“Aboriginal Fatigue”

The federal government repeatedly ignored key safeguards meant to ensure that legitimate Indigenous businesses would benefit from a multi-billion-dollar procurement program, a watchdog’s investigation has shown.

In a report made public Thursday, the Office of the Procurement Ombud said Indigenous Services Canada showed a “systemic disregard” for the principles behind the Procurement Strategy for Indigenous Business (PSIB), repeatedly failed to verify companies awarded work were Indigenous-owned, and failed to keep track of how the decades-old program actually benefitted Indigenous businesses.

A historic prairie homestead once dedicated to celebrating 19th-century settlement is now being recast to emphasize “inequities on the Prairies,” including the treatment of indigenous people, according to a new federal management plan tabled in Parliament.

Blacklock’s Reporter says the plan for the Motherwell National Historic Site calls for a shift away from its traditional focus on European homesteaders toward what Parks Canada describes as “diverse storytelling” and expanded narratives.

h/t Patti Jo

The secret agent was code numbered A-828.

Intelligence reports say the person was a “reliable source who is well acquainted with National Indian Brotherhood members.” An informer. And not just any informer. “Reliable” meant the person was a proven asset. So who were they?

A-828 was a spy for the RCMP Security Service, an infiltrator who in the 1970s penetrated the Assembly of First Nations’ predecessor while internationally respected Secwépemc leader George Manuel was national chief. From inside NIB, the spy leaked details about Manuel’s movements, private conversations, sensitive political plans, divisions in his office and more.

The RCMP’s commissioner says he expresses sincere regret for an extensive spying program that targeted hundreds of Indigenous people.

It’s the first time Mike Duheme acknowledged reporting by CBC Indigenous concerning RCMP surveillance activities dating back to the late 1960s against Indigenous leaders and organizations.

“We recognize the serious concerns that this history continues to raise for Indigenous Peoples, families and communities across Canada,” Duheme wrote in a statement published Wednesday.

Canada is rapidly abandoning a principle that has shaped western democracies since the Enlightenment: the idea that no person or group has privileged access to sacred or divine knowledge unavailable to everyone else.

Now, this principle is being threatened by Canada’s increasing embrace of “Indigenous Knowledge”— whereby knowledge is treated as collectively owned and restricted by ancestry rather than something open to examination and shared across society.

A Waterloo parent is taking a school board to court over its policy requiring mandatory land acknowledgements at council meetings, arguing the rule violates freedom of conscience and silences debate.

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms is backing Geoffrey Horsman in a judicial review against the Waterloo Region District School Board, with cross-examinations scheduled for Wednesday.

Incognito

But it doesn’t seize private land and give it to the Musqueam, either

The recent agreement between the Government of Canada and the Musqueam Nation in B.C. recognizing Musqueam rights and title “within” much of Metro Vancouver has elusive qualities. Those discussing it have struggled to know what to make of it and have ended up with some polarized depictions of it.

Both sides’ versions have problems.

Homeowners in the Vancouver area should know that the title to their land hasn’t been taken away from them by the Mark Carney government. That said, an expert in constitutional law and Indigenous rights said he understands why people are anxious when they hear about the recently signed agreement between Ottawa and the Musqueam Indian Band in the Vancouver area.

Shortly after British settlers established the Colony of Vancouver Island in 1849, governor James Douglas signed a flurry of treaties with the region’s First Nations to secure lands for fur trapping, mining and other activities.

Known as the Douglas Treaties, the 14 agreements between 1850 and 1854 might have seemed at the time like a template for future arrangements with British Columbia’s Indigenous peoples, who occupied lands stretching from modern-day Vancouver to the northern border with Yukon. Instead, the province stopped signing such agreements — a result of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s refusal to continue funding negotiations — and reached virtually no other treaties for the next 150 years.