A First Nations question

Tim Miller Dyck

Editor/Publisher

The long-standing land dispute over the Haldimand Tract, roughly 400,000 hectares on both sides of the Grand River in Ontario, made the national news again earlier this month. Leaders of the Six Nations of the Grand River sent a letter to municipalities in the area, reminding them of the 1784 treaty their peoples made with Frederick Haldimand, the British governor-general, in which the Crown agreed to hold these lands in trust “for the use and benefit of the Six Nations, and their posterity . . . forever.”

“We are going to go out and identify specific areas where it’s clear there’s been no surrender and no payment, and go and advise people this is not your land,” said Aaron Detlor, as quoted by CBC.

The injustices and suffering of First Nations people are a concern for all Christians, but this particular piece of land and the struggles of the Six Nations to get justice—and to have the terms of the Haldimand Treaty honoured—are of particular Mennonite interest. The large group of Mennonites that settled in this part of Ontario in the early 1800s paid 10,000 British pounds for their homesteads in the Haldimand Tract, revenue that was to go to the Six Nations but was actually mostly diverted by government representatives into other purposes.

Adrian Jacobs, the pastor of Faith Victory Church in Six Nations, was recently hired by the MCC Ontario Aboriginal Neighbours program as community liaison (he is from Six Nations himself).

I went to Faith Victory Church last year to be part of a corporate repentance and communion service, and had the chance to meet him. We later had a long interview and I asked him what he would like to say to Mennonites.

“One of the things that Justice Linden [of the Ipperwash Inquiry] said was that people in Canada must realize that everybody in Canada is a treaty person, aboriginal and non-aboriginal. The treaties are between First Nations people and Canada.

“Native people do not have a problem. Canada has a huge problem, in that they have taken land, violating their own legal system, beginning with the 1763 Royal Proclamation. . . . The land is native land and it cannot be surrendered to individuals, but to the Crown, and only willingly by First Nations people. Canada has squatted on land and laid claim to it against the whole legal system.

“I hear these things all the time, that treaties gave native people land or money. . . . Treaties were native people giving up something. There has never been a true payment concerning full value of that native people gave up.

“In the first place, Six Nations said it’s not about money, it’s about the land. We need the land for our future generations. Establishing [land] leases was for the ongoing provision for Six Nations people. When I went to university and had my education paid for by Indian Affairs I do not consider that the generosity of Canadians; that is my people’s money paying for [my] education.

“Canada has a huge problem. That’s what B.C. is all about. . . . [B.C.] was native-owned until it was surrendered and it was never surrendered. If native people wanted to be militant, they could say all of B.C. is our territory and you can just leave.

“Native people have been extremely gracious. That’s what is so irritating about the reporting, about angry natives. . . . We’ve been making accommodation after accommodation. Finally, we said ‘no.’ That is a healthy thing. When [you] finally say no to the abuser, that is the best thing. This is Canada’s opportunity to repent and make things right.

“My appeal to Mennonite people is what do you think about this? This is your government. You are a treaty person. We can’t just blame the Conservative party or the Prime Minister. This is a nation-to-nation thing. It is between us as native people and Mennonite people face to-face, and the rest of Canada.

“My question to the Mennonite community is what are you going to do about this? If you knew someone was sexually abusing a child, you would go into action about it to protect the child. We’ve had the same thing happen nationally. What are you going to do about it?”

MCC Ontario has organized a series of five Saturday workshops from January to May at Faith Victory Church called “Justice for the land: An orientation to the Six Nations land claims.” For details, visit mcc.org/ontario.