Idle No More: Indigenous Protest Movement Confronts Canada’s Inconvenient Truth

• • Canada, civil rights, indigenous, inequality, racism, social justice, social movements

Métis activist Chelsea Vowel brilliantly captures the essence of a grassroots indigenous movement currently unfolding in Canada:

Although thousands of indigenous people all over Canada rallied together under the banner of ‘Idle No More’ … there has been very little media coverage on the movement. Most of what is being said in the mainstream media is focused on Bill C-45. I’d like to make it clear…they’re getting it wrong … Canada, this is not just about Bill C-45 … In short, Idle No More’s Manifesto is what we have always been talking about, whether the particular focus has been on housing, or education or the environment, or whatever else. What lies at the heart of all these issues is our relationship with Canada. And Canada? This relationship is abusive … I can go find dismal statistics on pretty much any aspect of life for indigenous peoples in this country; trot them all out and say, ‘look it’s really bad’ and you will nod and say, ‘wow it sure is’, but that still won’t make it clear for you. I need you – WE need you, to see the forest and not just the trees.

The “forest” to which Vowel refers is the on-going colonial relationship Canada retains with its indigenous population, a relationship many Canadians believe no longer exists. Or, like Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a relationship they conveniently deny or ignore, precisely because it does not serve their economic interests.

The message of the Idle No More Movement is an inconvenient truth – a threat to the Canadian government’s neoliberal agenda.

As Vowel puts it:

It is time for Canada to end discriminatory approaches dating back to colonial times and honor the rights of indigenous peoples as secured in Canadian and international law.

April Blackbird is a sociology honours student and politics major at the University of Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada and a First Nations activist. Kimberley A. Ducey is a faculty member in the Department of Sociology, University of Winnipeg.

“We Contend”: Manifesto of a Grassroots Indigenous Movement

• • Canada, human rights, indigenous, inequality, Native American, politics, racism

On 28 January 2013 Idle No More protesters gathered in no fewer than 30 Canadian cities. They were joined by solidarity protests around the world as the indigenous grassroots movement marked a global day of action.

The movement’s Manifesto reads as follows:

We contend that: The Treaties are nation to nation agreements between The Crown and First Nations who are sovereign nations. The Treaties are agreements that cannot be altered or broken by one side of the two Nations. The spirit and intent of the Treaty agreements meant that First Nations peoples would share the land, but retain their inherent rights to lands and resources. Instead, First Nations have experienced a history of colonization which has resulted in outstanding land claims, lack of resources and unequal funding for services such as education and housing.

We contend that: The state of Canada has become one of the wealthiest countries in the world by using the land and resources. Canadian mining, logging, oil and fishing companies are the most powerful in the world due to land and resources. Some of the poorest First Nations communities have mines or other developments on their land but do not get a share of the profit. The taking of resources has left many lands and waters poisoned – the animals and plants are dying in many areas in Canada. We cannot live without the land and water. We have laws older than this colonial government about how to live with the land.

We contend that: Currently, this government is trying to pass many laws so that reserve lands can also be bought and sold by big companies to get profit from resources. They are promising to share this time…Why would these promises be different from past promises? We will be left with nothing but poisoned water, land and air. This is an attempt to take away sovereignty and the inherent right to land and resources from First Nations peoples.

We contend that: There are many examples of other countries moving towards sustainability, and we must demand sustainable development as well. We believe in healthy, just, equitable and sustainable communities and have a vision and plan of how to build them. Please join us in creating this vision.

A rather malicious reaction to the Idle No More Movement concerns the widely held belief that “it is about time these people moved out of the past and into the 21st century”. Just assimilate and get over it! After all, conventional “wisdom” suggests that white Europeans “conquered” the “Indians.” This is, of course, propaganda.

Contrary to popular belief, indigenous peoples did not surrender their land or sovereignty to the Europeans. Treaties were a scheme devised by the white man to circumvent costly Indian Wars, like those ensuing in the American West (see also here). Moreover, it was believed that once whites “killed the Indian and saved the man,” the treaties would prove unnecessary because supposedly all indigenous peoples would become “civilized” and assimilate into white society.

The white man believed indigenous peoples were just that docile! The white man was wrong!

Aaron Paquette, one of Canada’s premiere First Nations artists, recently captured just how erroneous this thinking was when discussing the Idle No More Movement. He asks: “why are Canada’s Indigenous Peoples the only ones who are standing up? Why are they now the World’s Protectors?”

Paquette continues:

This is much greater than angry protesting natives, this is about becoming aware. First they gutted the sciences, long term studies that would help us understand our ecosystem better so we could develop more responsibly, and no one said a word. Then they cut funding for our shared history and those who work to preserve it, while at the same time dumping tens of millions of dollars into celebrating a British colony war that happened before we were even a country, and still no one said anything. Then the world was made aware of the shameful conditions for small children growing up on underfunded, polluted Reservations. A small murmur and then nothing. And now, because of the apathy they see, this government has taken galling steps to sell out our wilderness, our resources and sovereignty. And not even to the highest bidder. It’s a yard sale with no regard for responsibility or care for anyone who might be negatively affected (in other words, all of us). From millions of protected waterways a couple weeks ago, we now have hundreds. Yes, you read that right.

As Kent McNeil, professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University (Toronto) has argued, the Idle No More Movement deserves the thanks of all Canadians as it has exposed a lack of respect for aboriginal and treaty rights on the part of the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

April Blackbird is a sociology honours students and politics major at the University of Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada and a First Nations activist. Kimberley A. Ducey is a faculty member in the Department of Sociology, University of Winnipeg.

“Our Values”: White Eurocentric Framings of Muslims

• • anti-Middle Eastern, Canada, culture, Middle Eastern Americans, Muslim Americans, United States, white privilege, white racial frame



The International Association for the Study of Canada (a division of the Association for Canadian Studies) and the Canadian Race Relations Foundationrecently commissioned the firms Leger Marketing in Canada and Caravan in the U.S. to ask several questions concerning immigration, integration, and diversity, which included the following question: Do you strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, or strongly disagree that “Muslims share our values.”

In each country some three in ten respondents agree that “Muslims share our values.” Disagreement is somewhat greater in Canada with approximately 55 percent of respondents saying they do not think “Muslims share our values,” compared to 50.3 percent in the U.S.

The survey leads us to raise other, arguably more central questions: Are North Americans, who happen to be Muslim, not part of the collective us?

A survey, even a well-intended one commissioned by groups admirably fighting racism, which includes the phrase “our values” might inadvertently suggest that Muslims are outsiders and/or conjure up the us versus them dichotomy. To borrow from Joe’s excellent post, written on the heels of British Prime Minister David Cameron’s recent speech at the Munich Security Conference

here is some old white-centric framing, with the [‘our’] obviously not including the Muslim … folks, who are othered as a ‘they.’ Presumably this means the [‘our’] are the virtuous … and the stereotyped “they” must conform to this conception of (white European) [values].”

What do Muslims value?

Instead of promoting (deliberately or inadvertently) the idea that Muslims are perpetual foreigners, and/or Islam is antithetical to the professed values of this country’s political culture, we need to educate ourselves. We should not lose sight of the diversity within the Muslim population (or any population for that matter). Muslims who immigrate to Canada do so for a variety of reasons and originate from numerous countries. Islam and Muslims are not new to Canada, though some people who identify as Muslim are new immigrants. The acknowledged history of Muslims in Canada actually dates from the mid-19th century. In fact, the Muslim community is almost as old as Canada itself. Four years after Canada’s founding in 1867, the 1871 Census recorded 13 Muslims among the population.

In the U.S. historical accounts of Muslims include extraordinary tales of African slaves who retained their religion despite great hardship. Furthermore, there are common roots and mutual elements associated with Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which all originate from the Abrahamic tradition (see here and here).

A.G. Noorani in Islam and Jihad: Prejudice versus Reality (Zed Books, 2003) provides fundamental concepts indispensable to offsetting prejudice against Muslims and counterbalancing any tendency to romanticize un-Islamic brutalities of fundamentalists whom he argues are impostors abusing the faith as a political weapon. Similarly, as Dr. Amr Abdalla of the United Nations University for Peace points out, the life of Mohammed (considered the founder of Islam, and regarded by Muslims as a messenger and prophet of God) contains more stories of non-violence and forgiveness then it does militancy; and yet–just like in Christianity—certain stories are emphasized to fit particular political goals and ideologies.

Why does this matter?

The final question we raise is “why this matters,” and why it should matter to those of ‘us,’ such as the writers, who are permanently included in the ‘our.’

It matters because Canadians, like many in the U.S., are not immune to fear, prejudice, and/or even hatred, of Muslims and Islam as a religion. It matters especially at a time when the Canadian federal Christian Heritage Party (CHP) is calling for a national moratorium on immigration from Muslim countries to curb what it deems increasing radical Islamist power. Mike Schouten, a CHP candidate, considers the British Prime Minister’s recent words “powerful” for acknowledging that “multiculturalism has, in essence, been a failure” and demonstrating “just how complacent the West has been towards radical Islam”.

Tessa M. Blaikie is a sociology honours students at the University of Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada. Kimberley A. Ducey is a faculty member in the Department of Sociology, University of Winnipeg.

Four Country Survey on Racial Discrimination

• • Canada, discrimination, Europe, global racism, racism, United States


On 24 January 2011, the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and the Association for Canadian Studies released the results of a four country (Canada, the U.S., Spain, and Germany) survey on racism and discrimination.
Amongst the findings:

• German respondents were more likely than Canadian, American, and Spanish respondents to believe that visible minorities and whites are treated equally in the work place.
• One in three Canadian, American, and Spanish respondents claimed they witnessed a racist incident in the past year.
• Opposition to interracial marriage was lowest in Canada and highest in Spain.
• Spanish and German respondents were more likely than American and Canadian respondents to agree that their national government should take the lead in combating discrimination.

Findings specific to Canada were as follows:

• Canadians were evenly divided over whether racism is on the rise within its borders.
• Québec francophones were more likely to favor living in neighborhoods surrounded by people from the same racial background than any other group in Canada or the U.S. The second most likely to prefer racially homogeneous neighborhoods were white Americans.
• Canadian allophones (who are more likely to include visible minorities) were the most likely to have a preference for racially diverse neighborhoods.

Jack Jedwab, executive director of the Association for Canadian Studies, said the poll results call into question assumptions regarding what motivates a person to select a given neighborhood, stating:

It makes you think about that theory that minorities self-impose segregation on themselves and they are the ones who want to live in clusters or enclaves… This survey suggests the contrary…. It actually suggests that it’s not the allophones or ethnics who prefer living in clusters or enclaves. It is actually the francophones and, to a slightly greater extent than allophones, the anglophones.

Meanwhile, Ayman Al-Yassini, executive director of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation stated

[t]he reality is that Canadians are more aware of the whole issue of racism and discrimination than other countries.

Jedwab concurred, explaining that while the U.S. survey indicates the same proportion of those surveyed view racism as an increasing difficulty, the breakdown within different categories of people produced variations between the countries that are worthy of note.

Canadians were categorized as English, French, or allophone. Half of English Canadians considered racism a growing problem, while that proportion was approximately 40 percent for francophones and allophones. In the U.S., people were categorized as whites, blacks, or Hispanics. Among blacks and Hispanics, more than 55 percent view racism as a growing problem, while 44 percent of whites did. For that reason, Jedwab suggests that Canadians view racism as outside their personal experience, while Americans view the issue more subjectively:

In the United States, it’s more those groups who are expressing the phenomenon through the lens of how they feel they’re affected through those groups. As opposed to in Canada, you’re seeing an assessment being made on the part of English Canadians about what the situation is, not so much as whether they’re affected by it individually.

The study is based on polling by firms in each country. In Canada, Leger Marketing polled 1,707 respondents online between 31 August and 4 September. In the U.S, the online poll of 1,048 respondents was conducted by the Opinion Research Corp. between 30-31 August.

Stephen A. Mutch, Tessa M. Blaikie, Crystal S. Van Den Bussche, and Kyla E. Doll are sociology students at University of Winnipeg (Manitoba, Canada). Kimberley A. Ducey is a faculty member in the Department of Sociology, University of Winnipeg.

Canadian Institutions as Meritocracies, Canada has No History of Colonialism? And Other Myths

• • academic, Asians, Canada, colonialism, education, white privilege



When Maclean’s magazine’s annual University Ranking was released in November 2010, reporters Stephanie Findlay and Nicholas Köhler interviewed students, professors and administrators concerning campus racial balance and its implications. The resulting story was titled: “Too Asian?”

Among those interviewed were Alexandra and Rachel, graduates of Toronto’s Havergal College, an all-girls private school. When deciding which university to attend they

didn’t even bother considering the University of Toronto because, according to the students the “only people from our school who went [there] were Asian. All the white kids … go to Queen’s, Western and McGill.”

A worldwind followed. Comments posted on the Internet and in other media suggested that by publishing the article, Maclean’s viewed Canadian universities as “Too Asian,” and/or that the editorial staff and writers held negative views of Asian students.

The editorial staff at Maclean’s promptly spoke out in response: “Nothing could be further from the truth,” they said, explaining that the title, ‘Too Asian?’ was a direct quote from the name of a 2006 panel discussion at the meeting of the National Association for College Admission Counseling “where experts examined the growing tendency among U.S. university admission officers to view Asian applicants as a homogenous group.”

The editorial staff went on to explain that

the evidence suggests some of the most prestigious schools in the U.S. have abandoned merit as the basis for admission for more racially significant—and racist—criteria.

They go on to state that “the trend toward race-based admission policies in some American schools [is] deplorable.” They then claim that Canadian universities select students regardless of race or creed.

In fact, this stance was distinctly stated in the original article:

Canadian institutions operate as pure meritocracies when it comes to admissions, and admirably so,

Findlay and Köhler wrote.

This Canadian cannot help but be reminded of the prevalence of such myths, which feature both nonsequitur and grotesque denials of historical (and current) injustices. Despite claims of race-neutrality as a preferred ideal, Canada is actually a racialized society – “race” remains a key variable in influencing people’s identities, experiences, and outcomes.

In addition to Canadian institutions purportedly operating as pure meritocracies when it comes to admissions, it seems that we have no history of colonialism either (insert sarcastic tone here). “We also have no history of colonialism,” says Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

In 2009 the Canadian Prime Minister made the above declaration. And let us remember that this is the same Prime Minister who in 2008 made an official government apology for the residential school system that aimed explicitly to obliterate Indigenous culture and identity.

Such outrageous claims are evidence of profound ignorance and pervasive racism-fuelled historical amnesia and denial, which continue to plague Canadian society.

Kyla E. Doll and Crystal S. Van Den Bussche are undergraduates at the University of Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada. Kimberley A. Ducey is a faculty member in the Department of Sociology, University of Winnipeg.

A Heritage of Freedom–For Canadian Whites Only

• • Canada, history, human rights, indigenous, racism, systemic racism, whites

When we recently learned that 30 percent of immigrants are failing the Canadian citizenship test, we wondered how many Canadian-born citizens know enough about this country to qualify for citizenship.

All five of us were born in Canada. How would we rate as potential citizens?

We effortlessly figured out that “the right to ski anywhere in Canada” is not covered by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We were absolutely confident that “mow your lawn” is not one of the six principal responsibilities of citizenship. For the record, the six principal responsibilities of Canadian citizenship are: Obeying the law; taking responsibility for oneself and one’s family; serving on a jury; voting in elections; helping others in the community; and protecting our heritage and environment. The bit concerning the protection of Canadian heritage especially caught our attention, not to mention “helping others in the community.”

In the spirit of “protecting” Canada’s heritage and “helping others,” here are a few snippets from our country’s legacy we think all citizens should know:

The first federal anti-Chinese bill was passed in 1885. It took the form of a Head tax of $50 imposed, with few exceptions, upon every person of Chinese origin entering the country. No other group was targeted in this way.

In 1928, a government official envisaged Canada would end its “Indian problem” within two generations. Church-run, government-funded residential schools for Native children were supposed to prepare them for life in white society. The aims of assimilation actually meant destruction and desolation for those who were subjected to physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. Decades later, Aboriginal people began to share their stories and demand acknowledgement of — and compensation for — their stolen childhoods.

Twelve weeks after 7 December 1941, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbour and later Hong Kong, the federal government, at the instigation of racist British Columbia politicians, used the War Measures Actto order the removal of all Japanese Canadians residing within 160 kilometres of the Pacific coast. The Canadian government claimed that Japanese Canadians were being removed for reasons of “national security,” despite the fact that the removal order was opposed by Canada’s senior military and despite the fact that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officially stated that Japanese Canadians posed no threat to Canada’s security.

Canada likes to think of itself as a sanctuary for the oppressed. However, the Canadian government did everything in its power to bar the door to European Jews trying to flee Nazi persecution.

In 1996, the last federally-operated residential school in Canada closed (Akaitcho Hall in Yellowknife). It is estimated that more than 100,000 Native children aged six and up attended the national network of residential schools from 1930 until 1990.

In Canada, we have “starlight tours,” an euphemism for the “non-sanctioned” police practice of taking Aboriginals to the edge of a town and abandoning them in freezing weather. In 2001, Amnesty International included freezing deaths resulting from these notorious tours in their report of international human rights abuses, marking the first time Canada joined the list. In fact, this list could probably go on forever. If we let it.

Welcome to Canada, the “great” white North (and we don’t mean “white” as in snow).

Tessa M. Blaikie, Kyla E. Doll, Crystal S. Van Den Bussche, and Natalia T. Ilyniak are undergraduates at the University of Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada. Kimberley A. Ducey is a faculty member in the Department of Sociology, University of Winnipeg.

Flying While Black: Border Control, DNA and the Case of the Lips

• • Africa, Canada, discrimination, DNA



After tracing his maternal ancestry in 2005 through genealogical DNA testing, or personal genomics, and finding his ancestral links to the Mende and Temne peoples of Sierra Leone, actor Isaiah Washington attested to his “rebirth” saying he believes that “DNA will finally become the tool to bridge the gap between our brothers and sisters who have been lost.” Earlier this year, now “DNA-branded” [see note at end on this term] as Sierra Leonean, Washington was sworn in as a citizen of that country. Citizenship by way of mitochondrial DNA.

But what about the role of DNA for our brothers and sisters who have been stranded or detained abroad? Enter “the lips case”.

On May 21st 2009, Somali-born Canadian citizen Suaad Hagi Mohamud attempted to board a flight out of Nairobi to return home to Toronto, after a three-week visit to Kenya. Upon inspecting her passport, Dutch KLM airline authorities claimed that her lips looked different than that observed in her four-year-old passport photo, branded her an “imposter” and not the rightful holder of the passport that she presented. Mohamud was detained overnight in the airport. Two Canadian High Commission officials met with her the following morning, told her “you are not Suaad” and confiscated her passport. Mohamud was held in the airport for four days until she was released on a bond, tasked with proving her identity within a two-week time frame.

Canadian High Commission officials did not accept Suaad’s ID cards and she was charged with using a false passport, impersonating a Canadian and with being in Kenya illegally. Subsequently she was jailed by Kenyan authorities from June 3rd to June 11th, facing possible deportation to Somalia. While Mohamud was in limbo in Kenya, Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon was quoted on July 24th as saying, “there is no tangible proof” that Mohamud is Canadian and that “all Canadians who hold passports generally have a picture that is identical in their passport to what they claim to be.”

It wasn’t until Mohamud requested DNA testing through a motion filed before the Canadian Federal Court by her attorney in Toronto, and then had that test conducted on August 10th 2009 that charges against her were dropped. Mohamud’s DNA was compared to that of her Canadian born son, confirming her identity with a probability of 99.99%. She was issued an emergency passport and she boarded a plane to Amsterdam to make her way home to Toronto arriving on August 15th. This DNA verification not only proved who she said she was, but, apparently, determined her citizenship status as well. This case raises the question of “who can be abandoned by the state and by what technological means? and “will this case be used to argue for even more surveillance by way of a genomic encoded passport?”

The Mohamud case reveals that although identification documents function as a key technology in the contemporary management of state sanctioned human mobility, the discretionary power exercised by the customs inspector, and increasingly by the airline official as proxy customs inspector, is a power that makes it plain that, as David Lyon puts it, “all technologies are human activities.” (Identifying Citizens: ID Cards as Surveillance) Meaning, that these technologies of border control (passports, biometrics, airport pre-boarding passenger screening zones) are developed within, put to use and often replicate existing socio-spatial inequalities. (See this deadly example too)

For Mohamud, DNA testing was a technology of hope that allowed her to challenge her abandonment or “racial purging” by the state. The answer to whether Mohamud’s abandonment was racially charged is found in an interview with the CBC where Mohamud contested that

The Canadian High Commission wouldn’t be treating me the way they treat me. If I’m a white person, I wouldn’t be there in one day. I wouldn’t have missed the flight.

Mohamud has since filed a 2.6 million dollar lawsuit against the Canadian government.

Note: Sociologist Patricia Hill Collins uses the term “DNA-branded” in discussing the “freak” show that is ‘Whose Your Daddy?’ episodes of The Maury Povich Show and The Montel Williams Show, where potential fathers are subject to paternity testing and if DNA-branded as father they are subject to the requisite lecture on responsibility by the hosts.

Simone is now tweeting surveillance stories and links at @wewatchwatchers