Mi'kmaq demand apology for centralization, still awaiting Canada's response to petition

Mi'kmaq survivors of centralization are still waiting for a response from the federal government, after petitioning for an apology for the policy that forced them from their lands and onto reserves. 

"We, the Mi'kmaq survivors of centralization are here to declare we need a public apology from the Government of Canada for this horrific failed experiment/policy and alienation of our historic lands," states the petition, signed by 44 people. 

Centralization was a 1942 federal policy to force First Nations people in the Maritimes onto centralized reserves. 

Wallace Nevin, who is Mi'kmaw from Sipekne'katik, about 50 kilometres north of Halifax, is a human rights activist and researcher.

He's been circulating the apology petition the last couple of years and said he sent a copy to Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller in February.   

"I want the federal government to apologize for the economic racism and the cultural genocide that they did to the people," said Nevin, 73.

The policy of centralization moved the First Nations populations into centralized reserves like Eskasoni, Elsipogtog, Sitansisk and Sipekne'katik. 

Nevin said he heard first-hand stories from over 20 survivors about the conditions they were forced to endure because of centralization. 

He said his family was forced to move from Saint John, N.B., to Sipekne'katik. This all happened before his birth, but Nevin said the move forced his father from his established job and home, to a community without the resources to handle the influx of people. 

He said at the time Mi'kmaq worked in every sector of the economy except for white collar jobs. They were hunting, trapping, fishing and harvesting lumber and earning incomes for their families. 

There was little work in the new communities and in order for people to leave the reserves, they needed permission from the Indian Agent. Nevin said this led to cultural loss because families were now separated from their lands. 

The new houses families were promised were shoddy and often built using green lumber. He said some survivors remember once they were boarded onto buses to be transported to the centralized communities, their old homes were torched. 

"We can't return to what we once were and I hold the federal government responsible for that," said Nevin. 

Apology isn't enough, says author

Daniel N. Paul, 83, is a columnist and author of We Were Not the Savages. He was born in Sipekne'katik during the time of centralization. Paul said the communities were often poverty and disease stricken so he fled to Boston when he was 14.

He's spent most of his life researching policies and documentation from Indian Agents to understand what happened to his people.

"At the time the Canadian government was hell bent and determined to exterminate the Indigenous people of Canada," said Paul. 

On his website, he details how First Nations people were seen as a problem and centralization was an attempt to make the Indian Agents' jobs easier. Instead of tracking families in their traditional lands, the agents just had to go to the reserves.

Paul said centralization caused a lot of harm for both the Mi'kmaq and Wolastoqey, and an apology isn't enough. He wants a class-action lawsuit.

"I can't understand why there's no movement on that issue," said Paul. 

Crown-Indigenous Relations did not respond to requests for comment by time of publication.