Police Misconduct: Rule of law

Stop using the “rule of law” as a weapon against Indigenous peoples

This past, February protests against people so that settlers won’t have to be steal an estimated 20,000 Indigenous the RCMP’s attempts to remove inconvenienced. children from their families, often to Wet’suwet’en traditional leadership be sold (yes, sold) to white families in from their homeland had support across Throughout this history of Canada and urban centres. Canada. First Nation and other allies British North America, the rule of law set up blockades on railways, bridges, has been used by colonial governments Until 1994, the rule of law mandated and public buildings across Canada. to renege on their treaty obligations. that many Indigenous people be sent to like a superhero to ‘do justice’ politicians and editorial pages are not Residential Schools, where many were As the civil disobedience grew and Until 1951, the rule of law prohibited beaten, abused, and had their language began to affect urban Canadians, First Nations from hiring lawyers to and culture stolen from them. many of whom found themselves protect their rights. inconvenienced in this way In 1988 and 1995, the rule of for the first time, a new refrain law allowed police to murder JJ began. Politicians and the media, . . . Well into the 1980s, the rule of Harper and Dudley George — just including the Globe and Mail’s two of the countless Indigenous editorial board, demanded that law enabled the federal and provincial people killed by police in Canada’s the “rule of law” be enforced. history. The “rule of law,” we are told, is governments to steal an estimated 20,000 threatened by protestors blocking In 2018, the rule of law allowed railways and defying injunctions. Indigenous children from their families, Canada’s youth jails to be filled At best, these voices treat the often to be sold (yes, sold) children, despite Indigenous rule of law as if it is a neutral, children only being eight per cent amorphous thing, swooping in to white families in urban centres. of the population. when The Law demands. But In February, the rule of law was law is not neutral. This is never being used to justify ignoring the truer than when it affects Indigenous Until 1951, the rule of law required laws of the Wet’suwet’en government, peoples that Canadian and British law First Nations people to get permission and to crack down on protesters have spent centuries oppressing. from the local “Indian Agent” if they across the country expressing their wanted to leave their reserve or get a concern with the federal government’s The invocations of the rule of law by job. conduct. with nearly 50 per cent Indigenous simply innocent pleas to neutrality and From the late 1950s until well into Governments of all stripes love to lawfulness, they’re self-serving calls to the 1980s, the rule of law enabled the talk about reconciliation and moving once again disenfranchise Indigenous federal and provincial governments to forward from the abuses of the past.