Historic Context of Modern Indigenous Business Models and Canada-Indigenous Relations 

Before proceeding too far into an exploration of ‘Modern’ Indigenous Business Models, it is important to review Canada’s history through an ‘Indigenous’ lens. Each Indigenous community has their own creation stories and ways of understanding the world. Their stories are rooted in, tied to, informed by the geographic places, languages, and traditions. These stories and knowledge systems are thousands of years old, and they are the basis of Indigenous sovereignty claims presented today. Indigenous ways of knowing and being refer to models of governance, law, and knowledge transfer.  Given the limitations around how much depth and detail can be included about each Indigenous community in Canada, this section of the text presents a perspective from Mi’kamw’ki Atlantic Canada. It is appropriate to start with Atlantic Canada because this book originates in Mi’kmaw’ki/Atlantic Canada, and the author identifies as Mi’kmaw/Canadian. It is also the most easterly part of Turtle Island and has some of the oldest stories of colonial encounter. 

 

** Figure 1. Interactive Map of Indigenous Territories. Source: Native-Land.ca ** CONFIRM FORMATTING IS CONSISTENT FOR FIGURES AND IMAGES>

It is common practice within many regions of Canada to recognize the territorial history by either doing a land acknowledgement, treaty acknowledgement, or territorial acknowledgement. Each form of acknowledgement has different political and legal meanings, but have a similar intent, to recognize the complexity of space and identities. For example, at Cape Breton University there are land acknowledgements posted throughout campus and the same acknowledgement is read at the beginning of formal gatherings.

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While these acknowledgments stand as reminders of the past, when read in class or at meetings, they are also expanded with a challenge to reflect on and discuss their ongoing relevance today. The Treaties of Peace and Friendship are among some of the oldest treaty agreements, they predate the formation of Canada, and are considered among a group of treaties referred to as “Historic Treaties.”  This category of treaties refers to the agreements made before the British North America (BNA) Act was passed in 1867, as the first constitutional document of Canada. Treaty agreements made after 1867, and before the 1970’s, were sequentially numbered, for the most part, and thus are referred to as “Numbered Treaties.“ The regions covered by the numbered treaties cover most of provincial areas known today as Manitoba, northern Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. Any treaties and land claims negotiated with the government of Canada after the Constitution Act, 1982, was passed (an update to the British North America act) are described as “Modern Day Treaties.” 

Each treaty covers a specific region. The territorial acknowledgement presented in Cape Breton explains the relevant treaty, the signatory parties, and the date. These specific details have significant legal and political implications for businesses and organizations. When and if they are to be contested or interpreted in a judicial process, the legal representatives of Indigenous parties explain that Mi’kmaw inherent rights to hunt, fish, self-govern, earn a moderate livelihood, must be understood a inherent legal rights because the treaties did not deal with surrender of lands and resources.  Further, anyone wishing to make use of or to extract value from lands and resources, must negotiate with (consult) Mi’kmaw governments.

Their position has been tested by the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) who have reinforced their claims and this interpretation of the treaty agreements. Further, Canadian governments are expected to honour these agreements made with the British Crown because Canada’s sovereignty claims continue to rest with the relationship formed with the crown. Note this is one way in which Canada’s history politically and economically distinguishes itself from that of the United States. Canada inherited their sovereignty from the British Crown, where the United States of America won their independence from the British Crown and cut ties to them.

• Find a video online describing the treaties and when they were signed. AND/OR Insert a map that shows the treaties (e.g. Native-Land.ca | Our home on native land)  

• Recommended activity – Encourage students to identify the treaty territory they reside in currently, where they grew up, or where their favorite businesses are located. 

Treaty implications on identity (and identity politics)

A general overview of the political and social identities and their meanings is described below. The ways in which they are currently defined (ie. Indigenous self-identified or as Indian Act identity) has implications for individuals and their business planning strategies.

Before proceeding to learn about Indigenous Business and enter discussions about or with Indigenous communities, it is useful to think about the aspects of our personal identities and how they influence our social interactions.  In this section we refer to tools developed by the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) for their health research teams. They include the culturally relevant gender-based analysis (CRGBA)  Research toolkit (NWAC 2022) (LINK TO ONLINE WEB SOURCE).

NWAC encourages anyone working with Indigenous Communities to continually be aware of their own positionality by fostering reflexivity. They provide guidance through example activities such as the intersectionality map (NWAC 2022) ( INSERT LINK TO ONLINE WEB SOURCE or IMAGE OF INTERSECTIONALITY MAP).  Intersectionality tools help individuals reflect on the intersecting dimensions of social identity. Indigeneity is one aspect of whole complex people. Other aspects that shape a person’s view of the world around them include things like physical ability, age, sexual orientation, gender, as well as experiences in past such as the places where one lived as a child and where/if they attended elementary and secondary schools.

These aspect of personal identity change the way we make sense of things and situations today. Continuing the discussion of identity, a common aspect of Indigenous teachings presents the topic of relationality. *CREATE A TERM or link to a Glossary TERM In CHAPTER 1** The significance of relationality is evident as you explore intersectional identity webs. As you reflect aspects of identity, you will likely begin to remember significant events that shaped how you interact with peopel today. Your family dynamics and community dynamics from your youth, for example, are likely where you first start to learn about personal and community values. Did you spend time alone, at community events, indoors or outdoors?

 

Word Matters. It can be difficult to understand Indigenous identity in Canada. There are a lot of words that have similar but specific meanings. For example, in this text we primarily use the term Indigenous referring to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP or The Declaration). (Government of Canada, 2020). In Canada, we also have Indigenous rights affirmed legally in section 35 of the Canadian Constitution. But they do not use the term “Indigenous” instead this legal document uses the term “Aboriginal” which refers to First Nations (Indians),  Metis, and Inuit peoples. Although the term Aboriginal is socially recognized as derogatory, it continues to have legal relevance. 

HISTORY OF CANADA INDIGENOUS ECONOMIC  CHANGES

This brief history in this section highlights significant political and legal events from the past that continue to serve as touchpoints for Indigenous-led organization studies. For anyone working with and for Indigenous organizations, the events present the history of changes in the Canada-Indigenous relationship and formative context for current reconciliation efforts. Although the terms used change over time (Indian, Aboriginal, Indigenous)  and may be unfamiliar to students, many of these terms are legally and political relevant for Indigenous businesses and Canada-Indigenous reconciliation.

Germinal Legal and Political Reference points of Aboriginal Economic Development

The Royal Commission on Aboriginal People (RCAP, 1996)  [INDEX – GLOSSARY] is a jumping off point for this review. The RCAP report – a five-volume report produced between 1991 and 1996 – continues to be an important policy reference point in the field of Indigenous business and economic development. It punctuates significant political and legal events from the past that continue to serve as touchpoints for Indigenous-led research today (Graham & Newhouse, 2021; Voyageur, Newhouse & Beavon, 2011).

Canada is a colonial nation. A significant part of the colonization process starting in the 16th century involved settlement (establishment of permanent residences for European settlers) and treaty making with Indigenous nations (See treaty table), and institutionalization of European values.

I refer to the final report of RCAP (1996) because it structured a story of the past relationship between Canada and Aboriginal peoples into four temporal periods which I review below. They are: (1) Separate worlds (Before 1500), (2) Contact and Cooperation (1500s – 1867), (3) Displacement and Assimilation (1867 – 1969), and (4) Negotiation and Renewal (1969 – 2016) (RCAP, 1996). Arguably, we are now in a fifth period that may be called Truth and Reconciliation (2016 – future).

The TRC [INDEX – GLOSSARY] also produced historical records as part of their mandate.  The TRC reports (e.g. They Came for the Children, 2012 and What we have learned, 2015), identify significant events, actors, and policies. They proceed to describe the relationship between “the growth of global, European-based empires and the Christian churches (What we have learned, 2015, p. 15).”

Separate Worlds (Before 1500): Sovereign Nations before European arrival

In RCAP, the period prior to 1500s was described as separate worlds, Aboriginal societies in the Americas and non-Aboriginal societies in Europe developed in entirely different geographic spaces, in ignorance of one another. It is a period that shall not be presented as a historical void for the territories we now refer to as Canada. Indigenous societies who occupied the space had regional governments and traditional territorial boundaries that spanned the continent. There was also variety in their languages, cultures, and social traditions. Historically, from an Indigenous perspective, Indigenous peoples are groups of self-governing societies with traditional languages, teachings, and ways of organizing, that have developed since time immemorial. Referring to the period before European settlement of Canada refers to a time when Indigenous nations’ relationship to places were not questioned. The relationship between Indigenous societies and place was engrained in social norms/laws and reflected in the language (McMillan, 2020).

In the last chapter I referred to two concepts of an Indigenist research paradigm – relationality and relational accountability – because they direct us to explore localized Indigenous teachings that derive from Indigenous relationships with local spaces. In Unama’ki/Breton, where I live, the Mi’kmaw nation was a sovereign, self-organizing, political, whole system of knowledge. Traces of the past are found in stories, place names and the language of Mi’kmaw’ki/L’nu. Mi’kmaw origin stories speak of people who sprang from this place (Sable & Francis, 2012). Modern Mi’kmaw governance structures rely on traditional legal concepts that translate into the modern sense of jurisdictional authority (Denny, 2022). The concept of Netukilimk, for example, refers to the responsibility the Mi’kmaw must live in a symbiotic relationship with land, earth, and the environment (McMillan and Prosper, 2016).

Mi’kmaw is among the many Indigenous nations of what is commonly referred to as North America and were vibrant, politically sophisticated, and economically active societies. When Indigenous leaders talk about returning to a nation-to-nation relationship (RCAP, 1996; TRC, 2015) or inherent rights (Canadian Constitution, 1982; TRC, 2015), they are referring to the sovereign nations and political and legal orders that pre-date European settlements in the territory. There were complex models of exchange and trade (i.e., economies) that functioned in this space within and between nations (MacLeod, 2016, Voyageur et al, 2011) such that traditional Indigenous trading routes of the period were the foundation of the fur trade (Heber, 2011).

Contact and Cooperation (1500s – 1867)

The next historical period is defined by the events of first encounter between Indigenous societies, European settlers (citizens of primarily France and England), and official representatives of the British or French Crown (e.g., military leaders, religious leaders, and political delegations). Contact refers to the new contacts that were made between those societies who had not been aware of one another, let alone in contact with one another. In the 1500s the encounters between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal societies began to increase in number and complexity (Heber, 2011; Newhouse, Voyager, & Beavon, 2005). The period spanned over 300 years, and generations of families. It witnessed significant economic events, including the establishment of military outposts (e.g., Fortress of Louisburg, locally), trading posts (e.g., Hudson’s Bay Company, Northwest Company), the Royal Proclamation (1763), the War of 1812, and the American Revolution.

The period is characterized as contact and cooperation in reference to the nature of many of the inter-societal interactions between and among treaty partners and political allies. The political agreements were negotiated between governments to clarify how the places their citizens occupied would be managed. Treaties were formed with settlers representing the crown, the church, and the state (Battiste, 2016; Borrows, 2017; Morin, 2005). The treaties allowed for social, economic, and political relationships to develop that became the foundation of the modern Canadian economy. A list of treaties in chronological order is provided in Brown et al (2016, p. 292). During the period in which the historic treaties (e.g., Peace and Friendship Treaties) and numbered treaties (i.e., Treaties 1-11) were signed, Indigenous societies were recognized as independent self-governing groups with sovereignty in their homeland. This counternarrative undermines the basis of claims through which European governments claimed sovereignty in the space commonly known as Canada’s baseline colonial policy, the Doctrine of Discovery (Borrows, 2017; Canada, 1996).

Displacement and Assimilation (1867 – 1969): Canada’s Indian Act Approach

The British North America Act (BNA) of 1867 ushered in a new political relationship between nations and with it the Indian Act of 1876. Together they signified the beginning of confederation processes for European settler colonies and governments. The Canadian TRC referred to the Indian Act as a policy of cultural genocide established as part of the BNA, a policy of the British sovereign that claimed rights to territory, and the pre-cursor to the Canadian Constitution Act of 1982. The construction of Indian Act policies, based in these assumptions, disenfranchised Indigenous peoples from their claims to tradition, culture, and sovereignty in their homelands.

I think of this period as a shift toward colonial denial. It is defined by the implementation of new settler-colonial laws. The new laws informed a new idea of Canada (the state) that was dependent on the delegitimization of local Indigenous societies. Once the BNA was in place, the Federal Government’s approach to Indian affairs replaced Indigenous leaders’ sense of sovereignty and agency with dependency. Multiple amendments gradually increased the power of Indian Agents and diminished the relative power of Indians to resist enfranchisement (Cardinal, 1969). It was a systemic approach that, over decades, became more pervasive through policy development and militarization.

There are several select events (see Table 3-1) that represent a relationship between the colonial government’s approach to Indian Affairs that treated “Indians” as incompetent wards of the state. They include implementation of policies (e.g., gradual enfranchisement, encroachment in places, resource exploitation, and militarization) and court decisions that reinforced the legitimacy of their actions, at least from the perspective of Eurocentric legal principles (Borrows, 2017). Among these many regionally specific and national policies, was the Indian Residential School (IRS) policy.

Indian Residential Schools were one aspect of cultural assimilation and cultural genocide. Canada’s Indian Residential School System was a nation-wide federally funded program. The expressed goal of the system was to (re-)educate Indigenous children (then referred to as Indians) by disenfranchising them from their families, communities, and traditions (Battiste, 2013). The Indian Residential School policy, like so many policies managed by the Federal Department Indian Affairs was designed to eradicate Indigenous cultures and languages, through systems that promoted neglect for human dignity. The operation of Indian Residential Schools spanned years between 1867 – 1998, but the peak recorded annual enrollment was almost 12,000 children in the 1950s spread across roughly 90 schools.

Many “students” who attended these schools were treated terribly. They were subjected to physical and emotional violence. We now have evidence that thousands of children died in residential schools, and hundreds of them were buried in unmarked graves on the school sites2. Like all other federal policies that derived from Indian Act, administrative oversight for the national program was delegated to the Department of Indian Affairs who then outsourced the administration of the “schools” to religious institutions. The Federal Government was ultimately responsible for continued funding of administration and the supply of students to them (MacDonald, 2007; MacDonald and Hudson, 2012), thus it was also responsible for the harms endured by those who attended them.

Indian Residential Schools and the White Paper Policy. Most of the Indian Residential Schools were closed during this period too. The closures reflected a change in the federal government’s Indian Residential School approach. By the 1950’s the Indian Affairs education system lacked the money and resources required to support the segregated school system, and modified The Indian Act so that First Nations students could attend public schools. The move to transfer students from church run schools to provincially run public schools temporally coincided with the release of the federal government’s White Paper on “Indian Policy” which “… proposed a massive transfer of responsibility for First Nations people from the federal to provincial governments. It called for the repeal of the Indian Act, the winding up of the Department of Indian Affairs, and the eventual extinguishment of the Treaties (What we have learned, 2015, p. 40).”

Negotiation and Renewal (1969 – 2016): Indigenous- led united resurgence in Canada

The final period RCAP identifies started around 1969, referring to the White Paper (Canada, 1968), and corresponding response, the Red Paper (Cardinal, 1970). Negotiation refers to the prevalence of legal and political responses to Indigenous advocacy which eventually led to a re-negotiation and recognition of Indigenous peoples’ rights. Three watershed events are recognized as shaping this era of Native activism in Canada (Coulthard (2014): (1) The militarization of First Nations’ opposition to the 1969 White paper described as, “an unprecedented degree of pan-Indigenous assertiveness and political mobilization.” (p.5); (2) The Calder decision in 1973 that launched a series of discussions regarding Aboriginal title to land that existed prior to settlement; and (3) series of events related to the energy crisis and the oil crisis of the 1970s that were also related to unresolved issues of Native rights.

I think of the 1970s and 1980s as a period of defined by Indigenous-led peaceful political resistance and leadership leveraging their power through diplomatic assembly. Multiple Aboriginal advocacy organizations were established regionally and nationally. The National Indian Brotherhood, the precursor to the Assembly of First Nations, was established in 1967 and incorporated in 1970. The Native Women’s Association of Canada was established in 1974.

Resisting government policy and seeking justice: The origins of the TRC. The Oka Crisis of 1990 was one of the most notable and relevant to consider the intersection between economic development and reconciliation (Meng, 2020). From a lens of economic development, Oka represents the plausible implications of failing to consult Indigenous nations before launching new developments in their territories. It also marked a turning point in terms of reconciliation because the fall out of the standoff between the land defenders and Canadian military, prompted the launch of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (Barsh, 2005; Regan, 2010).

In the 1990’s the Canadian justice system that historically supported values of colonialism began ruling in favor of Indigenous rights (Cassidy, 2005, p. 38) and challenged federal policies to change. If the government refused to acknowledge the truth about the systemic nature the Indian Residential Schools and controlled the narrative in public Canadian places (Regan, 2010), Aboriginal peoples continued to resist and seek justice through public measures. While leaders of federal government and church institutions continued to deny their legal accountability for the residential school system as a whole, individuals in local churches had begun to acknowledge the harms that some individuals and communities suffered because of the schools. The series of apologies offered in the 1980s and 1990s from religious officials and church representatives are listed in Appendix of TRC’s Executive Summary TRC, (TRC, 2015, p. 378). The church apologies that span 1986 – 2015, further evidence of the scope, scale, and impact of the Indian Residential School Programs on local communities. In the same period, student survivors increasingly turned to the justice system as a means of seeking reparations for damages.

With respect to reconciliation, the period following RCAP also saw the launch of the 1998 Exploratory Dialogues, and the process of Alternative Dispute Resolution Process, and the birth of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation (AHF). Taken together, this series of events increasingly affirmed Indigenous rights, and legitimized the truth of survivor stories. Because the TRC mandate was established as part of the Settlement Process, the legal context of negotiation presented salient cues for framing of the localized TRC discourse (James, 2022) discussed below.

The launch of the TRC coincided with the Federal Public Apology for the Indian Residential Schools. On June 11, 2008, the Prime Minister of Canada delivered an official “Statement of Apology – to the former students of Indian Residential Schools” (TRC, 2015, p. 369). The apology, in theory, would represent an end to the government denial. And, while it is beyond the scope of the analysis here, it raised important new cues for the Canadian public and Indigenous peoples. The government apology could not be compelled through the Settlement Agreement and was therefore considered a strategic political decision/announcement (Niezen, 2010).

Truth and Reconciliation (2016 – future)

I contend we have entered a fifth period that may be called Truth and Reconciliation for three reasons: (1) the RCAP (1996) laid out a 20-year strategy presented as the foundation for a renewed relationship; (2) the publication of the TRC’s final report was issued two decades after the RCAP report (Graham and Newhouse, 2021); (3) the TRC process appears to have changed the discourses of reconciliation and may have also marked a shift in the dynamics of negotiation and renewal that were imagined in RCAP; and (4) while many people were looking to the TRC for guidance about reconciliation (e.g., Craft and Regan, 2020) many have taken a longer view of reconciliation referring to the on-going implications of RCAP (Graham and Newhouse, 2021; Hughes, 2012; Regan, 2010).

 

Conclusion: Historical Discourses, Silences (policy gaps), and CRGBA

It is not a secret that Canada is a colonial state. The ties between the Canadian Government and Canadian cultural identity are closely tied to the British Government and the Commonwealth. And yet, the idea of settler colonialism is often presented as a part of the distant past of Canada’s formation and not as a modern ongoing project of maintaining Canadian power and legitimacy in sovereign Indigenous territories. Canadian social systems were, in fact, intentionally designed to erase Indigenous peoples, or at least their social structures and rights. The literature review in this chapter highlights germinal points that explain the integrated and deliberate political institutional strategies that were designed to prevent them from acting as self-governing nations and to diminish legitimate Aboriginal claims to self-government. The brief history above highlights cues that continue to be important to the modern Crown-Indigenous relationship and therefore the discourse of Canada-Indigenous reconciliation. This chapter represents one of the steps that is necessary in the reconciliation process – listening to, and learning from, Indigenous people’s perspective of the past. It is also the second step in the Two-Eyed CSM analysis, positioning my research question in the context of the communities with whom I study and work.

It was clear in the TRC reports that these foundational legal and political Crown-Indigenous and Nation-to-Nation relationships must be reconciled. It was also clear that these were not the only relationships that mattered. I focus on the TRC case study to consider whether and how these cues from formative context influenced the work of Commissioners as administrators. The line of questioning I follow in this thesis asks how the Commissioners made sense of the discourses in order to enact reconciliation-oriented change. And, to what extent were their choices helped or hindered by other related processes outlined in the Settlement Agreement that potentially conflated the meaning of truth and/or reconciliation?

The historical review helps to identify policy gaps and reinforces the value of the CRGBA framework. It clarifies the reasons CRGBA prioritizes the need to account for politically distinct identities, i.e., distinctions-based policy, and to be trauma-informed. In the next chapter, I will review the goals set out for the TRC. They were extensive, complex, and ambitious (James, 2022; Nagy, 2014; Stanton, 2017). I use questions presented in the CRGBA framework to evaluate the extent to which the TRC was designed to be culturally relevant to Indigenous claimants (former IRS Students and their families) drawing on the resources provided (NWAC, 2020, 2021, 2022).

 

 

Discussion Questions/Activities 

TO DO LATER – CREATE QUESTIONS AND ACTIVITIES 

Explore the significance of Indigenous identity and traditional governance in business planning (ACTIVITY?)