Rethinking the Canada-First Nations relationship

This week's news was dominated by the closing report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. 

The report contained the stories of survivors of the residential school system, and highlighted the destruction of Canada's past policies towards First Nations. It also included 94 recommendations to improve the lives of First Nations and repair the relationship between indigenous people and the government.

To Anishinaabe law student Aaron Mills, repairing that relationship means going back a long way. Mills is a Bear Clan Anishinaabe from Couchiching First Nation, a Trudeau Foundation Scholar, a Vanier Canada Scholar, and a Doctoral candidate in law at the University of Victoria.

Mills says the original relationship between First Nations and British settlers was one of co-operation, understanding, and mutual benefit. It was only years later that it became about exclusive rights over land, contract and legal disputes, and a colonialist attitude.

According to Mills, artifacts from the earliest meetings and treaties between the British and indigenous peoples, show a commitment to work together, and if one party needs assistance, it was assumed they could ask the other for help. That's why Mills objects to a certain attitude he sees in Canadian conversations.

How frequently do we see on editorials and the news, folks commenting that indigenous peoples are simply whining. That they're stuck on the past. There are so many different ways that this particular perspective is given voice.- Aaron Mills, Doctoral candidate in Law at the University of Victoria

Mills's belief is that when First Nations groups ask for assistance, whether it be health care or education or other funding, they are simply holding up their end of the bargain of a long ago promise, that indigenous people could and should ask the British for help.