http://www.edmontonjournal.com/technology/Goldring+crude+take+Riel+stirs+controversy+debate/2600434/story.html
By Paula Simons, Edmonton JournalFebruary 23, 2010
Comments (27)
You have to hand it to Louis Riel -- 125 years after his execution for high treason, the charismatic Metis politician, poet, visionary, mad man and rebel leader is still making trouble for the Conservative government.
In December, Peter Goldring, Conservative MP for Edmonton East, mailed out a perplexing four-page newsletter to his constituents, passionately denouncing Riel as a murderer, villain and anarchist.
The mail-out seems to have been prompted by a private member's bill by Winnipeg NDP MP Pat Martin, who's been campaigning for Riel to be granted a posthumous pardon.
In "sanitizing" Riel's "rebellious ways," Goldring wrote, "we have sunk to a level comparable to that of modern Japan, where schoolbooks are sterilized to remove their Second World War shame, in the interest of sanitizing history and glorifying Emperor Hirohito."
It's been almost two months since Goldring sent out his inflammatory newsletter, but it took until this past weekend for the pamphlet to fire up a national response. G o ldring has been denounced by Metis leaders in Alberta and Manitoba, as well as by Manitoba Conservative MP Shelley Glover, who is also Metis. The Prime Minister's Office issued a statement denying any connection to Goldring's brochure. Goldring's been branded a racist by some commentators, while the Metis Nation of Alberta is calling on Stephen Harper to take disciplinary action against him.
Gerhard Ens is a professor of western Canadian history at the University of Alberta, specializing in Metis society. He calls Goldring's mail-out a "very crude sort of manifesto" by a "second-tier" politician.
Nonetheless, he says, Goldring's essay, and the backlash it has provoked, are indicative of a deep and ongoing divide in Canadian thinking.
"This is an old debate, going back to the 19th century," says Ens. "Was Riel a hero or a traitor? Those who want him completely exonerated and those who want him condemned always exist on the fringes."
The truth, says Ens, is considerably more complicated.
"He was an incredibly complex person -- but we like our villains and heroes black and white."
In 1869 and 1870, at the time of the Red River Rebellion, Louis Riel, he argues, could quite fairly be called a Father of Confederation.
At that time, Manitoba was not yet part of Canada. The former Hudson Bay Company territory had a largely Metis, francophone and Roman Catholic population. In the face of the impending arrival of thousands of white anglophone, Protestant settlers from Ontario, Riel and his followers declared themselves Manitoba's provisional government, and negotiated, largely peacefully, Manitoba's formal entry into Confederation.
If Riel had faded from history then, says Ens, he'd be remembered quite differently. Instead, after years in exile in the United States, including time in an insane asylum, he returned to Canada in 1885 and led the desperate Prairie Metis, along with their Cree allies, Poundmaker and Big Bear, in the disastrous Northwest Rebellion.
Rod Macleod, professor emeritus of western Canadian history at the U of A and co-author of Prairie Fire: The 1885 Northwest Rebellion, says about 200 people died in the fighting, including 80 Canadian soldiers. Compared to wars in the other times and places, the death toll was light. But, Macleod notes, the abortive rebellion left the Metis and Cree in a much worse position, and poisoned white/aboriginal relations for years after, even though very few native bands joined the uprising.
Macleod doesn't support efforts to whitewash Riel, to paint him as a simple hero or victim. But he's baffled by the vehemence of Goldring's attack on Riel's legacy, and by the decision to use a constituency newsletter to stir up controversy.
"What could possibly have motivated him to stick his finger in a hornet's nest? Is he nuts?" he asks.
"I do have some sympathy with Goldring's point of view on this. The whole notion that you can retry the case -- I don't think there's a shred of historical legitimacy to that. And I'm not a big fan of the some of those who are criticizing (Goldring) either. It seems you can't say anything negative about Riel these days without being called a racist. But is this an issue that needs to be aired at the public expense?"
What was Peter Goldring thinking, when he sent out his divisive rant? It's hard to say, since the usually loquacious MP has been declining all comment. (My attempts to reach him by phone and e-mail were unsuccessful.)
Whatever his motivation, he clearly failed to recognize the enduring power of Louis Riel's mythos. Riel was both a passionate, brilliant, and eloquent advocate for his conquered people, and a deluded dreamer, who battled his own personal demons, just as much as the forces of white colonization. Like many a Messianic visionary, before and since, he became so wrapped up in his own vision of himself as the saviour of his people, he lost sight of the real and bloody consequences of his actions. Yet he remains the most compelling, romantic and tragic figure in western Canadian history, a martyr whose legend still infuses the Metis Nation with identity and pride.
Goldring is right about one thing. We shouldn't canonize Louis Riel as a secular saint or airbrush his manifold sins in the name of political correctness. But to brand Riel a villain or murderer is every bit as simple-minded, not to mention insulting to Metis Canadians.
For Golding to use his parliamentary mailing privileges to disseminate his own private anti-Riel views is a peculiar misuse of public trust.
His time, and our money, might be better spent if he focused on the issues that matter in Edmonton East -- here and now.
psimons@thejournal.canwest.comtwitter.com/Paulatics
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Toronto'sNATIVE HISTORYFor Aboriginal people living in the Toronto area there is a long history of Native occupation which Toronto’s modern towers of concrete and steel may obscure but cannot eradicate. It has been posited by some historical researchers that the pre-contact Aboriginal people in North America were the original “affluent society.” By this they meant that, compared with other societies at that time, the amount of time Aboriginal people had to spend to fulfill their subsistence needs was less, leaving more time for leisure and other cultural, recreational and social pursuits. European explorers who first penetrated the interior of North America found broad forest expanses they described as park-like; not recognizing that these were carefully managed and cultivated storehouses for Native people. The Toronto area offered a rich habitat for various forms of wildlife, and for Aboriginal societies practicing hunting and gathering (and later fur trading and trapping), as well as those pursuing horticultural activities. The waterways provided natural travel routes, and there were many fine harbours and lees in which to find shelter. The Great Lakes area, particularly around Toronto, was a place not dissimilar to the Mediterranean in that many cultures and peoples met for the purposes of trade and commerce – dating back thousands of years prior to European contact. In this process, cultures melded and developed, groups intermarried, and languages and cultures flourished. Opportunities to simultaneously pursue horticulture and game hunting meant that the Native peoples of the area had the luxury of developing complex and sophisticated ceremonial lives; the long autumn season was (and is) an important ceremonial time in the annual cycles of all the Aboriginal peoples who have lived in the region.The first non-Native to reach the “big beautiful lake,” Ontario, was likely the French courier-de-bois Etienne Brule, whose first view was from the mouth of the Humber River in 1615. Brule recorded no human habitation at that time. However, evidence shows there were villages in this area which had been abandoned about half-a-century earlier. Numerous archaeological sites under the city attest to the life, use, and occupancy of the area by the Wendat (Huron). It is likely that the rivers and lake were used on a continuous annual basis, also by the Anishinaabek, to harvest fish. A large village known to archaeologists as Teiaiagon at Toronto was also established by the Seneca on the Humber River (now just south of High Park) about fifty years after Brule’s visit. The name Toronto, which in the Wendat language refers to a fishing weir constructed of standing sticks in the water, clearly refers to this important gathering activity to the area’s many Aboriginal peoples. The seasonal gatherings of fish from the weirs in this very abundant place, would not have been the exclusive domain of one specific Aboriginal group, but instead involved many peoples and occasioned ceremonial, trade, and celebratory gatherings. The name thus extended to the broader definition “gathering place,” and metaphorically to the significance of this place as one where many people come together to meet on positive terms. Similarly, the Mnjikaning First Nation recognize their sacred role in protecting the 4500 year-old weirs, which they shared with their Wendat neighbors between lakes Simcoe and Couchiching – to which their name, Mnjikaning in the Anishnaabe language, also refers to fishing weirs. While some have narrowly assumed that the name Toronto as the “gathering place” is an inaccurate “mistranslation,” the multilayered understanding of a single item such as a fishing weir in terms of its natural, sacred, practical, and social meanings is in keeping with the Indigenous knowledge frameworks of the peoples of this area.The Jesuit missionaries arrived in the region, in a concentrated effort, in the 1640s – a time which coincided with a sweep of epidemics through the Aboriginal populations. Approximately 65,000 people lived in the area at that time, and it is estimated that fifty percent died as a result of the introduction of European diseases. The death of so many had predictable results: many of the dead were Elders and the communities were robbed of their leadership at a time when it was most needed; productive capacity was severely diminished; the local positions of these Aboriginal people within the fur trade and within Native trading networks were destabilized; the inability of their own spiritual practitioners to deal with the foreign disease led to the undermining of Native spirituality. Those who survived were dispersed, and sought refuge among their kin and neighbors outside the area.The French established a fur trade post called Fort Rouille at the present site of the Canadian National Exhibition in 1750, one of a series of three French fur trade posts at Toronto, and later Fort York. Bands of Anishnaabek who monopolized this trade, camped in numerous places along the shoreline to the Don River, and on the Toronto Islands (which were then a peninsula attached to the mainland). The islands held long-standing, special healing significance to the Anishnaabek. As D.W. Smith’s Gazetteer recorded in 1813, “the long beach or peninsula, which affords a most delightful ride, is considered so healthy by the Indians that they resort to it whenever indisposed.” The Toronto Islands were important stopping places for the Anishnaabe fishery and were places of healing and spiritual renewal.At the height of the fur trade, First Nations were increasingly put under pressure (from European encroachment into their lands) to form various alliances with European military and trading partners. Native peoples formed alliances with both Europeans and other First Nations, for their own purposes, and with their own agendas. Around the year 1700, the Mississauga had expelled the Haudensaune from the Toronto area and had established control and settlement of the north shore of Lake Ontario and Trent River Valley. By the late eighteenth century, land cessions, mostly negotiated under the terms of Peace and Friendship treaties, had laid the basis for increased European settlement of the Great Lakes region, and particularly the Toronto area. The first land surrender made by the Mississauga to the British Crown was in 1781 – ceding land along the north bank of the Niagara River from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario in return for 300 suits of clothing. A number of other sales of lands by numerous bands of the Mississauga followed. In 1787, Sir John Johnson and Col. John Butler apparently purchased a large tract of land on the north shore of Lake Ontario, a transaction known as the Toronto Purchase. However, the document which formalized the transaction, omitted a description of the area surrendered. It contained a blank spot where descriptions of the surrendered land were supposed to be inserted after the fact. Also, the Mississauga retained their rights to their traditional fishing grounds particularly along the many creeks which flowed into Lake Ontario, now covered by the City of Toronto. This may have included Taddle Creek which ran through what is now “Philosophers Walk” on the St. George Campus of the University of Toronto. During the latter decades of the eighteenth century, the Mississauga were given assurances many times that their fishing and burial grounds would be protected from escalating non-Native aggression; including a proclamation made in 1796. However, these efforts were largely ineffectual.In 1805, an agreement was drawn up with the Mississauga of the New Credit River to affirm the 1787 transaction. However, the boundaries of the ceded lands contained in this document did not correspond correctly to those meant to have been included in the earlier surrender. Therefore, more lands were taken from the Mississauga than had been their intention to sell. A 1916 inquiry revealed that the 1805 disagreements meant that the lands remained unsurrendered, giving rise to the signing of the Williams Treaties in 1923, to which seven Mississauga and Chippewa bands were party. The New Credit First Nation, who in 1847, had had to relocate to their present location near Hagersville, were never approached to participate in the 1923 treaty-making. Hence, beginning in 2003, the federal government entered into negotiations with the New Credit First Nation to resolve the issue of their having not surrendered their interest in the Toronto lands. Although the Mississauga of the New Credit had relocated, they continued to press for their rights on Toronto lands into the latter nineteenth century. For example, in a communication to the Duke of Newcastle in September 1860, they complained that their former council grounds still belonged to them (now the site of the Center for Addictions and Mental Health, Queen Street Mental Health centre). They wrote, “A lot of three acres in the vicinity of Toronto City near or where the Provincial Lunatic Asylum now stands, this was a Reserve for camping and council purposes.” Into the twentieth century, Native people continued to travel and trade in the Toronto region, and there is some evidence that many Native families remained in the area. The proximity of many reserves to Toronto and the development of the city as a centre of government, commerce, trade and education, ensured that Native people maintained a presence in and exerted some influence within the life of Toronto.The history of the Toronto area is one in which Native peoples were integrally involved. Their full knowledge and use of the area and its rich environmental resources prior to the arrival of Europeans is attested to by the rich archaeological history of the area, by its recounting in oral testimony, and by the abundance of place names given to various geographical features in the city. Many of these names survive in anglicized forms today such as “Spadina”, which was “I-shpa-di-naa”, a hill or sudden rise in the land in the Anishinaabe language. They also had extensive knowledge of the lifeways of other Native peoples across North America, and enjoyed participation in a rich trading network. Situated geographically, and with regards to other nations, they were in a unique position to take advantage of new trading opportunities with Europeans. Their participation in the fur trade was buttressed by their control of two key travel routes in the Great Lakes area – the portages to Lake Simcoe and to Georgian Bay.The nineteenth century was, however, a great century of change, and in that time, pressures of settlement, disease, competition for game, warfare and political alliances of Aboriginal nations resulted in their marginalization in their own lands. This however, did not mean that Native people disappeared from the landscape. They continued to press for redress of the injustices committed against them throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. Native people continued to live in the Toronto area, both as individuals and communities, but they were like a fire that lives under the moss – burning slowly and gently but with little smoke, until their significant re-emergence after the Second World War.
