NEWS

NEWS Lawyer accuses Canada of “legislated apartheid”

by Charlie Smith

AMétis lawyer seeking a federal NDP nomination in Vancouver Centre says that Canada’s Constitution is profoundly racist against Indigenous people.

In an interview with the Georgia Straight, Breen Ouellette described Section 91(24) of the British North America Act as “legislated apartheid”. Section 91(24) granted the federal government authority over “Indians, and Lands reserved for the Indians”.

“ ere are multiple remedies, and I am currently investigating them,” Ouellette said. e British North America Act took effect on July 1, 1867, uniting Nova Scotia and New Brunswick with Quebec and Ontario in a new Dominion called Canada. e Constitution Act, 1982, granted Canada the right to amend the Constitution, added a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and recognized and a rmed existing Aboriginal and treaty rights. e consolidation of these two acts, described as the Constitution Acts 1867 to 1982, comprise Canada’s Constitution.

According to Ouellette, who lost to Liberal MP Hedy Fry in Vancouver Centre in 2019, Section 91(24) of the British North America Act is “the basis for every act of genocide that Canada has committed or continues to commit against Indigenous people”.

“And it’s the basis of authority for every crime against humanity that Canada has committed or continues to commit against Indigenous peoples,” Ouellette added.

Section 91 de nes Parliament’s powers, whereas Section 92 de nes various powers of the provincial legislatures.

“If you review the list of powers, they deal with classes of property or property relationships—except for subsection 24 of Section 91,” Ouellette noted. “Subsection 24 lists Indians and lands reserved for the Indians as a class of property under the control of the federal government.

“It’s a racial distinction in the highest law of Canada and it meets the de nition of apartheid, which is one of the crimes against humanity listed in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.”

Ouellette said it’s a “very disgusting idea” that Indigenous people would be treated in the country’s foundational document as “property to be controlled”. Yet he claimed that this is the only way that Section 91(24) can be interpreted, based on the classes of subjects listed in sections 91 and 92.

“It’s currency, it’s the post o ce, it’s patents, it’s copyright,” Ouellette explained. “ ese are items of property, or in the case of marriage, that’s a property relationship.”

Similarly, he argued that the reason naturalization and aliens were listed in Section 91 was because Canada “wants to control the property relationship of foreigners within its borders”.

Fi een Canadian lawyers recently signed a letter to the International Criminal Court in e Hague asking it to open a preliminary examination into Canada’s Indian residential-school system. Ouellette, however, pointed out that the International Criminal Court only prosecutes individuals, not states or departments or organizations or corporations. erefore, the International Criminal Court cannot address the fundamental problem of Section 91(24), Ouellette said.

“To change things systematically, you need something like the International Court of Justice to come in because they deal with states,” he said. e International Court of Justice was established by the United Nations charter in 1945 and is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations.

“Potentially, they could order Canada to repeal Section 91(24), to repeal the Indian Act, to repeal the Doctrine of Discovery [justifying the seizure of land not inhabited by Christians] and terra nullius [a Latin expression meaning the land belonged to nobody], to repeal the Royal Proclamation of 1763, and…to overrule all Supreme Court decisions that treat Indigenous peoples as a class—a racial class—subject to di erent rules and laws than other Canadians,” Ouellette said. g

Former NDP candidate Breen Ouellette hopes to run for his party again in Vancouver Centre.

And it’s the basis…for every crime against humanity that Canada has committed…

– Vancouver lawyer Breen Ouelle e July 22-29 / 2021

6 COVER

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