Toward a New Covenant with First Nations
By Ed Bianchi

"In our learning and our growing, may there be healing . . .
In the telling and hearing, may there be healing . . .
In our recognition of the need for forgiveness and change, may there be healing." —from KAIROS Worship Service liturgy, "Right Relations with Aboriginal Peoples"

Picture for a moment a pack of people—nearly a dozen—walking down a Toronto street. They are talking animatedly of recent statistics, of new education initiatives, or of next year's major "Gathering" on more sustainable living.

These people are representatives of eleven Canadian churches—including the Christian Reformed Church—and they are spearheading the ecumenical social justice movement in this country, as members of the KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives community.

KAIROS advocates for social change, while amplifying and strengthening the public witness of its members. Its work is shaped by Program Committees, and this article will focus on KAIROS' Indigenous Rights team in particular.

First, rewind a few decades.

In 1975, Indigenous peoples in the north were challenging Canadian national churches to do more on indigenous issues than simply pass resolutions or issue statements. In response, the inter-church group Project North was formed. Renamed the "Aboriginal Rights Coalition" (ARC) in 1985, the group brought together churches, volunteer regional community groups, and Indigenous partners.

The ARC submitted to the landmark 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) that public education was a key to realizing renewed relationships between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. The final report echoed this theme, saying further that "religious institutions have perhaps the greatest potential to foster awareness and understanding between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people."

ARC's creative and innovative educational initiatives were recognized by RCAP, which acknowledged that "ARC has been effective in many of its efforts in public education." In response, ARC produced So Long as the Sun Rises and the River Flows, an educational resource designed to enhance understanding of the issues raised in the RCAP Report. An updated version published in 2001 included the enormously popular "Blanket Exercise," which incorporates participatory popular education methodology to raise awareness of the history of the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada.

Other examples of education and relationship-building include the Start From Mother Earth: An Indigenous Perspective of Jubilee booklet in 2000, the 50,000 signatures gathered on the Jubilee Year III Land Rights/Right Relations petition in 2001, and the publishing of Blind Spots: An Examination of the Federal Government's Response to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (2001).

Now, come back to the present.

Today, the KAIROS Indigenous Rights Committee (KIRC) carries forward ARC's social justice program, and is guided by the same principles:

• recognizing Indigenous title and nationhood;
  
  
• implementing Indigenous peoples' land, treaty & inherent rights as they are recognized in the Canadian constitution, and upheld in the courts;
  
  
• ensuring Indigenous peoples have access to sufficient land and resources; and
  
  
• reversing the erosion of basic economic, social and cultural rights of Indigenous peoples and communities.

KIRC's formation coincided with the introduction of the First Nations Governance Act (FNGA) proposed by the federal government in 2002-2003. The FNGA was vociferously and almost unanimously opposed by First Nations. KIRC responded by working with First Nations communities and groups to develop educational resources and organize workshops across the country to prepare its constituents for what resulted in impressive and important Church participation in the parliamentary process.

Similarly, in 2003 KIRC worked with its Indigenous and regional church and network group partners to support First Nations' opposition to British Columbia's so-called referendum on treaty negotiations.

Since 2003 KIRC has collaborated with Indigenous and non-Indigenous groups on submissions to four United Nations human rights committees reviewing the government of Canada's compliance to its international human rights obligations.

KIRC's efforts as part of an ad hoc coalition of Indigenous and non-Indigenous groups working to have Indigenous peoples' rights enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples were rewarded when the Declaration was adopted by the United Nations on September 13, 2007. Now KIRC is working with Indigenous peoples and their allies to get the Government of Canada to endorse the Declaration, and to ensure its implementation. The ad hoc coalition recently published 100,000 copies of the booklet, which it is distributing across the country.

This year, KAIROS published In Peace & Friendship. Sub-titled "A New Relationship with Aboriginal Peoples," it invites participants to explore a new relationship with the original inhabitants of this land based on the recognition of Indigenous nationhood.

Currently, KAIROS is developing a series of workshops that examine human rights from an Indigenous perspective. The goal is to raise awareness of how Indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups can use human rights to improve their standard of living.

While the churches draw hope and encouragement from these and other accomplishments there is still much more to be done. Since 2006, when it was first elected, Stephen Harper's minority Conservatives government has done little to inspire confidence among Indigenous peoples in Canada that the federal government is serious about addressing the many social, economic and cultural ills that continue to challenge so many First Nation, Inuit and Métis communities and individuals.

According to the most recent statistics, Indigenous peoples in Canada continue to display all the symptoms of an oppressed and economically marginalized group. The rights of Indigenous peoples in Canada continue to be undermined and violated by federal government policies designed to absorb Aboriginal peoples into mainstream society.

In a November 19, 2008 statement issued to coincide with the commemoration of British Columbia's 150th anniversary, Grand Chief Edward John argues that lawyers for the governments of Canada and B.C. "continue to question the rights and existence of first nations people." Grand Chief John emphasizes that the federal and provincial governments "deny that negotiations are about legal rights. Instead, they'd like to extinguish or modify inherent rights recognized through successive court decisions."

In 2007, the KAIROS churches commemorated the 20th anniversary of the historic "A New Covenant" ecumenical pastoral statement by inviting "all our Christian communities to continue working ecumenically and collaboratively with Aboriginal Peoples and Canadian society to build nation-to-nation relationships that protect and enforce Aboriginal treaty and inherent rights."

KIRC continues to be inspired by the 1987 "A New Covenant" and its vision for a new relationship based on sharing, mutual respect, and recognition of Indigenous peoples as members of distinct nations with title and rights to traditional lands and resources.

© 2008 Committee for Contact with the Government. All rights reserved.

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