meets with
AFN Chief Fontaine (left),
yet his main advisor on
Indian Affairs has been U. of
Calgary Prof. Tom Flanagan,
who opposes First Nations
sovereignty as “race-based”
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