“Treatment of Indians Is Declared Unfair,” The Globe and Mail. November 28, 1938. Page 5.
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W. R.Brown of Port Arthur Claims Treaties Broken ‘Every Day’; Says Hunting Right Are Taken Away
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NO ATROCITIES FOUND
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Speaking with the authority of ten years experience as Indian agent, and a lifetime devoted to the interests of Indians in Thunder Bay, Alderman W. Russell Brown of Port Arthur in an interview yesterday charged that Canadian Indians are not receiving fair treatment from the governments that are sworn to protect their rights.
‘There are no atrocities being perpetrated on our Indians,’ he said, ‘in spite of what the Nazi press might charge. But there is ample evidence that these people are not treated fairly and that the treaties signed with their forefathers are being broken by our governments every day.’
Lost Hunting Rights
Mr. Brown cited particularly the fact that Indians have been deprived of their hunting rights throughout Canada despite treaties which granted them unrestricted hunting and fishing privileges ‘for ever.’
‘The Dominion government still pays $4 per head to the Indians under these treaties,’ he declared, ‘but it does not interference when Ontario government officials arrest, fine and jail Indians for shooting game.’
He quoted a press report in which Hon. Harry Nixon, provincial secretary, was reported as saying, ‘We intend to take every step possible to meet the menace offered by Indians to animals in the north. We intend to fight to the limit the claim that Indians have the right to hunt under an old treaty.’ The attitude was laudable enough from a standpoint of conservation, Mr. Brown maintained, but it was resulting in serious privation for Indians.
Indians’ Attitude
‘The Indian, whose livelihood depends on his right to hunt and fish, finds this very unfair,’ he said. ‘His contention is that, when the Ontario government takes money from him in fines it virtually amounts to theft.’
He told of an instance last winter when a treaty Indian in Port Arthur was convicted of killing a moose to feed his half-starved family, and pointed to the case as an example of injustices being wrought throughout the province.
‘The people of Canada should not forget the way our Indian population rallied to the colors during the Great War,’ he said. ‘They went from every province in Canada, and in my own district the Indian boys came out of the bush to enlist in the three battalions we sent, while in some parts of Canada young men were going into the bush to escape enlistment. All Indian soldiers were volunteers, as they were exempt from conscription, and their attitude in our time of need entitles them to some consideration now.’
Went to Ottawa.
‘A few weeks ago, ‘Alderman Brown continued, ‘the Indians of the Lake of the Woods area sent a delegation of four chiefs with an interpreter to Ottawa, to protest to the Department of Indian Affairs about the way their hunting rights were being taken away. They represented 3,000 Indians and travelled hundreds of miles, but although they stayed in Ottawa for six days, they were informed that the Minister was too busy to see them. Had these men represented 3,000 voters they would, no doubt, have been granted the courtesy of an interview.’
Alderman Brown, who was honored by the Ojibway Indians some years ago by being made Chief Clear Sky - an honorary chieftain of their band - has studied the Robinson-Superior Treaty thoroughly. He expressed the conviction that the Indians would be granted their treaty nights if the case were taken to the Privy Council.
‘The Dominion Government won’t take the case there,’ he said. ‘They will not bother with these simple, loyal people. And, of course, the Indians cannot raise the funds themselves.’
[AL: Of course, the language is racist, the attitude is deeply paternalist and not ‘radical’ in its critique, and the speaker was an Indian Agent, the very official tasked with supervising and controlling the reservation system and First Nations bands. But this is a pretty excellent example that settlers in Canada knew full well decades and decades ago that settler colonialism involves ignoring or violating legal treaties and depriving Indigenous people of their livelihood and rights.]
