The First Canadians: A Profile of Canada's Native People Today

J.R. Miller is a professor of History at the University of Saskatchewan
and author of Skyscrapers Hide in the Heavens: A History of Indian-White
Relations in Canada.

The First Canadians is a useful introduction to issues affecting the
indigenous peoples of Canada in the 1990s. Reporters Comeau and Santin
have pursued their subject by conducting interviews, scrutinizing
government publications, and examining internal government papers
procured under the Freedom of Information Act.

In separate chapters The First Canadians surveys such issues as
reserves, the lot of urban Indians, Native self-government, health care,
education, justice, and Native political organizations. The authors
begin each topic by examining developments over the past 20 years,
estimating how much government money has been devoted to the area since
1969, and probing for the reasons behind the generally dismal results.
The outcome is a collection that is uneven in its analysis. The best
chapters are those on health care, child welfare, and especially the
administration of justice. Overall the best work deals with events in
Winnipeg or Manitoba, and some chapters, such as that on urban Indians,
depend heavily on the authors’ knowledge of the local situation.

Shortcomings include a lack of historical perspective and a failure to
provide an analytical explanation of the causes of the problems
described. On the rare occasions when Comeau and Santin probe the
history of Native affairs before 1969, they make serious errors; they
appear unfamiliar with much historical writing. Their querulous
treatment of Ottawa’s white paper on proposed Indian policy in 1969
would have been briefer, more focused, and more persuasive had they made
use of Sally Weaver’s excellent study of that proposal.

More serious is the authors’ failure to provide a general explanation
of the origins of what they describe. To the extent that they attempt to
explain individual problem areas, they tend to fall back on a general
claim that “racism” is to blame. But such a vague suggestion prompts
more questions than it answers. What do the authors mean by
“racism”? Where and why does such noxious ideology originate? If the
general cause of the problem is “racism,” why are there marked
regional variations in the severity of the problems that Native people
face? Are Ontarians less racist than Prairie people, as a reader might
infer from the chapter on the legal system? If not, how does one explain
the variation in rates of Native peoples’ incarceration? In short,
what little effort the book makes at explanation is vague, simplistic,
and unsatisfying.

Despite its shortcomings, The First Canadians is a useful starting
point for readers interested in the problems confronting the indigenous
peoples of Canada. But it needs to be supplemented by other, more
substantial, works.