What we support and defend

[jmm99]

The 4% = Canada's "Total Aboriginal identity population" of 1,172,790. That breaks out to:

"North American Indian single response" of 698,025;

"Metis single response" of 389,785;

"Inuit single response" of 50,480;

"Multiple Aboriginal identity responses" of 7,740;

"Aboriginal responses not included elsewhere" of 26,760.

Source: Statistics Canada.

The two major groupings, "North American Indian" and "Metis", are treated differently legally. Within the "North American Indian" grouping, there are "registered" ("status") and "non-registered" ("non-status") Indians - with very, very different rights under the Indian Act (Wiki; Text of Act), especially the 1985 C-31 Amendment (from the Wiki):

Under this amendment, full status Indians are referred to as 6–1. A child of a marriage between a status (6–1) person and a non-status person qualifies for 6–2 (half) status, but if the child in turn married another 6–2 or a non-status person, the child is non-status. If a 6–2 marries a 6–1 or another 6–2, the children revert to 6–1 status. Blood quantum is disregarded, or rather, replaced with a "two generation cut-off clause". ... According to Thomas King, around half of status Indians are currently marrying non-status people, meaning this legislation accomplishes complete legal assimilation in a matter of a few generations.

Thomas King, The Truth about Stories (2003).

In practical Canadian politics (where votes in the Commons count - and the Crown don't), Labrador has one Innu (not Inuit), Peter Penashue (Conservative); and Quebec, an Innu, Jonathan Genest-Jourdain (NDP) and a Cree, Romeo Saganash (NDP). Canadian "North American Indian" politics are scarcely a monolith.

Is the view better looking from Turtle Mountain to north of the border - or, vice versa - or, are both views equally clouded in different ways ? Bonita Lawrence (a Mi’kmaw) sees both the US and Canadian systems as part of the same problem:

Abstract

The regulation of Native identity has been central to the colonization process in both Canada and the United States. Systems of classification and control enable settler governments to define who is "Indian," and control access to Native land. These regulatory systems have forcibly supplanted traditional Indigenous ways of identifying the self in relation to land and community, functioning discursively to naturalize colonial worldviews. Decolonization, then, must involve deconstructing and reshaping how we understand Indigenous identity.

Gender, Race, and the Regulation of Native Identity in Canada and the United States: An Overview (2003).

Of course, to realize Ms Lawrence's "decolonization" (by political means), you have to have the votes in "Commons".

Regards

Mike