Fluff Piece from Torstar Media Corp

Does Nothing to Educate Anyone

Photo by Peter Geo on Unsplash

By Igor Stravinsky (Teacher and Education Commentator)

On Wednesday June 28th, Metroland Media (owned by Torstar Corp) published an article in a number of their local papers by reporter Alexandra Shimo entitled “Indigenous Leader Offers an Education About Treaty Lands”. That leader is Darin Wybenga. In fact, the article did not offer much by way of an education. The main points are:

• The Mississaugas of the Credit are “treaty holders” of 4 million acres (1.6 million hectares) of land in the Western GTA.

• There is something called “Mississaugas of the Credit Department of Consultation and Accommodation” and if you want to work with the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation to ensure that you don’t “trample on First Nation rights” that’s where you go. 

• The Mississaugas of the Credit consider the afore mentioned 4 million acres their lands, and if you are going to do anything there you need to take into account their “hopes, dreams, rights, and aspirations”. 

• The term “credit” came to be associated with the Mississaugas because of their historic willingness to lend money to each other.

• Non-Indigenous people should honour “the spirit of the treaties” signed between Indigenous Bands and the Crown.

• Under treaties signed by the Indigenous people and the Crown, both sides agreed to “share the land”

Now I would like to take a turn educating you about the Mississaugas of the Credit: 

They arrived in the area of what is now the GTA in about 1700 CE and displaced the Indigenous groups who had been living here. They numbered about 500, surely more than the handful of French Fur Traders to be found at a couple of forts. But while the pre-contact Indigenous population of Canada is estimated to be about 500 thousand, the population of Europe by 1700 was over 100 million. 

So it should not come as a surprise that by 1850 there were nearly a million Europeans living in Ontario (Upper Canada) whereas the Mississaugas of the Credit population had dwindled down to about 200 people. This was of course primarily due to disease but also pressure from the ever-increasing immigrant population. 

So in 1847 the Mississaugas of the Credit moved to a reservation near Brantford Ontario where they can be found today (2021 population 775). They were paid an amount equal to about 9 million dollars in today's money for the loss of their land back in the 19th century, arguably a paltry sum. They were therefore awarded a further payment of 145 million dollars in 2010. 

Thus, the Mississaugas of the Credit do not own any land in the GTA. It’s not their land. They did live on some of it for 150 years, but then they left and have been compensated. No one needs their approval to do anything here. But consulting them is not a bad idea. The more perspectives you take into consideration the better, of course. Yes, it might well be a gesture that could go some distance by way of reconciliation, but not if the Indigenous people consider other Canadians “settlers” who stole their land.     

The use of the word Credit, by the way, goes back to the French Fur Traders’ willingness to provide goods to the Indigenous people on credit, nothing to do with Indigenous people loaning out things to one another. The Fur trade was mutually beneficial, but alas, did not last forever and when it ended the Indigenous Bands were ill-prepared to find a new economic mainstay.

As for honouring the spirit of the treaties, the point of having a treaty is to clearly articulate what is expected of both sides. What the spirit of the document is, is a matter of perspective and opinion. All treaties clearly state that the lands occupied by the Indigenous people were ceded to the Crown, as in, for example, Treaty 6:

“… they [the Indigenous People] will in all respects obey and abide by the law, and they will maintain peace and good order between each other, and also between themselves and other tribes of Indians, and between themselves and others of Her Majesty's subjects, whether Indians or whites, now inhabiting or hereafter to inhabit any part of the said ceded tracts, and that they will not molest the person or property of any inhabitant of such ceded tracts, or the property of Her Majesty the Queen, or interfere with or trouble any person passing or travelling through the said tracts, or any part thereof, and that they will aid and assist the officers of Her Majesty in bringing to justice and punishment any Indian offending against the stipulations of this treaty or infringing the laws in force in the country so ceded.”

I am willing to wager that few residents of the Region of Peel were aware of the historical facts above, no matter how many land acknowledgements they may have listened to over the last few years. For reconciliation to take place, everyone needs to get on the same page and acknowledge the true history of this Country. Then we can get on with the work of meeting the challenges we all face, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike.

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Thanks for reading. For more from this author read, School Board’s Refusal to Fly Pride Flags Represents a Rejection of Gender Ideology, Not Gay and Transgender People

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