“A Program of Pacification”?: Federal Funding and Indigenous Political Organizing in Canada, 1968–71

Abstract

This article explores the founding and financing of national Indigenous organizations during the shift in Canadian politics towards the ideal of participatory democracy during the late 1960s and early 1970s. It investigates the emergence of two separate organizations, the National Indian Brotherhood (nib) for “status Indians” and the Native Council of Canada (ncc) for “non-status Indians” and Métis, following the collapse of the pan-Indigenous National Indian Council (nic) in 1968. It highlights the key role that funding played in the structuring of national-level Indigenous politics but argues that accepting federal funding did not simply equate to government control. Instead, both the nib and ncc successfully resisted and – in limited ways – shaped federal policies towards Indigenous peoples. The issue of federal funding opened questions regarding Indigenous rights and self-determination, concepts that were employed in differing ways by the leaders of these organizations and federal officials. While marking a stark shift away from the earlier suppression of Indigenous political movements, federal funding was used to integrate different Indigenous groups as citizens into the Canadian settler state. Nevertheless, federal funding served not only to limit, but also to expand, the practical possibilities of Indigenous organizing, with political leaders recasting government money as the right of Indigenous peoples and a tool for self-determination.