University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for Spring 1997 Treaty Seven And Guaranteed Representation How Treaty Rights Can Evolve Into Parliamentary Seats Kiera L. Ladner Carleton University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons Ladner, Kiera L., "Treaty Seven And Guaranteed Representation How Treaty Rights Can Evolve Into Parliamentary Seats" (1997). Great Plains Quarterly. 1941. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/1941 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. TREATY SEVEN AND GUARANTEED REPRESENTATION HOW TREATY RIGHTS CAN EVOLVE INTO PARLIAMENTARY SEATS KIERA L. LADNER Most of the Canadian plains region is cov­ giving treaty rights constitutional status and ered by the "Numbered Treaties" negotiated protection from the Canadian Charter of Rights in the 1870s between the government of the and Freedoms, the actual guarantees of the trea­ Dominion of Canada, acting for the British ties have often been interpreted in a manner Crown, and the nations whose territories en­ inconsistent with current government policy compassed the area. Even at the time that the and quite possibly in a way that none of the treaties were negotiated, the various signato­ treaty negotiators for the Crown could have ries had different assumptions about what they imagined, let alone predicted, in the 1870s. actually meant. During the ensuing century and Although the Crown's prime objective was to more that the treaties have existed, their mean­ avoid American-style "Indian wars" by secur­ ings have been reinterpreted. With the repa­ ing promises of peace from the First Nations' triation of the Canadian constitution in 1982, leaders and to negotiate the surrender of lands that could then be parceled out to incoming Euro-Canadian settlers, the texts of the trea­ ties did promise the Indigenous parties sover­ eignty on their remaining territory, and particularly in the case of Treaty Seven, es­ tablished that Indigenous leaders should share the responsibility for maintaining peace and order in the region. While it is always difficult Kiera L. Ladner is a doctoral student in political science to interpret a document in the light of com­ at Carleton University. Her article liN it-acimonawin pletely altered circumstances, I make the ar­ Oma Acimonak Ohci: This Is My Story About gument that Treaty Seven, at least, may be Stories" is forthcoming in Native Studies Review. legitimately interpreted in such a way as to provide for guaranteed representation, at the federal level, for the First Nations that were [GPQ 17 (Spring 1997): 85-1011 parties to the treaty. 85 86 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1997 Although a number of studies have been that they will not molest the person or conducted during the past several years sug­ property of any inhabitant of such ceded gesting that guaranteed parliamentary repre­ tract, or the property of Her Majesty the sentation for Aboriginal peoples is compatible Queen, or interfere with or trouble any per­ with the Canadian electoral system, others son, passing or traveling through the said have suggested that such particularistic repre­ tract or any part thereof, and that they will sentation-giving special electoral rights to assist the officers of Her Majesty in bring­ one particular group-is unconstitutional. The ing to justice and punishment any Indian lack of consensus in the existing literature offending against the stipulation of this about the constitutionality of guaranteed Ab­ Treaty, or infringing the laws in force in original representation may be because all of the country so ceded.2 the studies have focused on integrating Ab­ original representation within the existing Because it is impossible to examine the electoral scheme. Like Iris Marion Young, most mutual or peace and order clause in each of scholars have conceptualized guaranteed rep­ the western treaties, I have chosen to focus on resentation as a means to rectify past injus­ Treaty Number Seven, covering southern tices and inadequacies in the Canadian Alberta, which was negotiated and signed by political system, but ihhey had examined guar­ Lieutenant-Governor David Laird, Lieutenant­ anteed representation as a pre-existing right Colonel James MacLeod, and representatives of Aboriginal peoples from before the repa­ of the Siksika, North Peigan, Blood, Sarcee, triation of the constitution they might have and Stoney First Nations at Blackfoot Cross­ arrived at different, more consistent conclu­ ing in September 1877.3 Since my own re­ sions.1 search has so far focused only on the Siksika, In this paper I argue that guaranteed parlia­ North Peigan, and Blood First Nations, I have mentary representation can legitimately be restricted my discussion only to these three sig­ derived from the peace and good order clause natories, though further research will probably that appears in the Numbered Treaties. In show that the same arguments can be made for Treaty Seven (as in all the Numbered Trea­ the Stoney and Sarcee nations as well. ties) the peace and good order or "mutual" I have examined not only the written words clause reads as follows: of the treaty but also the intentions and under­ standing of each party (the Queen in Right of And the undersigned Blackfeet, Blood, Canada, Siksika, Peigan, and Blood). This pro­ Piegan [sic] and Sarcee Head Chiefs and vides a fuller understanding of what each party Minor Chiefs, and Stony [sic] Chiefs and actually meant by this clause in the treaty. This Councilors on their own behalf and on be­ is especially important because all of the his­ half of all other Indians inhabiting the Tract torical documents have been written by only within ceded do hereby solemnly promise one party to the treaty, the one that had the and engage to strictly observe this Treaty, most to gain in the writing of such documents. and also to conduct and behave themselves Not only are there no written documents ar­ as good and loyal subjects of Her Majesty ticulating an "Indian" understanding of the the Queen. They promise and engage that treaty, but problems of translation render the they will maintain peace and good order words of the treaty itself suspect as represent­ between each other and between themselves ing the "Indian" point of view. and other tribes of Indians, and between themselves and others of Her Majesty's sub­ THE PRE-TREATY UNDERSTANDING jects, whether Indians, Half Breeds or Whites, now inhabiting or hereafter to in­ By 15 July 1870, when the government of habit, any part of the said ceded tractj and Canada assumed jurisdiction over the North- TREATY SEVEN 87 West Territories and began treaty negotiations the rail road. But then the government says, there, its Indian policy had long been estab­ "Hey we forgot about those Indians out lished. The Crown, represented first by the there. We have to secure the peace and colonial authories and then by the govern­ goodwill of those Indians."6 ment of the Dominion of Canada, had been negotiating various kinds of treaties with Ab­ Not only did the government have to se­ original nations in North America for more cure peaceful relations with the Aboriginal than two hundred years and had established nations in the west, they needed their land, the conditions by which Indian lands were to land upon which to build the railway and the be obtained. In the Royal Proclamation of 7 "national dream." Thus, the Treaties enabled October 1763, King George III declared that the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, all land held by or reserved for the "Nations and "enable[dl the Government to throw open or Tribes of Indians," could only be "ceded or for settlement any portion of the land which purchased" by the Crown. Thus, the Royal might be susceptible of improvement and prof­ Proclamation set in motion a treaty-making itable occupation."7 process by which the government secured Sir John A. Macdonald, one of the "Fathers ownership to the land. The Royal Proclama­ of Confederation" and Canada's first prime tion states that, "if at any time any of the said minister, envisioned a Canada stretching from Indians should be inclined to dispose of said sea to sea. Thus his government needed trea­ Lands, the same shall be purchased only for ties that would ensure geographic unity, assert Us, in our Name, at some public Meeting or ownership over the land, and clear the way for Assembly of the said Indians, to be held for colonists, all aspects of Macdonald's "national the Purpose."4 dream." At the same time, however, the Ab­ Although the Dominion of Canada had ac­ original peoples of the N orth-West still repre­ quired the North-West Territories from the sented a considerable military threat to the new Hudson's Bay Company, Canada did not have Dominion's ambitions, and Macdonald also title to the land itself, and the Dominion's needed treaties of "Peace and Friendship" "control" of the territories was being threat­ with the powerful Aboriginal nations. The ened by American expansionism. At the end ongoing Indian wars south of the border were of the American Civil War in 1865, Canada examples of what Canada did not want, while faced an extremely