An Analysis of Conflicting Views of History Within the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, 1974-1977
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DEBATING THE PAST AND FUTURE: An Analysis of Conflicting Views of History Within the MacKenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, 1974-1977 A thesis submitted in candidacy for the degree of Master of Philosophical Foundations by Malcolm Hector MacRury Institute for Christian Studies Toronto, Canada 1984 Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present, controls the past. — George Orwell, 1984: quoted in testimony of the Indian Brotherhood of the NWT before the MacKenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, June 29, 1976 PREFACE Mr. Justice Thomas Berger's MacKenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, 1974-1977 (MVPI), offered an opportunity, which Berger himself characterized as unique in Canadian history, to raise cogent questions regarding the place of Native people in the Canadian state and society; the stewardship of environmental and energy resources; and, as an overarching concern, the significance of modernization, development, or industrialization in our past and for our future. Berger has described, in the following terms, the fundamental issues raised by the pipeline debate: The issues we face are profound ones, going beyond the ideological conflicts that have occupied the world for so long, conflicts over who should run the industrial machine, and who should reap the benefits. Now we are being asked: How much energy does it take to run the industrial machine? Where is the machine going? And what happens to the people who live in the path of the machine? [1] The variety of issues raised by the MVPI is well illustrated by the wide-ranging academic studies examining the Inquiry since its conclusion six years ago. In a variety of formats the Inquiry has drawn the attention of scholars analysing topics as diverse as public administration and planning; environmental policy; economics of hunting, trapping and fishing; multi-national corporations; the political future of the Northwest Territories; and religious and social ethics.2 This diversity merely reflects the diversity of concerns expressed in the transcripts of the Hearings themselves. The testimony was structured in four phases: Engineering and Construction; Impacts on the Physical Environment; Impacts on the Living Environment; and Impacts on the Human Environment: Social and Economic Aspects. The transcripts range from geo-technical debates to detailed studies of migratory and nesting habits, to discussions of the sociology of alcoholism, the state of the indigenous peoples' cultures, and the political ramifications of Native land claims. The Inquiry's initial legacy is its voluminous written record consisting of Berger's own two-volume report, the Commission staff report, 204 volumes of testimony from the Formal Hearings, 77 volumes from the Community Hearings, and over 500 exhibits. The exhibits themselves range from the diminutive to the mammoth, from a personal letter to Canadian Arctic Gas Pipe Line's initial multi-volume National Energy Board application. Hence, if the "thousands of theses" which journalist Martin O'Malley indicated there was scope for in the MVPI transcripts have yet to materialize, it is not because the need and potential for approaching the Inquiry from a variety of different disciplines and vantage points is not evident.3 In my particular thesis I shall approach the Berger Inquiry from the discipline of the philosophy of history. In particular, I shall focus on conflicting views of history expressed by two major participants of the MVPI: the arguments of Canadian Arctic Gas Pipe Line — the first and foremost applicant for leave to construct a natural gas pipeline; and the Indian Brotherhood of the Northwest Territories, the organization representing the interests of the majority of indigenous people living along the path of the proposed transportation corridor.4 In addition, I shall concentrate most of my attention on the evidence given in Phase Four of the Inquiry, the Socio-Economic Testimony. This study, then, is best described as an exercise in applied philosophy of history, a demonstration through the concrete example of the MVPI of the practiál and political relevance of people's different views of history, of their conflicting interpretations of time, change, the course of the past and the shape of the future. By way of acknowledgements, I would first note my mentor, Dr. C.T. Mclntire, who has guided me in the use of the philosophical method I employ in this study; and also Dr. Thomas Langan of St. Michael's College, who first encouraged me in the pursuance of this topic. I thank John Olthuis, Research Director of Citizens for Public Justice, particularly for providing me with access to many of the documents V essential to my research. Mr. Justice Thomas Berger took the time to answer my many questions concerning his Inquiry, and for this I thank him. In conclusion, my friend Jonathan Cutmore, and my wife Susan Bower, both read my drafts and provided me with many able and valuable comments. TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE i i i INTRODUCTION 1 1. Thesis Intent 1 2. Views of History and a View-of-History Analysis 2 3. The Appropriateness of a View-of-History Analysis 15 4. Summary Statement 19 I. THE ARGUMENT OF ARCTIC GAS 21 1. The Context and the Intent of the Arctic Gas Argument 21 2. The Sources of the Arctic Gas Argument 27 3. The Necessity of Pipeline Development 30 Poverty, welfare and social despair 31 The priority of development over land claims 40 The state of the traditional economy 43 An Undeveloped Society 52 4. The Character of Northern Development 56 The concept of northern development 56 Development: The view of Arctic Gas 58 Development: The tradition of the federal government 64 History as development 70 5. The Character of Change and the Future 74 6. Modernization and Change 83 The dichotomy of tradition and modernity 84 Acculturation as modernization 88 The definition of Native culture 98 Individualism, liberalism and modernization 102 7. Summary: A View of History 113 II. THE RESPONSE OF THE INDIAN BROTHERHOOD 120 1. The Context and Intent of the 120 Indian Brotherhood Argument 2. The Sources of the Indian Brotherhood Argument 128 3. The Priority of a Land Claims Settlement 131 4. Culture and Worldview 147 Native identity, cultural holism and 155 acculturation History as entrustment 172 5. History and Colonialism 181 6. The Modernity of Tradition 194 III. CONCLUSION 2Q8 NOTES F-l BIBLIOGRAPHY B-l page (1) INTRODUCTION 1. Thesis Intent As an exercise in applied philosophy of history, I intend in this thesis to assert and explore, through the concrete example of the MVPI, the practical and political relevance of people's different understandings of history. In particular, I shall focus on conflicting views of history expressed by two major participants in the MVPI: the Canadian Arctic Gas Pipeline Ltd. (Arctic Gas, or CAGPL), and the Indian Brotherhood of the Northwest Territories (IBNWT). By analysing the socio-economic evidence of both participants in terms of a number of fundamental issues common to all views of history — issues such as views of time, theories of change and the definition of development — I hope to contribute to a greater understanding of the different perceptions, beliefs and ways of life characteristic of Canadian society and the Dene Nation respectively. Justice Berger used the symbols of the "frontier" and "homeland" to express the fundamentally different conceptions of the North which animated the conflict between the interests of southern Canada and the aspirations of Native people in the MacKenzie Valley. In this study I will assert that these paradigms of "frontier" and "homeland" can also be viewed as visions of history; visions which I will page (2) define as "history as development" and "history as entrustment." One of the overarching intents of this thesis, then, will be to subject the idea of development to examination, and to redefine it in the light of the Dene's experience and interpretation of history. In this Introduction I will carefully lay out the methodology and conceptual framework which will guide my use of a view-of- history analysis, as well as indicate the appropriateness of this form of analysis for interpreting the evidence given in the context of the MacKenzie Valley Pipeline debate. 2. Views of History and a View-of-History Analysis In this section I will propose a definition for the concept of a "view of history" and indicate its relationship to what I term a "view-of-history analysis." Briefly put, a view-of- history analysis involves asking questions of a person, institution or body of thought which are revelatory of that person's, institution's, or body of thought's particular view of the structure and dynamics of historical process. That is to say that the goal of a view-of-history analysis is to delineate and compare different views of history, by focusing on issues common to all views of history. Hence, in order to understand the type of questions involved in a view-of-history analysis, it is necessary to indicate the different aspects integral to the constitution of any view of history. page (3) The term "view of history," as I use it throughout this thesis, denotes an interpretation of the human experience of historical process. Each different interpretation is comprised of both a vision of general history — a fundamental mythos-*- providing shape, structure, and meaning for the course of human temporality — and philosophical theories about the nature and interaction of all the manifold phenomena that constitute the historical process. These religious and philosophical aspects of an overall view of history exist in dynamic interaction with the particular historiographic investigations of scholars and the concrete experience of historical agents. That is to say, they both give shape and direction to historical investigation and the interpretation of experience, and are in turn shaped and transformed by that investigation and experience.2 In its widest compass, then, each view of history involves a conception of the ultimate meaning or direction of humanity's experience of time; a view of how past, present and future relate.