Canada’s Covenant: Is Justin Trudeau Keeping his Promise to Indigenous Peoples?

Canada has had a lengthy and strained dynamic with its indigenous peoples. Their relationship is built on a foundation of colonialism and has left said First Nations communities without a voice or much needed recognition of the vast history of injustice and inequality they have faced, and currently, the nonconsensual and technically illegal utilization of said peoples’ land for the Canadian government’s economic benefit. This money rarely, if ever, goes
back into benefitting the indigenous peoples who are, it is often argued, the rightful owners of this territory. Justin Trudeau has used the promise of bettering Canada’s relationship with indigenous people, and working toward amending the inexistent acknowledgment of their rights by the administrations previous to his, as an effort to further his political career through ‘reconciliation’. Despite his fervent pledge to create change, Trudeau’s failure to deliver on this promise is now coming back to haunt him.

The past few weeks in Canada have been highlighted by rail barricades across the country as a means of protest by indigenous activists, who are trying to stop a natural gas pipeline from being erected through their territory. Members of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation are trying to halt the almost five-billion-dollar natural gas project from running through their land, which, similarly to many other indigenous territories in British Columbia, has never been signed away on treaty or seized by war, and therefore exists as legally held lands by said peoples. Despite this, Trudeau has been passively allowing major energy projects that will directly encroach on the areas in question and have notable negative environmental repercussions; complicit ventures include construction of the Trans Mountain Pipeline, the Teck Resources Ltd.’s Frontier oil sands project, and of course the Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline. This continued ambivalence toward the legitimacy of indigenous Canadians’ right to their land and recognition of their autonomy has reached a boiling point with the latest protests, and has resulted in clashes between protestors and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The RCMP has now been accused of using tactics like enforcing ID
checks, conducting searches and raids on activists, and restricting access to the territory by denying entrance to residents, media, legal counsel, and even
food deliveries, all being actions they are not legally authorized to do.

Despite the fear of arrest and unfair treatment by Canadian law enforcement, growing support across the country for the Wet’suwet’en people can be seen in the other First Nations also taking up the fight against the government of Justin Trudeau. The Tyendinaga Mohawk have obstructed commuter and freight
rail traffic in Ontario as a display of solidarity for the Wet’suwet’en, and in other parts of Canada, protestors have blocked roads and access to shipping
ports, occupied elected officials’ offices, and essentially echoed the outrage felt by indigenous groups\ on a nationwide scale.

This conflict between Trudeau’s government and the First Nations has reached a peak, and it is may yet force Trudeau to keep his word about amending legislation to benefit them. Trudeau has remained painfully indecisive on which side he is on, with the aforementioned promise to address the inequities of First Nation Peoples and advocate for their causes, yet simultaneously succumbing to the pressure of the Conservative opposition to clear the tracks
via a court injunction allowing police to start disbanding protestors and stop the activists from “holding the economy hostage”. Trudeau’s support for peaceful protests, however, which is garnished in critique of their rail blockades, will not stand much longer, as the Indigenous Peoples of Canada deserve acknowledgement of their agency, autonomy, and the long-overdue respect from the Canadian government, and they will continue their protests until meaningful change is enacted.

The idleness of Trudeau’s government toward implementing reform that will improve the lives of First Nation communities in Canada is readily evident in the continual economic takeover of their land, but it goes so much deeper than that, and signifies the multitudes that these protests truly represent. Even though Trudeau’s government has doubled the funding for health services, education, and housing for indigenous peoples, distinct disparities still remain. Statistics show that nearly 50% of indigenous children in Canada live in poverty, and that has direct correlation to long-term disadvantages in mental and physical health, as well as employment opportunities for said population. This begs the question, why is Canada’s Prime Minister and his administration failing so drastically to implement the legislative improvements it promised, and seemingly wants to enforce?

I think at its core, this failure boils down to a word I touched on earlier: reconciliation. Due to Trudeau’s negligence to define what that word embodies in practice, as well as the countless interpretations of what it theoretically constitutes, his proposal of reconciliation is a non-success thus far because for First Nation communities, the deep and continuing colonial basis of their relationship with Canada is something that ongoingly exists in their daily lives as seen in the previously mentioned statistics, and challenging this colonial foundation cannot be achieved in one policy measure or a single bill passing, which is what Trudeau perhaps hoped to do with his promise of ‘reconciliation’.

This is not to say that the slight improvement on relationships between indigenous communities  and the Canadian government are not important steps
in the right direction, but they must also be married with a commitment to tangible and substantial change over a long period of time. The Prime Minister has yet to deliver on that despite his assurances of such, which have been a key attribute to his election and re-election. In essence, Canada’s domestic politics have
reached their crescendo, and its citizens are watching to see what side of history their leader is going to be on.

Banner image courtesy of Anna St. Onge via Wikimedia, © 2020, some rights reserved.