With an ear to the ground: The CCF/NDP and aboriginal policy in Canada, 1926-1993

Journal of Canadian Studies, Spring 1999 by Frank James Tester, Paule McNicoll, Jessie Forsyth

We heard from the hon. member for Skeena (Mr Howard) who, in a rare act of verbal contortionism, has completely reversed the position he adopted on June 25. His party has now incorporated into the list of SBX exercises, the "Skeena flipflop." That is the only way to describe it. Now, we have the hon. member for Skeena posing as the fierce defender of the view that the government has acted precipitately in the matter of revising its policy toward our first citizens, that there has been inadequate consultation, and that the policy is defective.32

David Orlikow's statement makes it clear that the party was quickly changing its somewhat paternalistic and moralistic policy of helping Indians to help themselves, assumed to lead to integration. When self-determination was articulated by First Nations as the desired end, the NDP, with its commitment to process, was willing to change its ideas.

By March 1969, David Orlikow was criticizing the minister, Jean Chretien, for cancelling the community development programme that contributed to the NIB's opposition to the white paper." Harold Cardinal's book The Unjust Society, published in 1969, suggested that the response of First Nations would be to reject the minister's white paper proposals. In case there was any doubt, on 3 June 1970, the NIB adopted the Indian Chiefs of Alberta's response, Citizens Plus, and presented it to the federal cabinet. This made the position of First Nations clear: the white paper was going nowhere.

The NDP response to the 1969 white paper clearly distinguished democratic socialist Aboriginal policy from that of the Liberals. Recognition of the importance of collective forms of social organization, led the NDP to back Aboriginal calls for the settlement of land claims, the institution of self-government and the recognition of Aboriginal rights in the constitution. Events of the 1970s strengthened this new commitment.

Despite numerous attempts to implement the provisions of the white paper, by the spring of 1971 it was clear that the government was backing away from it. The federal election of 1972 returned a Liberal minority government dependent on the support of the NDP. Their influence on policy-making between 1972 and 1974 when they held the balance of power was obvious. By 1973 the white paper had been abandoned and the Trudeau government introduced a policy for settling comprehensive and specific claims, motivated by the outcome of the Calder case, the Nisga'a land claim taken to the Supreme Court by Thomas Berger, a former leader of the British Columbia NDP. On 21 March 1974, Bergen now a justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, appointed to the bench by the NDP government of British Columbia, was named to conduct an enquiry into proposals to build a pipeline to carry gas from the Beaufort Sea, south to Alberta. The Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Enquiry was a significant event in Canadian history. It questioned existing assumptions about resource development and gave credibility to a different view. It reinforced calls to settle land claims and gave impetus to emerging Aboriginal demands for self-government.