March 6, 2021
The Canadian Indian Act is something so horrid, so incredibly unjust, that it has amounted to genocide—plain and simple. The Ministry of Northern Affairs is the federal department tasked with supporting Indigenous peoples (First Nations, Inuit, and Métis) and Northerners in their efforts to improve social well-being, foster economic prosperity, and build healthier, more sustainable communities. But what we have—both in this office and in this document—cannot be the way forward.
This document fills me with such anger that I struggle to find words to describe how I truly feel. The current Liberal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promised reconciliation with the Indigenous peoples of this country. But this “promise” is nothing more than a farce as long as this legislation remains in force. This nightmare needs to be repealed immediately, and a public apology must be issued.
Moreover, every employee of the Ministry—along with their families—since its inception should be forced to live under the same conditions imposed by the Indian Act, for the same length of time into the future as the Act stretches back into history. Only then could even a fraction of true justice be served. I firmly believe that genocide demands some good old Old Testament “eye for an eye” justice. We see this concept reflected in Freemasonry with the story of Hiram Abif and King Solomon, who allowed Hiram’s three murderers to choose their own manner of death.
Outrage aside, as a ten-year-old boy, I often read to escape the loneliness and isolation I felt at school. I read many of Farley Mowat’s books about the North, the Arctic, and the Inuit. In them, Mowat described how the Canadian government forcibly relocated these isolated, close-knit communities away from their traditional hunting and fishing grounds to arbitrary locations chosen by the government. Too often, these moves led to starvation because of the lack of game. Entire communities were wiped out.
In many cases, these “new” settlements were placed on small lakes with no inflowing or outflowing rivers or streams—meaning that if the lakes had fish, there was no natural way for the stock to replenish. That’s right—our Canadian government literally starved its own citizens to death.
And it didn’t stop there. On top of this, Indigenous people also endured what became known as “the scoops”—more accurately described as state-sponsored kidnappings. Children were taken from their homes and placed in residential schools, where they suffered every imaginable form of abuse. It’s impossible to rank one type of abuse as worse than another; what matters is this: we now have several generations of Indigenous parents emotionally crippled by their experiences in these institutions.
Their communities remain haunted by the legacy of residential schools—most notably through high rates of drug and alcohol abuse—which, tragically, has led to further “scoops” in places like Labrador and Newfoundland even in recent years.
In some ways, this is where our two societies converge. Since the time of Noah and the Great Flood—when kingship was said to have descended from heaven—the white man has assumed a sense of superiority. Sometimes it was deserved, but in most cases, it was not. From the Annunaki myths, we learned how to bulldoze our way through everything—especially nature—using technology. As a result, we have created a world of staggering wealth… and staggering disparity.
We live in a world where families must live and work together; parents juggle two or three part-time jobs just to pay the rent—maybe not even the utilities. Our Indigenous populations live in morbid poverty. Both populations—especially our youth—struggle with hope for tomorrow. Among Indigenous youth, hopelessness has reached epidemic levels, often culminating in suicide.
So, is there hope? Can we fix any of this?
I believe there is—if we take a two-pronged approach. What if Indigenous populations around the world led the way? What if we—the white man with our unbelievably stupid, undeserved arrogance—actually shut the hell up and truly asked Indigenous peoples for help?
WI2 Stewards of the Land
What if Indigenous communities united for a common cause and taught us—taught all of us—how to become stewards of the land?
What if?
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