The Indian Association of Alberta's 1970 Red paper published as a response to the Canadian Federal Government's proposed 1969 White paper on Indian policy
Date
2015
Authors
Crane Bear, Leon
University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Arts and Science
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Publisher
Lethbridge, Alta : University of Lethbridge, Dept. of Native American Studies
Abstract
This thesis explores the discourse on treaties and “self-sufficiency” between the 1969 Canadian federal government’s White Paper and the 1970 Indian Association of Alberta’s Red Paper. The White Paper advocated individual “self-sufficiency,” while the Red Paper emphasized treaties, rather than individualism, as a source of Indian “self-sufficiency.” The thesis examines the Red Paper as a political assertion and resistance to assimilation as proposed by the White Paper and, that the Red Paper regarded historical treaties as important to Indian people in Alberta and beyond. Michele Foucault’s concept of “power/knowledge” and Dale Turner’s critique of Western liberal ideas are used in the thesis to examine the idea of assimilation in the White Paper and used to illuminate the Red Paper’s position that treaties were essential to the “discourse” between the federal government and Indian leadership, such as the IAA, between 1969 and1971.
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Keywords
assimilation , discourse , federal government , Indigenous leadership , self-sufficiency , treaties