DCHP-3

Red Paper

DCHP-3 (Mar 2023)

Spelling variants:
"Red Paper", red paper

n. — Indigenous resistance, Politics

a landmark 1970 Indigenous policy paper by the Indian Association of Alberta (see Citizens Plus 1970).

Type: 4. Culturally Significant — In 1969, after little to no meaningful consultation with Indigenous peoples, the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Jean Chrétien (who would later become Prime Minister from 1993-2003), presented to Parliament a policy paper officially called the "Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy," now known as the notorious White Paper (see the 2008 and the 2021 quotations). As part of the Trudeau government's 1968 election platform to abolish special privileges for any Canadians, Chrétien's policy paper proposed to do away with all legal documents pertaining to Indigenous peoples, including the Indian Act and all treaties signed between the Crown and various Indigenous nations. Effectively, Chrétien's White Paper would have abolished Indigenous rights and transferred legal responsibility for Indigenous peoples from the federal government to provincial governments (see the 2021 quotation). The overwhelming feeling that this caused in Indigenous communities across Canada was outrage.

On 4 June 1970, Cree chief Harold Cardinal (see the reference below) and the Indian Association of Alberta presented to Cabinet their response (see the 2002 quotation), a 170-page book called Citizens Plus which became known as the Red Paper. Cardinal had published The Unjust Society the year prior (Cardinal 1969). The Red Paper called on the Canadian government to honour its treaty obligations, both in the letter and in the spirit of the law. The effect of the Red Paper reverberated through the next half century. The Red Paper not only led to the entrenchment of treaty and Indigenous rights in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom (see the 2013 quotation), it also inspired decades of Indigenous political activism, including the formation of the Assembly of First Nations (see the 2008 quotation) and the Idle No More movement (see the 2013 quotation).

Quotations

1970
An Indian red paper presented to the federal Cabinet yesterday rejected the Government's proposal to give Indians quality and to repeal the Indian Act. It proposed that private industry be enlisted to help turn Indian reserves from economic backwaters into productive communities.
[...] The red paper said the proposed federal policy offers despair instead of hope and would probably result in Indians losing their land and being "condemned to the despair and ugly spectre of urban poverty in ghettos."
1978
In 1969, his Indian Affairs minister, Jean Chretien introduced the new plans in an unofficial white paper which became famous for the loud opposition it drew from native leaders across the country. Two members of that opposition were Harold Cardinal, who was instrumental in drawing up what became known as the red paper and who wrote a book called The Unjust Society, and Fred Kelly who, with his brother, Peter, led a huge demonstration march in Kenora 1965.
1998
By year's end, Alberta native Harold Cardinal had published a 170- page book, The Unjust Society, which was promptly nicknamed the Red Paper. Cardinal chastised Chretien and Trudeau and also Indians who had remained silent for too long. "I hope to point a path to radical change that will admit the Indian with restored pride to his rightful place in the Canadian heritage," he wrote. The acrimony between Chretien and many aboriginal groups grew poisonous. Headlines such as "Indians After Scalp of Minister Chretien" became common. "I would say it had a watershed impact," says John Cashore, a former B.C. minister of aboriginal affairs.
1999
JUNE 17 Nitihaht Chronicles, 4 p.m. The Red Paper; Heart Of Light, 6 p.m. Buffalo Bone China; Yuxweluptun (world premiere); Kanata, 7 p.m. Follow Me Home, 8:30 p.m. Words Of Wisdom; Silenced, 10 p.m. Tushka, 11 p.m.
2002
The final embarrassment came in June of 1970 when Cardinal and a number of Indians in headdress marched into the cabinet room on Parliament Hill. Cardinal delivered his entire 100-page Red Paper on what the government should be doing for the Indians. "The Red Paper was rich in rhetoric about Indian self- determination and 'partnerships with government,' terms that would become very familiar in the bumpy decades ahead," writes Cosh. "But it was really the show -- the sight of ministers of the Crown taking their lumps from the Sucker Creek boy and his crew -- that people would remember." It was possibly the only time in his political career that Trudeau publicly ate crow. "It may be naive," he said of the White Paper, "It may be shortsighted or misguided."
2008
Former prime minister Pierre Trudeau's infamous White Paper of 1969 aiming to extinguish treaty rights was met with a withering reaction, largely led by Cardinal and his brother Harold Cardinal. Together the brothers orchestrated The Red Paper response, which was a factor in the formation of the national Assembly of First Nations and then, scores of legal victories for treaty rights in the decades since.
2013
Also, Idle No More co-founder and Sturgeon Lake native Tanya Kappo was in attendance to present a lecture titled The continuation of the modern Indian movement: From the Red Paper to #Idlenomore. [...] "To those of us who are Treaty Indians there's nothing more important than our Treaties, our lands and the well-being of our future generations," is a phrase that appears in the Red Paper, one which Kappo said perfectly embodies current Aboriginal sentiment in regards to social and political goals.
2013
Cardinal and the Indian association swung into action, and developed the "Red Paper" to counter the white paper. The Alberta chiefs went to Ottawa and presented it to the prime minister, who told them the policy paper would be shelved and a more moderate process undertaken. Twenty-two years later we would see treaty and aboriginal rights entrenched in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
2021
Stage Nine, 1969-70: A federal "White Paper" on Indian Affairs proposes abolishing the Indian Act, Indian status, and reserves, and transferring responsibility for Indian Affairs to the provinces. In response, Cree Chief Harold Cardinal writes the "Red Paper." Calling for recognition of Indigenous peoples as "Citizens Plus."
2024
An immediate denouncement and rebuttal followed. Under the leadership of Harold Cardinal, president of the Indian Association of Alberta, the chiefs and elders from Treaties 6, 7 and 8 presented the 'Red Paper' in response to the Trudeau/Chretien document. Trudeau officially withdrew the White Paper in 1970.

References