Cuthand: Indigenous relations among Canada-U.S. differences

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Donald Trump’s pipe dream that Canada become the 51st state was met with handwringing and panic by the media and the elites in Canada. It was really a hollow threat that plays to his base, but is meaningless.

There is neither a groundswell of support in Canada nor does he have troops massed at our border like Putin and Ukraine. Trump is a blowhard trying to look tough.
He has also threatened to take back the Panama Canal, purchase Greenland and make military incursions into Mexico.

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Clearly, he never studied “international sovereignty 101.”

As First Nations people, we have endured colonialism and its not fun. This is the relationship that Canadians would face under American rule. We would lose our independence, social programs and our troops would be fighting for American causes such as the incursion into Iraq.

The relationship between Canada and the United States has been a peaceful one since the war of 1812, which we won, by the way. After that, we lived side by side and were largely ignored by the Americans.

In 1911 the Laurier government negotiated a reciprocity agreement with the Americans that was a trade agreement opposed by the Conservatives. Robert Borden coined the slogan, “No truck or trade with the Yankee” and won that year’s election.

After the Second World War, we had good relations as former war allies. But by the end of the decade and the 1960s, the two nations developed separate social programs and diplomatic relations.

Following the Cuban revolution, the Americans placed an embargo on the island, The Diefenbaker government refused to go along and today we maintain diplomatic relations with Cuba, and we are the largest national group that vacations there.

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In the 1960s, Canada established universal medical care while the Americans got deeper into private and corporate health care. Today, the contrast between the two is jarring.

Canada refused to participate in the Vietnam war and opposed it on moral grounds. Instead, Canada accepted war resisters from the U.S. Prime minister Lester Pearson angered president Lyndon Johnson by opposing the war, but it didn’t affect the relationship between the two countries.

Over the years, Canada continued to grow the social safety net through universal medical care, the Canada Pension Plan, unemployment insurance and strong gun laws. Recently pharmacare and dental care have been added. In Canada, there is no constitutional right to bear arms, allowing for strong legislation.

In the United Sates, the Royal Proclamation ended with the severance of the relationship with the Crown and the Indigenous nations were fair game for genocide and removal. The treaties with the indigenous people were signed at the point of a gun and were one-way documents to steal the land.

The Indian termination policy in the 1950s privatized Indian land and large tracts were sold off. Today, many reserves resemble checkerboards of lost land. In some cases, reservations have disappeared altogether.

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The 1969 White paper on Indian policy was the Canadian attempt at termination, but the First Nations fought back and instead we have land claims, treaty land entitlement and expanded social programs. The treaties are also a part of the Canadian Constitution which is a far cry from the American approach.

Interestingly, the treaties were signed with the Crown and any change would require that the treaties be renegotiated. However, I doubt that any consideration would be given by the Americans based on their previous approach to Indigenous people.
In 2020, a CBC report analyzed Democratic VIce-President Kamala Harris’s political position and concluded that in Canada she would be seen as a moderate conservative.

Contrast this with Trump’s view of her as a dangerous far left radical and you see the difference between the political spectrum in the two countries. A Leger poll conducted after Trump’s remarks indicated 13 per cent of Canadians were in favour, while 87 per cent opposed Canada joining the United States.

The conclusion is that a vast majority of Canadians don’t want to be the 51st state. We are two very different societies with a very different history.

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But the whole discussion is just a tempest in teacup. When it comes to Trump, I prefer the approach of Sam Goldwyn, who once said of a rival, “I don’t pay any attention to him. I don’t even ignore him.”

Doug Cuthand is the Indigenous affairs columnist for the Saskatoon StarPhoenix and the Regina Leader-Post. He is a member of the Little Pine First Nation.

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