Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (1919-2000), Aboriginal and Treaty Rights meeting, Vancouver, 1969: one of the things the Indian bands often refer to are their Aboriginal rights and in our policy, the way we propose it, we say we won’t recognize Aboriginal rights. We will recognize treaty rights. We will recognize forms of contract which have been made with the Indian people by the Crown and we will try to bring justice in that area and this will mean that perhaps the treaties shouldn’t go on forever. It’s inconceivable, I think, that in a given society one section of the society have a treaty with the other section of the society. We must be all equal under the laws and we must not sign treaties among ourselves. And many of these treaties, indeed, would have less and less significance in the future anyhow, but things that in the past were covered by the treaties…things like so much twine, or so much gun powder and which haven’t been paid, this must be paid. But I don’t think that we should encourage the Indians to feel that their treaties should last forever within Canada so that they be able to receive their twine or their gun powder. They should become Canadians as all other Canadians and if they are prosperous and wealthy they will be treated like the prosperous and wealthy and they will be paying taxes for the other Canadians who are not so prosperous and not so wealthy whether they be Indians or English Canadians or French or Maritimers and this is the only basis on which I see our society can develop as equals. But aboriginal rights, this really means saying, “We were here before you. You came and you took the land from us and perhaps you cheated us by giving us some worthless things in return for vast expanses of land and we want to re-open this question. We want you to preserve our aboriginal rights and to restore them to us.” And our answer—it may not be the right one and may not be one which is accepted but it will be up to all of you people to make your minds up and to choose for or against it and to discuss with the Indians—our answer is “no.” ‘ Source: webcache.googleusercontent/search?q=cache:courses.yukoncollege.yk.ca/~agraham/nost202/trud1.htm Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (1919-2000), Aboriginal and Treaty Rights meeting, Vancouver, 1969: one of the things the Indian bands often refer to are their Aboriginal rights and in our policy, the way we propose it, we say we won’t recognize Aboriginal rights. We will recognize treaty rights. We will recognize forms of contract which have been made with the Indian people by the Crown and we will try to bring justice in that area and this will mean that perhaps the treaties shouldn’t go on forever. It’s inconceivable, I think, that in a given society one section of the society have a treaty with the other section of the society. We must be all equal under the laws and we must not sign treaties among ourselves. And many of these treaties, indeed, would have less and less significance in the future anyhow, but things that in the past were covered by the treaties…things like so much twine, or so much gun powder and which haven’t been paid, this must be paid. But I don’t think that we should encourage the Indians to feel that their treaties should last forever within Canada so that they be able to receive their twine or their gun powder. They should become Canadians as all other Canadians and if they are prosperous and wealthy they will be treated like the prosperous and wealthy and they will be paying taxes for the other Canadians who are not so prosperous and not so wealthy whether they be Indians or English Canadians or French or Maritimers and this is the only basis on which I see our society can develop as equals. But aboriginal rights, this really means saying, “We were here before you. You came and you took the land from us and perhaps you cheated us by giving us some worthless things in return for vast expanses of land and we want to re-open this question. We want you to preserve our aboriginal rights and to restore them to us.” And our answer—it may not be the right one and may not be one which is accepted but it will be up to all of you people to make your minds up and to choose for or against it and to discuss with the Indians—our answer is “no.” ‘
Posted on: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 21:27:38 +0000
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