Displacement of Indigenous People in Canada under the Indian Act: Participatory Video with Lake St. Martin and Little Saskatchewan First Nations on Flood Impacts

Abstract

Four participatory video research projects were undertaken over eight years with two Indigenous communities displaced by a flood. The films focus on how floodwaters were diverted away from non-Indigenous regions to Indigenous communities at Lake St. Martin by Canada’s colonial government. This displacement repeats the colonial pattern of forcibly relocating Indigenous people away from their land, resources, and good life. This participatory video research of flood stories underwent a content, process, and outcome analysis. The environmental, social, cultural, health and economic impacts are documented in the films, including poverty, environmental injustice, gang predation, separation of families, food insecurity, illness, culture loss, addictions, and racism. The films captured the lived experience of Elders, youth and, families during their eight years of displacement to temporary, unsuitable accommodations and upon relocation. In terms of process, community members engaged in filming, scriptwriting, and narrating to tell their stories. The process was transformative, decolonizing, and built community research capacity. The participatory video research was helpful for lawyers advocating for compensation. The popularity of the videos online exceeded that of academic papers and helped fuel a movement to wake people to the ongoing colonial injustices faced by Indigenous people across Canada. This paper not only analyzes the films but traces the roots of Indigenous displacement by man-made flooding to the Indian Act and colonization, calling for abolishing the Indian Act and decolonization.