The power of indigenous data sovereignty

And the activists who demand control of history

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

By

James Pew

In the complex arena of Canadian indigenous politics, where the nebulous process of reconciliation permeates virtually all facets, there is little agreement between those holding oppositional views concerning the utility and transparency of powerful agencies like the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR). However, one area where accord seems often to appear is the repeated calls for an investigation into what really happened at Indian Residential Schools.

A year ago the Pope was on a flight departing from Canada, where a “penitential pilgrimage,” a tour of atonement for the Catholic Church's role in the Indian Residential School system, widely reported internationally, had played out for the better part of a week. During the airborne journey a reporter asked the Pope if he thought what had happened at Indian Residential Schools was genocide. The Pope answered he thought it was. 

In essence, this remark threw under the bus generations of Catholic and Protestant clergy who dedicated years of loyal service to Canada’s indigenous people. Not surprisingly, the media latched on to the Popes careless genocide comment, but neglected to mention his previous call for a “search” to find out what really happened at Indian Residential Schools. 

During the Pope's week-long apology tour, he had made the comment that “an important part of this process will be to conduct a serious investigation into the facts of what took place in the past (at Indian Residential Schools)..." That is how it was initially reported. However, the Pope gave this particular address in Spanish, and apparently, had intended to say “search” not “investigation.” A correction to the translation was issued. But does it really make a difference whether the Pope thinks an “investigation” or a “search” is needed to get to the full truth? It appears there is some question about the historical record of Indian Residential Schools. His call for a search makes this evident.

During the infamous departure flight, no journalist asked the Pope why, if he already thought genocide happened in Canada, would he also think a search into “the facts of what took place in the past” was required. Nor did they suggest that perhaps making a genocide claim was serious enough to warrant first the completion of the investigation the Pope was calling for. The lack of follow up questions is typical in Canadian journalism, and is a big reason why so many Canadians are now calling for a real Indian Residential School investigation.

Even with all of the confusion and carelessness in the discourse, a general consensus has emerged that more research into the history of Indian Residential Schools is a good thing. However, what should be a black-and-white issue concerning the release of Indian Residential School records vital to the work of historians, has become an opaque cloud of gray. Unbeknownst to the public, the NCTR appears to be withholding access to millions of Indian Residential School documents, previously slated for release, from journalists, academics and researchers. Further, the millions of Indian Residential School documents that are currently available to the public are now likely to be restricted as they too become shrouded in the ideology of Indigenous Data Sovereignty. 

Is the NCTR and the University of Manitoba actively conspiring to repress documents related to residential schools, ensuring researchers will not have the means to disapprove the claim that the schools were instruments of genocide?

The implications of Indigenous Data Sovereignty extend beyond residential schools. Indigenous Data Sovereignty was included as a goal in Trudeau’s Action Plan, which articulates Canada’s commitment to the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the intention “…to support Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Indigenous-led data strategies through legislative, regulatory and policy options to help ensure that First Nations, Inuit and Metis have the sufficient, sustainable data capacity they need to control, manage and protect their data to deliver effective services to their peoples, tell their own stories, participate in federal decision-making processes that impact them, and realize their respective visions for self-determination…”

Does this mean all documents which mention indigenous people will essentially become restricted?

It’s reasonable to assume that publicly financed data will become subject to Indigenous Data Sovereignty. While indigenous Canadians will be free to access public data related to both indigenous and non-indigenous Canadians, non-indigenous Canadians will be barred from accessing what otherwise would be public documents related to indigenous Canadians. Why would non-indigenous Canadian taxpayers want to pay for documents that they will not have access to? And what benefit is there in granting indigenous Canadians yet more special privileges not enjoyed by non-indigenous Canadians? 

In recommendations made in the recently published interim report, Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools, Kimberly Murray, is pushing for greater data sovereignty over any historical records that may concern indigenous people. While at the same time University of Manitoba employees, who run the new NCTR, are now claiming indigenous data sovereignty rights and have so far kept Indian Residential School records locked down. 

According to a 2013 trust deed, the University of Manitoba is required to preserve the Truth and Reconciliation Commission records and to make them available to the general public (public access being in Section N of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission mandate itself).  To date, this obligation has not been fulfilled, while the government's intentions, as expressed through the Action Plan, seem to negate it.

Even though Canadian taxpayers are funding a lavish new 60 million dollar NCTR building situated within the complex of the University of Manitoba, which will preserve historical Indian Residential School documents, virtually no effort has been made to provide access to the millions of records required for that crucial genocide investigation the Pope and so many others have called for.

I could almost, but not quite, empathize with the idea of indigenous data sovereignty if it was limited to records related to pre-contact indigenous history. But of course that is impossible because the indigenous of Canada were sparsely populated kinship groupings of preliterate hunter-gathers who had no means of record keeping, save for oral traditions used to transfer inter-generational knowledge. In other words, at the moment written records became a means by which indigenous history was preserved, there was no longer a purely indigenous history, free from Western influence, to preserve.

Giving indigenous activists data sovereignty over the records related to events that involved European settlers, is giving indigenous activists the power to shape both indigenous and European history. The typical aboriginal industry quest for greater power is made clear in Murray’s report when she writes, “Indigenous data sovereignty involves amending the laws that put power in the hands of government institutions, universities, and church organizations — the ‘creators’ or copyright holders of documents — and shifting that power back to the Indigenous people that are documented within records.”

So let me get this straight: It’s not the people who created (or paid for) the records who should own and control those records, at least, not in the case when said records involve an indigenous person. In those cases, control, ownership, or sovereignty, is to be immediately transferred to the nearest indigenous person. Anything less would be anti-indigenous and racist. What am I missing here?

Wherever Canadian history intersects with indigenous people - illuminated most powerfully through written records - indigenous activists like Kimberly Murray, in their boundless illiberalism, think they should hold the authority and sovereignty over the information, essentially granting them the power to shape and re-shape Canadian history into whatever mould best suits their present day demands (read financial compensation) to address so-called historical wrongs. 

The link between control of historical narrative and present day compensation awarded to indigenous activists is clear to anyone paying attention. As is the reality that the poorest indigenous reap little benefit from the vast transfers of taxpayer funds extracted endlessly in Canada’s national virtue-signaling exercise, the wasteful rent-seeking processes of “truth and reconciliation.” On the contrary, a counterproductive set of processes which hold little truth, or hope for reconciliation.

In a  presentation given at a Yellowknife Knowledge Sharing Circle on June 14, 2023 by Raymond Frogner, archivist at the NCTR, it is explained that “Indigenous Data Sovereignty refers to the right of indigenous people to govern the collection, ownership, and use of data about indigenous communities, peoples, lands, and resources.” No other ethnic or religious group is afforded such privilege, and not just for the reason of historical intersections of multiple groups mentioned above, but also, simply because awarding only some citizens special advantages and privileges is not consistent with the principles foundational to a liberal society. Unfortunately, indigenous activists have grown so accustomed to an endless stream of illiberal indigenous privilege, they have no inclination of dialing it back.

Whether involving access to written records, resources, or what should be crime scenes where unmarked graves are claimed to be, illiberal advantage is power, and power is the name of the game. Kimberly Murray said so much herself.

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Thanks for reading. For more from this author read, Soft bigotry leads to hard suffering

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