The 1969 White Paper (officially entitled Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy) was a policy paper proposal set forth by the Government of Canada related to First Nations. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and his Minister of Indian Affairs, Jean Chrétien, issued the paper in 1969. The White Paper proposed to abolish all legal documents that had previously existed, including (but not limited to) the Indian Act, and all existing treaties within Canada, comprising Canadian Aboriginal law. It proposed to assimilate First Nations as an ethnic group equal to other Canadian citizens. The White Paper was met with widespread criticism and activism, causing the proposal to be officially withdrawn in 1970.
The White Paper proposed legislation to eliminate Indian status. Indigenous people would be granted full rights as citizens instead of being regarded as wards of the state. First Nations Peoples would be incorporated fully into provincial government responsibilities as equal Canadian citizens, and reserve status would be removed; laws of private property would be imposed in Indigenous communities. Any special programs or considerations that had been allowed to First Nations people under previous legislation would be terminated. The Government believed that such special considerations acted to separate Indigenous peoples from other Canadian citizens.
Background After fighting in the First and Second World Wars on behalf of the United Kingdom, First Nations peoples returned home motivated to improve their status and living conditions in Canada. In 1945, the government abolished the pass system, which for 60 years had restricted status Indians to reserves. They could leave only with a pass issued by an Indian Agent. With more freedom of movement, status Indians could become more involved in Canadian society. Parliament created a Special Joint Committee in 1946, which, with the help of the Senate and the House of Commons, sought to assess the effects of the Indian Act of 1876.
In the late 1950s, activism continued to rise on reserves; by the 1960s, a widespread civil rights movement had blossomed. In 1963, the journalist Peter Gzowski published an article "Our Alabama" in Maclean's, exploring the murder of Allan Thomas (Saulteaux) on 11 May 1963 by nine white men in Saskatchewan. He reported that the murder seemed casually accepted by the local white population; Gzowski was told that Thomas was "just an Indian."
By the late 1960s, inspired by the Black Power movement in the United States, a Red Power movement had emerged in Canada. Several activists advocated aggressive actions, quoting Malcolm X and saying that they would achieve their own goals "by any means necessary". Malcolm X was not talking about the status of First Nations peoples in Canada, but his militant advocacy of Black Pride, racial separatism, and a willingness to use violence made him a hero to the Canada's budding "Red Power" movement.
Activists noted the abuses of First Nations peoples and the deplorable conditions in which many were forced to live. In 1963 the federal government commissioned anthropologist Harry Hawthorn to examine the social conditions of First Nations people in Canada. In 1966, he published his report, A Survey of the Contemporary Indians of Canada: Economic, Political, Educational Needs and Policies. He concluded that Canada's Aboriginal peoples were the most marginalized and disadvantaged group among the Canadian public. It described them as "citizens minus." Hawthorn attributed these conditions to years of bad government policy, especially the Indian residential school system, which failed to provide students with the necessary skills to succeed in the modern economy. Hawthorn recommended all forced assimilation programs, such as the residential schools, be abolished, and that Aboriginal peoples be seen as "citizens plus", and given opportunities and resources for self-determination.
In 1968, the Liberals, under their new leader, Pierre Trudeau, won the election of that year under the slogan of creating the "Just Society." In late 1968, as part of the "Just Society," Jean Chrétien, the Minister of Indian Affairs, set out to amend the Indian Act. The federal government issued the information booklet Choosing a Path and consulted Aboriginal communities across Canada in pursuit of an amendment to the Indian Act. In 1969, a CBC Television documentary was aired about the life on reserves in northern Saskatchewan. It focused on several unsolved murders of Indians and Métis, and implied that they been killed by whites. The presenter of the documentary characterized the reserves of northern Saskatchewan, where the people lived at a Third World level of poverty, as the "Mississippi of Canada", referring to a poor state in the Deep South of the United States. He drew public attention to the First Nations issue.
In May 1969, the government held a meeting of regional Aboriginal leaders from across the nation in Ottawa. It heard their concerns about Aboriginal and treaty rights, land title, self-determination, education, and health care. After the consultations, Chrétien presented the government's White Paper to the House of Commons on June 25, 1969.
Trudeau's philosophy tended to favour individual rights over group rights. For instance, he argued that the best way of protecting French-Canadian rights, as in Quebec, was to strengthen individual rights. although group rights were favoured by many of his fellow French-Canadians. Given that background, Trudeau had questioned the Indian Act, and proposed abolishing it. Trudeau considered the Indian Act as an anomaly that treated one group of Canadians as different from the others.
Provisions When presenting the White Paper in 1969, Trudeau and Chrétien proposed it as a definitive means of dealing with First Nations issues. They suggested that existing policies that applied only to Indigenous peoples were discriminatory in nature, since they did not apply to other Canadian citizens. The paper proposed eliminating Indian status as a distinct legal status within Canada. The paper proposed that this would make First Nations Peoples equal to other Canadians by making them official Canadian citizens with the franchise. The Paper said that Indian status was derived from legislation that encouraged separation among peoples, and its benefits occurred too slowly to be efficient and effective. The White Paper also proposed all special programs available to Indigenous peoples because of their Indian status should be removed. This would end special or individualized treatment by ethnicity. Trudeau's vision of a just society was one in which all discriminatory legislation was repealed. The Paper said that eliminating Indian status would "enable the Indian people to be free—free to develop Indian cultures in an environment of legal, social and economic equality with other Canadians.".
Specific provisions included abolishing the Department of Indian Affairs within five years, abolishing the reserve system, and converting reserve land into private property owned by the band or Aboriginal landholders, which could be sold on a fee simple basis. A $50 million fund for economic development was to be established to compensate for the termination of the treaties and the Indian Act. A commissioner would be appointed to investigate outstanding land claims by First Nations and to terminate treaties. Finally, the White Paper proposed transferring jurisdiction for Aboriginal affairs from the federal government to the provinces, and gradually integrating services to them with the services provided to other Canadian citizens.
Response
Opponents thought that the White Paper proposals failed to meet any historical promises that had been made by the federal government to First Nations people in Canada. In addition, they thought the Paper failed to take into account any of the suggestions made by Indigenous peoples during the consultations while the paper was drafted. The Paper did not honour any of the promises made to Indigenous peoples by the Canadian government for reparations to compensate for previous injustices suffered because of government policies and actions. The Paper also did not include any proposal for meaningful Aboriginal participation in public policymaking.
A major First Nations grievance about the White Paper was the sweeping claim that the Canadian state would change their entire status without being allowed any input. The way that Chrétien had invited First Nations leaders to Ottawa to consult them in May 1969 and a month later introduced the White Paper, whose conclusions were the opposite of what they had wanted, was seen as a betrayal. The White Paper was seen by First Nations as an arrogant document, with the state declaring that it knew better about what was good for them than they did themselves. Also, the White Paper gave only the most limited recognition to First Nations land claims and implied that would be no more land claims, as it argued the First Nations peoples would become part of Canadian society and would own land as individuals, just like anyone else.
Although the White Paper recognized past policy failures by the federal government and the socio-economic situation of Aboriginal peoples, it was seen by many Aboriginal peoples as the latest in a series of attempts at cultural assimilation. Aboriginal leaders were outraged that their demands for amendment of the Indian Act during the consultations had been largely ignored and met with a proposal for abolishment. The scholar Gordon Gibson noted that many Indigenous people had become accustomed to the reserve system and so attached to it despite its many "defects" and were thus stunned by the news of its proposed abolition, which would mean a complete alternation in their way of life.
It was the 1969 White Paper that first brought Chrétien to widespread public attention in Canada. At a press conference announcing the White Paper, Chrétien openly clashed with Indigenous activists, with one First Nations woman asking Chrétien "When did we lose our identity?" to which he replied, "When you signed the treaties," which prompted boos and jeers. Another woman from the Haudenosaunnee (Iroquois) reserve at Brantford asked Chrétien, "How can you come here and ask us to become citizens, when we were here long before you?"; she noted that the Crown had granted the Grand River Valley to Joseph Brant in 1784, to which Chrétien had no reply. Chrétien's response made him very unpopular among many Indian activists. However, Chrétien felt that the White Paper was in the best interests of the First Nations and was rather taken aback by the charges made against him of "cultural genocide."