First Nations, Métis and Inuit, 1929–1945: Government Policies and Indigenous Responses

Approaching this lesson

This lesson deals with government policies that caused serious harm to First Nations, Métis and Inuit, including residential schools. It describes them factually, without graphic detail. Some readers may have family connections to these experiences. Support is available 24 hours a day through the Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line (1-866-925-4419) and the Hope for Wellness Help Line (1-855-242-3310).

Remember also that this is a history of resilience and organizing: First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities resisted, built political organizations and kept their cultures alive, and they continue to do so today.

In Grade 8 you studied the Indian Act of 1876 and the beginnings of residential schools. This lesson looks at how those policies continued, and changed, from 1929 to 1945.

The Indian Act in the 1930s

The main goal of federal policy was still assimilation. Under the Indian Act, the Department of Indian Affairs and its local Indian agents controlled much of daily life on reserves.

• Land claims: a 1927 amendment made it illegal for First Nations to raise money or hire lawyers to pursue land claims without government permission. It stayed in force until 1951.
• Ceremonies: bans on important ceremonies, such as the potlatch on the West Coast and some dances on the Prairies, were still in the law, though many communities continued them, sometimes in secret.
• Enfranchisement: a 1933 amendment again allowed the government to remove status from some First Nations people without their consent.
• Relief: in the Depression, First Nations families had to ask the Indian agent for help, and relief was usually very small.

Causes: these policies came from the belief, widely held in government and society, that Indigenous cultures should disappear and that Indigenous people should be controlled, and from the government's interest in land and resources.

Residential schools

The residential school system was close to its largest in this period: according to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, there were about 80 schools in 1931. Children were taken from their families, punished for speaking their languages, and often lived in poor conditions with poor food and health care. Many suffered abuse, and many children died. In the 1940s, federal researchers even ran nutrition experiments on children in some schools without their or their families' consent.

The schools caused harm that has passed from generation to generation. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2015) documented this history and called it cultural genocide. Survivors' courage in speaking about their experiences made this history known.

The vote, and identity controlled by government

• The Dominion Franchise Act (1934) explicitly excluded Inuit from voting in federal elections. Most First Nations people with status could not vote federally unless they gave up their status. Inuit gained the federal vote in 1950, and First Nations without having to give up status in 1960.
• Inuit and federal responsibility: in 1939, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Inuit are a federal responsibility under the constitution, like First Nations. Ottawa, however, provided few services in the North.
• Disc numbers: from 1941, the federal government gave Inuit identification discs with numbers, which officials used instead of names, because government workers did not use Inuit naming traditions. The system was replaced through Project Surname (1968 to 1971). Many Inuit experienced the numbers as dehumanizing.
• Sterilization laws: Alberta (1928) and British Columbia (1933) passed laws allowing the sterilization of people labelled "mentally defective", based on the false science of eugenics. Indigenous people, especially women, were among those disproportionately affected, along with people with disabilities, poor people and immigrants. Alberta's law lasted until 1972.

The Métis in Alberta: the Ewing Commission and Métis settlements

Many Métis families in Alberta had no secure land. They often lived on road allowances (strips of Crown land beside roads), with very little income during the Depression.

• In 1932, Métis leaders including Joseph Dion, Malcolm Norris and Jim Brady helped form the Métis Association of Alberta to press for land.
• In 1934, the Alberta government set up the Ewing Commission to study the conditions of the Métis. It recommended that land be set aside.
• The Métis Population Betterment Act (1938) created 12 settlement areas ("colonies") in central and northern Alberta. Four later lost their status, but eight Métis Settlements remain today, the only legislated Métis land base in Canada.

Significance: the Act showed that Métis organizing could win results, though the settlements were controlled by the province for decades and did not meet all Métis needs.

Indigenous organizing and resistance

• The Native Brotherhood of British Columbia (1931) worked for land rights, fishing rights and better conditions.
• The Indian Association of Alberta (1939) pressed for treaty rights.
• The North American Indian Brotherhood (1944), led by Andrew Paull of the Squamish Nation, tried to unite First Nations nationally.
• Francis Pegahmagabow, an Anishinaabe veteran of the First World War from Wasauksing First Nation and one of Canada's most decorated soldiers, became a political activist for First Nations rights and self-government in the 1940s.

These organizations laid the groundwork for later national organizations and for the push to change the Indian Act after the war.