OP-ED: Indian tokenism under attack in Ottawa

Blacklock’s Reporter has just updated a Department of Indigenous Services investigation of contractors falsely claiming indigenous ownership of their businesses in order to qualify for contracts.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

By Hymie Rubenstein

Blacklock’s Reporter has just updated a Department of Indigenous Services investigation of contractors falsely claiming indigenous ownership of their businesses in order to qualify for federal contracts. The audit, promised in 2024, aims to ensure the integrity of the Indigenous Business Directory, which lists no fewer than 2,600 contractors. So far, its results have not been made public.

Concerns about fraudulent claims, including “token Indians” and lack of verification, have been raised by both leaders of Indian Bands and members of parliament.

The Department of Indigenous Service says it’s committed to finding “pretendians” – people falsely claim indigenous status – in a federal directory of indigenous contractors, says a briefing note. Managers have yet to disclose the findings of an audit into how many federal suppliers faked Indian Band, Inuit, or Métis ownership to qualify for billions in contracts allocated for indigenous owned firms.

“The department is committed to ensuring each business registered on the Indigenous Business Directory is properly assessed,” said the note Filing Of Human Rights Complaint On Indigenous Business Directory. The note is dated May 23, three days after the Algonquin Anishinabeg Nation Tribal Council of Maniwaki, Quebec filed a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission that faulted the department for its careless vetting of contractors.

“To register on the Directory a business must undergo an eligibility assessment and demonstrate it is both 51 percent Indigenous owned and controlled,” said the note. “It is the responsibility of the applicant to provide documentation to complete this assessment. Once a business is actively registered it is then eligible to bid on opportunities that have been set aside.”

Federal departments and agencies have a five percent set-aside on a total $34 billion in annual contracting for companies majority owned by federally recognized indigenous people.

“It is wrong,” Deputy Public Works Minister Arianne Reza testified at 2024 hearings of the Commons public accounts committee. “It is a terrible situation.”

Joanna Bernard, New Brunswick Regional Chief with the Assembly of First Nations, testified last September 14 at the Commons government operations committee that contracting was rife with unscrupulous “token Indians” who sought advantage. “There have been token Indians,” she said. “I am sorry to say you can pick up someone on the side of the street if they are Indigenous. They become that token Indian and there is no qualification needed for that Indigenous person.”

“There is some work to be done in that aspect, ensuring the Aboriginal is capable of having the ownership of this so-called business if it is a shell company and to make sure they are there working day to day and not just being given a couple of dollars on the side just for their name,” said Chief Bernard. “This is huge.”

Indian Band status and membership are determined by proof of descendancy from original treaty members. The Métis National Council since 2002 has required that its claimants be “accepted by the Metis Nation” and not rely on self-declaration. Chief Bernard said despite strict requirements there are federal contractors “just walking in the door and saying, ‘I am Métis because my great-grandfather has a descendent.’”

“Why is there a dissonance between what they’re calling an Indigenous business and what you’re calling an Indigenous business?” asked Conservative MP Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park-Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta). “It’s because there is no verification,” replied Chief Bernard. “You cannot ask for proof of being Indigenous. Anybody can walk in the door and say, ‘I’m Inuit,’ ‘I’m Métis’ or ‘I’m First Nation’ without any verification.”

The committee investigation followed the suspension of one contractor Dalian Enterprises Inc. of Ottawa whose owner, then a federal employee, claimed to be descended from an Ojibway chief. The company received 675 federal contracts in a 20-year period with payments in its last year worth $16.9 million.

What needs to be addressed most of all is the elementary question of why we continue to embrace special indigenous status and privileges in Canada, a race and ethnicity-based practice contrary to the overarching provisions of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Equality rights are at the core of the Charter. They are intended to ensure that everyone is treated with the same consideration (i.e. without positive or negative discrimination), regardless of personal or group characteristics like race or ethnic origin, among other considerations.

This means everyone should be treated the same under the law. Everyone should also be entitled to the same benefits provided by government policies and their underlying laws.

In short, it means that the set-aside in annual contracting for companies owned by federally recognized indigenous people is a repudiation of Constitutionally protected rights.

But as is well known, our 1982 Constitution, a document which includes the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, gives special rights and freedoms to indigenous people unavailable to other Canadians.

Section 35(1) states that "The existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada are hereby recognized and affirmed." While Section 25 ensures that other provisions in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms do not diminish the collective rights of indigenous peoples.

Separate aboriginal rights are widely regarded as the natural and proper order of things. In fact, they are the opposite. In a free country governed by the rule of law, special aboriginal rights should not exist.

Bruce Pardy, a professor of law at Queens University, has just argued that legal rights in Canada should not be based on lineage, whether indigenous or otherwise.

Instead, he contends that special status for indigenous people, though Constitutionally protected, is counterproductive and perpetuates dependency. He also argues that Canada should move towards a more inclusive approach, where laws apply equally to all citizens, regardless of their ancestry.

To underscore his argument, he gives the example of the history of Great Britain beginning with the Roman invasion of the British Isles in 55 B.C. and its ultimate conquest about 100 years later, on their second try. But by 500 A.D., Saxons had established themselves as the dominant power. In 1066, the Normans overthrew the Saxon kingdom.

“Today, British law does not have different rights for descendants of Romans, Saxons and Normans. The people are British.”

As for the indigenous people of Great Britain before the Roman invasion, they were primarily tribal societies collectively known as the Britons, who spoke Brittonic Celtic languages. Today, the politically and legally unrecognized legacy of these Iron Age cultures is still felt in British culture and language.

Going forward, all this also should hold for Canada. And our citizens – all of them – should be considered Canadians, first, last, and always.

Hymie Rubenstein, editor of REAL Indigenous Report, is a retired professor of anthropology at the University of Manitoba and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.