(On the premises of a Residential School for Indians at Kamloops, Western Canada, 215 skeletons have recently been excavated, even some skeletons of 3-year-olds)
MAIDEN AUNT CANADA HOIST ON HER OWN PETARD AGAIN by Glenn Babb
Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue; it needs unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot, like adultery or gluttony, be practised at spare moments; it is a wholetime job. Canada has always sung in the front of the choir ly clear. Prior to the Indian Act (1876 - still in opin the chorus of disapproval of South Africa’s raeration), the Gradual Civilisation Act (1857) recial policies and sniffily regards itself as the frontvealed how the dominion wanted to deal with its runner in the international morality stakes. Many native people. The Indian Act defines an Indian ironies arise from this posture. Firstly, all recent as anyone registered on the Band Register of any research shows how South Africa copied Canada reserve, of which there are 632. The law was conin forming its homeland policy. After the Nationalists came to power and instituted the Tomlinson ceived unblushingly in the policy of a civilising Commission, the government paid special attenmission and allows for forbidding the use of tribal tion to the Canadian model of reserves separating garb, interference in band the natives from the civilisers. councils by the authorities Reports record governmentand forcing hunting to folfunded study tours of Indian re- … all recent research serves. One was a particularly low provincial ordinances. long and detailed tour in 1949 by shows how South Africa Indians, Métis and Inuit are Peter Cook of the South African copied Canada in forming not obliged to register on a Native Affairs Department of the Canadian and US Indian reBand Register but they serves and, later, in 1954, Fred- its homeland policy. forego the subsidies given erick van Wyk, sponsored by the to every registered Indian, Carnegie Corporation who was whose numbers (2016) are only 1 008 955 “interested in knowing something of our native (392.000 living on reserves) of a total of all Indipopulations”. The most significant fell to Ambassador Willem Dirkse van Schalkwyk in 1961/2 ans, Métis and Inuit of 1 673 785, or 4.9% of the who was enthusiastically and proudly accompanational population. The Indians registered on a nied by senior officials of both External and Indian Band Register are called “status” Indians. Affairs. Records of this cooperation emerge from the archives. [Canada’s Apartheid Pierre Bélanger & Kate Yoon, Lapsus Lima November 27, For status Indians, the budget of the Department 2018] Van Schalkwyk’s study coincided with the of Indigenous and Northern Affairs amounted in Transkei’s transition to autonomy in 1963. 2018 to C$7.96 billion. If you do the math, that means a sum of C$7.895 each, for every status Another irony is Canada’s own indecisive and Indian man, woman and child. This does not get floundering policy on “native peoples”. No better given to the recipients – it gets dispensed by a indicator of this is the constant flip-flop in naming huge bureaucracy of 4 000 civil servants in a vast and nomenclatures: Native Peoples, Indians, Esbuilding in Gatineau, Québec, who have an indisputable interest in maintaining the status quo. To kimos, Métis, Inuit, Aborigines, First Nations, rethis amount must be added the free health sercently coming to rest at Indigenous and Northern vices of Canada and Provincial support. Peoples. The original purpose with the indigenous peoples was acculturation and assimilation. The earliest Canadian legislation made this abundant-
With all this goodwill and sloshing money, what
NONGQAI VOL 12 NO 7
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