Blowing the Whistle

The problems that beset the majority of Canada’s aboriginal communities are so large, diffuse and apparently intractable that few citizens—aboriginal or non-aboriginal— and fewer government agencies have the energy and fortitude to pursue solutions. Arguably the last federal government that had a clear plan of action was that of Pierre Trudeau in 1968–72. Minister of Indian Affairs Jean Chrétien’s 1969 white paper was the final push in an effort at assimilation that had animated Canadian aboriginal policy for a century, and that was most clearly expressed in 1920 by Duncan Campbell Scott, then superintendent general of Indian affairs: “I want to get rid of the Indian problem ... Our object is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department.” This goal was supported by the church missions that developed the residential school systems, and by the majority of...