|
Quotations from RCAP Volume 1:
Looking forward, Looking Back
|
- "In Volume 1 we turn our attention to Canadian history....We argue that consideration of this history will surely persuade the thoughtful reader that the false assumptions and abuses of power that have pervaded Canada's treatment of Aboriginal people are inconsistent with the morality of an enlightened nation." p. 3
- "The starting point for renewing the relationship, urged upon Commissioners by Aboriginal people speaking to us in hearings across the country, must be deliberate action to "set the record straight". With few exceptions, the official record of Canada's past - recorded in government documents, in the journals and letters of traders and colonial officers, in history books and in court judgements - ignores and negates Aboriginal people's view of themselves and their encounters with settler society." P. 7
- "Negotiation and renewal to establish a more just relationship have begun [albeit with faltering steps]. But if the process is to gather momentum and be sustained, the misconceptions of the past… must give way to more authentic [Aboriginal] accounts of their origins and identities… The scope of the undertaking we are proposing should be Canada-wide [and] firmly under the direction of Aboriginal people, mobilizing the efforts and contributions of granting agencies, academics and educational and research institutions, private donors, publishing houses, artists and most important Aboriginal nations and their communities." Pp. 237/8
- "Four false assumptions are starkly revealed by the policies examined in this part:
"1. The first held Aboriginal people to be inherently inferior and incapable of governing themselves.
"2. The second was that treaties and other agreements were, by and large, not covenants of trust and obligation but devices of statecraft, less expensive and more acceptable than armed conflict. Treaties were seen as a form of bureaucratic memorandum of understanding, to be acknowledged formally but ignored frequently. All four areas of policy or action ran roughshod over treaty obligations.
"3. The third false assumption was that wardship was appropriate for Aboriginal peoples, so that actions deemed to be for their benefit could be taken without their consent or their involvement in design or implementation.
"4. The fourth was that concepts of development, whether for the individual or the community, could be defined by non-Aboriginal values alone. This assumption held whether progress was seen as Aboriginal people being civilized and assimilated or, in later times, as resource development and environmental exploitation.
"The fact that many of these notions are no longer formally acknowledged does not lessen their contemporary influence. As we will see, they still significantly underpin the institutions that drive and constrain the federal Aboriginal policy process." Pp 248-9
- "As Aboriginal people have told us, the past might be forgiven but it cannot be forgotten. It infuses the present and gives shape to Canadian institutions, attitudes and practices that seriously impede their aspirations to assume their rightful place in a renewed Canadian federation. Only if Canada admits to the fundamental
|
|
