Counterpoint: Canada has a duty to make up for the historical dispossession of Indigenous people

If Canadians want to understand why our country faces persistent tensions on questions of Indigenous rights and belonging, we must move beyond the oversimplified narrative espoused by Tom Flanagan and Mark Milke in the National Post that everyone is a settler and therefore no one has obligations to First Nations.

The term “settler” does not describe race or moral worth. As political theorist James Tully explains, it is a descriptive term for those whose ancestors arrived and established political authority without the consent of existing Indigenous nations. It is neither an accusation nor an insult. It is a recognition of historical relationships that over time came to lack equality, fairness or reciprocity.

Land acknowledgements emerged not to shame the descendants of settler populations, but to correct a long history of erasing Indigenous presence from public life. They were intended as first steps in fostering an ethical relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians, not as ceremonial guilt or performative action.

But land acknowledgements alone do not shift inequities. To matter, institutions should instead consider action statements — contextual commitments to help move the needle forward on access to education, health, water, housing and economic opportunities based on an organization’s field of expertise.

Organizations that embed tangible goals around the subjects of health equity, procurement commitments, co-governance protocols, land stewardship and Indigenous governance are far more effective at addressing poverty and inequality than symbolic acknowledgements alone. For many Indigenous persons, land acknowledgements feel abstract, serving only to reinforce the “othering” of the Indigenous community.

Flanagan and Milke argue that because all humans ultimately descend from Africa, no one can claim to have been here since “time immemorial.” This misreads the term. “Time immemorial” has always been intended to mean “as long as collective memory reaches.” It is not a claim about our evolutionary origins.

Archaeology and oral histories demonstrate that Indigenous nations governed and occupied their territories for thousands of years before Europeans arrived. Inuit ancestors settled the Arctic over a millennium before Norse contact. Those who have been here since time immemorial were functioning nations with diplomatic alliances, sophisticated ecological management systems and extensive trade routes.

The truth is that Canada was not created through a single act of conquest. Instead, the settlement of Canada unfolded through a systemic process of dispossession.

The Gradual Civilization Act (1857) and Gradual Enfranchisement Act (1869) imposed a foreign governance model on First Nations and eroded traditional Indigenous political systems. The Robinson Treaties and Numbered Treaties were negotiated during periods of famine and violated through resource extraction without consent.

The reserve system confined First Nations to small tracts of land. Its segregationist logic became a model studied by South African architects of apartheid. Forced removals, such as the relocation of the Mississaugas of Scugog, the displacement of the Chippewa of Nawash and the creation of the pass system further restricted Indigenous movement.

Residential schools and enfranchisement policies removed children and undermined communities, a system now recognized as a form of cultural genocide by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls inquiry.

Suggesting that because treaties were signed, land was not “stolen” from First Nations misunderstands the nature of those treaties, and the Crown’s failure to uphold them.

As preeminent legal scholar John Borrows notes, treaties were not land sales. They were frameworks for coexistence, premised on nation-to-nation sharing. Yet many of the Crown’s commitments were never fulfilled. When treaty promises are disregarded and resources are extracted without consent, it becomes indistinguishable from forcible dispossession.

Canada adopted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) because it establishes global standards for dignity, survival and equality. UNDRIP operationalizes what Tully (2008) calls “treaty constitutionalism,” supporting shared decision-making rather than separatism.

Similarly, the “land back” movement is widely misunderstood. It is not a call for mass eviction. Instead, it seeks to restore jurisdiction to lands that are already legally owed by First Nations. What is more, the land back movement seeks to ensure equitable Indigenous participation in the use and caretaking of land and the return of culturally significant sites in the process of meaningfully involving First Nations in ongoing economic activity.

Indigenous-led land governance consistently demonstrates superior outcomes in conservation, wildfire management and local economic development. Given this time of intense climate change, Indigenous-led governance would decrease the impulsivity and reactionism that defines the post-COVID mainstream economy.

Flanagan and Milke warn that recognizing Indigenous governments would fragment Canada into “hundreds of inconsequential principalities.” This misrepresents the restrictive nature of the Indian Act, which limits jurisdiction and economic participation, controls land and finances, and denies Indigenous nations constitutional status equivalent to that of provinces.

Indigenous nations are not demanding micro-states but to be recognized as a self-determining order of government, which is consistent with Supreme Court jurisprudence and self-government agreements. Moreover, contemporary separatism in Alberta is rooted in populist grievance, not historic nationhood. By contrast, First Nations entered into treaties with the Crown as sovereign nations whose political orders predate Canada. Treaties are the constitutional foundation of Canada, provincial discontent is not.

A future-oriented approach asks not, “When did your ancestors arrive?” but, “How do we honour the relationships that made Canada possible?” Thriving Indigenous communities strengthen Canada: they reduce health-care spending, stabilize rural governance and support sustainable land stewardship.

Recognizing Indigenous self-government is not balkanization — it’s completing Confederation. As John Borrows writes in his book, “Canada’s Indigenous Constitution,” Indigenous law is “a gift that broadens Canada’s constitutional imagination.”

Canada was not taken in a single act but through cumulative policies that we now have the responsibility to correct. Doing so will strengthen the country — not divide it.

National Post

Kelly LaRocca is chief of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation.