{"id":27712,"date":"2013-01-20T02:48:57","date_gmt":"2013-01-20T02:48:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=27712"},"modified":"2016-08-17T20:08:15","modified_gmt":"2016-08-17T20:08:15","slug":"canada%e2%80%99s-first-nations-time-we-stopped-meeting-like-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=27712","title":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s First Nations: Time we stopped meeting like this"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/americas\/21569708-protests-native-peoples-pose-awkward-questions-their-leaders-and-stephen-harpers\" target=\"_blank\">Canada\u2019s First Nations: Time we stopped meeting like this<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\" target=\"_blank\">The Economist<\/a><br \/>\n2013-01-19<\/p>\n<p><em>Protests by native peoples pose awkward questions for their leaders, and for <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Stephen_Harper\" target=\"_blank\">Stephen Harper\u2019s<\/a> government<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Back in the 18th century British and French settlers in what is now Canada secured peace with the indigenous inhabitants by negotiating treaties under which the locals agreed to share their land in return for promises of support from the newcomers. This practice continued after Canada became self-governing in 1867. These treaty rights were incorporated into the 1982 constitution. The Supreme Court has since said they impose on the federal government \u201ca duty to consult\u201d the First Nations (as the locals\u2019 descendants prefer to be called) before making any changes that impinge on their treaty rights.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.afn.ca\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Assembly of First Nations<\/a>, which represents about 300,000 people living in 615 different reserves, reckons Stephen Harper\u2019s Conservative government has broken the bargain. In protests over the past month they have blocked roads and railways, staged impromptu dances in shopping malls and chanted outside the office of the prime minister. <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Theresa_Spence\" target=\"_blank\">Theresa Spence<\/a>, a <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cree\" target=\"_blank\">Cree<\/a> chief from a troubled reserve in northern Ontario, has taken up residence in a tepee near the parliament buildings in Ottawa, and has refused solid food since December 11th&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;Mr Harper got off to a promising start with the First Nations and Canada\u2019s other aboriginal groups, the mixed-race <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=414\" target=\"_blank\">M\u00e9tis<\/a> and the Arctic <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Inuit\" target=\"_blank\">Inuit<\/a>, when he issued an apology in June 2008 for the treatment their children had suffered in residential schools (they were separated from their families and often abused). The prime minister promised a new relationship based on \u201ccollective reconciliation and fundamental changes\u201d&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/americas\/21569708-protests-native-peoples-pose-awkward-questions-their-leaders-and-stephen-harpers\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Canada\u2019s First Nations: Time we stopped meeting like this The Economist 2013-01-19 Protests by native peoples pose awkward questions for their leaders, and for Stephen Harper\u2019s government Back in the 18th century British and French settlers in what is now Canada secured peace with the indigenous inhabitants by negotiating treaties under which the locals agreed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,1467,8,3015,26],"tags":[13430,6366],"class_list":["post-27712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-canada","category-law","category-media-archive","category-native-americans","category-politics","tag-stephen-harper","tag-the-economist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27712"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48727,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27712\/revisions\/48727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}