Reconsidering 1969: TheWhite Paperand the Making of the Modern Indigenous Rights Movement

Abstract

The White Paper of 1969, which proposed to eliminate the legislated difference between Indigenous peoples and other Canadians promised a dramatic break from the settler status quo but became, instead, synonymous with continued assimilatory policies, an out-of-touch federal government, and (somewhat ironically) a catalyst for the modern Indigenous rights movement. Indigenous criticism of the paper was swift, with several Indigenous political organizations producing policy papers decrying the White Paper and demanding its retraction. And discussions would not stop there. In the ensuing decades, scholars have taken up the policy as a turning point for Indigenous politics. This article questions what this White Paper dominance has done for our understandings of the modern Indigenous movement and suggests that the policy has been mobilized in ways that separate the movement into pre- and post-eras, effectively erasing, or at least minimizing, pre-1969 political work and overemphasizing provincial and national unity after 1969.