Rationing Arbitrarily
I got my first byline in the Toronto Star in May 2024 but the piece I wrote only tells a part of the story I managed to find. Here's what I didn't write but wished I could have.
I didn’t grow up on my reserve. I grew up in town, next to the reserve. I spent enough time there as a kid. I swam and played and powwow’ed there like many of other little nishnobs of Couchiching. But not growing up there always made me an outsider, no matter what my grandparents or my Certificate of Indian Status or my Indian Affairs issued eye glasses told me about myself.
My mom is a C-31’er — someone who regained her Indian status as a result of Canada’s amendment to the Indian Act in 1985. She lost her status because she married a White Guy (the jokes on all of us, turns out my dad was a Status Indian too, he just didn’t know until about 10 years ago). I remember my mom dragging me to Couchiching for the government’s reversal of policy — I don’t know if there was fish or moose meat or Treaty money involved, but I do remember it being an event of some sort. Also, what an event, eh? We opted into state-sanctioned oppression just to score some free (third-rate) dental coverage and a pair of glasses (if you need such things) every few years. Thanks, colonization.
Bill C-31 was an amendment to the Indian Act meant to end gender discrimination for Indigenous women. It’s goal was to give them equality rights guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. C-31 allowed women who lost their status because they married a non-native man (the inverse gave non-native women status when they married native men, because, well, who the fuck knows), to regain their Indian Status and give their children Indian status.
In short, this was the government’s attempt to make good on reversing their racist and discriminatory attempt at legislating assimilation and forcing enfranchisement on Indigenous women and their families.
In 1980, Pierre Trudeau was re-elected as Prime Minister and vowed to seal up the country with a maple syrup-drenched Canadian flag and a staunch Federalist stance against the growing separatist movement in Quebec.
After a hard-fought 18-month battle from coast to coast to coast, Trudeau came out the victor, and on April 17, 1982, Queen Elizabeth II signed the country over to Canada in the British Parliament. Until then, Canada was a British state living under the British North America Act.
With a crispy new constitution in its back pocket, the pressure was on Canada to do right by First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. They promised they’d do so and now they were on the clock.
Throughout Canada’s efforts to patriate the constitution, Canada talked a big game and told the Queen, haha, the Queen, they’d uphold their political, legal, and fiduciary responsibilities to our people. Since Canada’s earliest days, it has found it nearly impossible to live up to the promises it made to Indigenous Peoples.
This country could not afford these responsibilities then, and they can’t afford them now.
Had they been able to live up to the promises they made then, maybe I’d have grown up on my reserve. Had that happened, how would my life have been different? Would I have spoke my language? How do you measure spiritual and emotional loss as a result of disconnect to the places we are from as Indigenous Peoples?
You Created This Mess, You Clean It Up
While Pierre Trudeau presented himself as a beaver hat-wearing Canadian hero post patriation, patriation of the constitution actually created a whole new set of problems for Canada.
[insert the duh duh duh dread sound effect here]
The dreaded “Indian problem” that Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald warned the confederate fathers about had arrived at the front door of the country in a brand new way.
Section 35 (s.35) of Canada’s constitution act formally entrenched Aboriginal rights and title into the constitution, a concession Trudeau reluctantly made and one that Queen Victoria held him to citing the Treaties that helped settle the country.
Section 35 - Canada’s Constition Act
(1) The existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada are hereby recognized and affirmed.
(2) In this Act, aboriginal peoples of Canada includes the Indian, Inuit and Métis peoples of Canada.
(3) For greater certainty, in subsection (1) treaty rights includes rights that now exist by way of land claims agreements or may be so acquired.
(4) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, the aboriginal and treaty rights referred to in subsection (1) are guaranteed equally to male and female persons.
The important piece to know here is that Canada’s Constitution Act confirmed “existing Aboriginal or treaty rights” that hadn’t been extinguished by surrender or legislation before 1982. Essentially, on paper, it made it harder for Canada to fuck us over when it came to our resources, lands, waters, children, and our lives.
Some people point to s.35 as a big win for Indigenous Peoples in Canada. It is far from that.
While the patriation of Canada’s constitution heightened demands on Canada to allow for more self-determination when it came to First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples, the burden to prove the nature and quality of rights falls on Indigenous Peoples.
Our rights are not presumed by Canada, nor should they be presumed by us. This is why when shit gets real, like really really real, we go to court. More on this later in the piece you’re reading here.
s.35 forced Indigenous Peoples into Canada’s Supreme Courts to defend, prove, and display their historical and modern-day relationship to the places we are from to protect our “constitutionally protected rights” in Canada when it came to rights and title in our homelands.
Recognition in s.35 affirmed we were, something other than Canadians, by legal distinction and who the fuck knows what that meant in the eyes of Joe and Janet Canada, the courts, or the world.
s.35 provided a doorway straight into the courts of this land for Indigenous Peoples to walk through. Because Indigenous land, treaty, and other rights are not presumed by Canada, Indigenous Peoples bare the burden of fighting for their rights on a daily basis.
s.35 was an empty chest of promises, one that Indigenous nations are forced to fill through long, expensive, and exhaustive court battles.
When Did Canada Know This Wasn’t Working?
At the beginning of April 2024, I got the exclusive scoop: a First Nations Housing Class Action lawsuit was moving forward against Canada.
My colleagues and I at the Investigative Journalism Bureau kicked it around for a couple of days, and it was decided I’d take the lead on the story—my first shot at a print story in a major newspaper.
I spent three weeks buried in nearly 4,000 pages of court records, research documents, and other materials to understand the full scope of the housing issue on First Nations.
In short, Canada has never had a plan to support housing on First Nations. Treaty promises be damned, there was never a plan, nor the money, to fulfill those promises.
The issue of housing on First Nations is as old as the country itself.
Let's not start there. Who’s got time for that on a Monday?
Suffice it to say, the first half of the twentieth century was no better than the last fifty years of the nineteenth century for us. The Indian Act and all its oppressive tentacles created misery and made life nearly impossible.
From the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s, Indigenous Peoples’ ways of life, cultures, and communities were utterly destroyed.
Seriously, it’s a miracle we’re still here, but I digress.
I’m going to fast forward to after the Second World War to tell you this story.
Post-Second World War Canada was pressured by its citizenry to build housing and infrastructure as quickly as possible. The need to house the PTSD-laden dads, uncles, and grandpas (and their families) returning from war reached a fever pitch.
(Fuck Nazis, forever.)
For those who fought for this country, they felt they were owed something—rightfully so, I suppose.
The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) was created in 1946 as the successor to the Wartime Housing Corporation. It accelerated the building of houses and apartment blocks from coast to coast and encouraged early capitalists to invest in the creation of Canada.
In a relatively short amount of time, through the leadership of CMHC, Canada built up sprawling towns and cities wherever it could lay a road or rail.
The expansion of infrastructure and white picket fences fronting wartime housing gave Canada a sense of purpose and direction. The settler colonial project was well underway.
There were obvious problems along the way—in many territories and lands, Indians were in the way. The appropriation of lands and the dispossession of Indigenous Peoples across Canada became the status quo. Canada would build itself whether we liked it or not.
The many government departments that ruled over every aspect of Indian life had warned the Crown that it was failing in its legal and fiduciary responsibilities to Indigenous Peoples. The moral and ethical failure was an afterthought. Putting Indians on reserves was a brilliant plan for Canada—out of sight, out of mind. If newly arrived settlers didn’t have to see the Indian problem, they might not believe there was one.
After a report on Indian housing was commissioned by the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Canada in the early 1960s, it was crystal clear that Indian housing fell well below Canada’s National Housing Act standards, and something needed to be done.
The report on First Nations housing illuminated the fact that there wasn’t enough housing, the existing housing was substandard in material and build quality, and the demand for housing was growing far faster than First Nations themselves could manage.
Under Canada’s Constitution, the federal government is responsible for all First Nations lands, including the construction and maintenance of housing on reserves.
Through the 60s and 70s, Indian Affairs and CMHC started to realize how stark the reality was on reserves.
In the 70s, the Feds swapped patchwork and emergency funding for providing housing on First Nations while promoting economic development by First Nations in hopes they’d dig themselves out of the mess Canada created. The problem with this plan, of course, was that Canada could not yet measure the harms it had caused and, perhaps naively, never imagined things would get as bad as they did as a result of their failed policies, legislation, and laws.
They knew that what they had tried up to this point had not worked.
Housing on First Nations was a mirror up to the face of Canada.
After patriating its constitution, Canada found itself in the position it had created. Forcing Indigenous Peoples into being wards of the state, legislating poverty, and essentially making us prisoners in our homelands was an expensive, short-sighted, and greedy choice.
“This country has bills that have yet to be paid.”
-Nelson Barbosa, Director General of Indigenous Services Canada’s (ISC) community infrastructure branch
Canada has never been able to afford the promises it made. Keeping these promises back when they were made would have meant they wouldn’t have had the money to build the country they did at the time. Someone had to pay the price for the creation of this place; Canada never intended to pay the bill itself.
Today, Canada can’t afford to do right by Indigenous Peoples; it would bankrupt the country if they tried to pay the bills.
It literally will never happen.
Rationing Arbitrarily
January 11, 1985.
It’s marked, “secret.”
It’s a Federal government briefing note bringing the Minister of Indian Affairs up to speed on the three options in front of him meant to figure out how to pay for the large increase of registered status Indians in Canada due to a piece of legislation called Bill C-31.
Reading it made my heart sink. There are a few times as a journalist where my life was directly reflected back to me as I worked on the story - this story is no different.
I didn’t grow up on my reserve beceause there was nowhere to live. My mom didn’t have a house on the rez.
It’s a document that unleashes my wildest fears as an Indigenous person in Canada — the Feds have never had the intention of fixing the mess they’ve made because they know they can’t afford to.
The statement of claim reads that, “Canada received consistent advice, including from its own experts, that it was depriving the Plaintiffs and Class members of adequate housing on reserve. Canada was repeatedly told that its funding was grossly inadequate, that its operational procedures were designed to fail First Nations, and that its restrictions on reserve development prevented First Nations from closing the infrastructure gap. Despite this consistent advice, Canada stayed the course, perpetuating a widespread abuse of human rights.”
There is a tension in writing this kind of story for the mainstream media. Editors, necessarily so, want to read the personal anecdotes that help to land the story in a way that will make readers care.
These stories are often the most harrowing, steeped in dark loss and tragedy. Readers, not just in Canada but everywhere, have a morbid fascination with Indigenous pain and trauma.
In the thousands of pages I read to report this story for the IJB and the Toronto Star, I came across a grim reminder of where this country has been and where it is today.
Writing this story taught me about who I am. I had just never considered I was who I was because, well, Canada rations abritrarily.
FURTHER READING
You can read my story in the Toronto Star here.
If you don’t have a subscription to the Toronto Star, you can read it on the Investigative Journalism Bureau website here.
Learn more about First Nations in Canada taking the Federal Governement to court in a $10B Class Action Lawsuit here.
The phrase, the title of your article, is so jaw dropping, and real, I had no idea the Canadian government was so self aware. I was asked in an accounting class to look the income statements and balance sheets of a reserve: unholy amounts of accounts receivable (and huge borrowing costs to keep some bits of cash flowing). And how unholy Canada would rather spend money appealing countless court cases where judgement is made against them on their failure to own up to their responsibilities.