Frank Calder (politician)

Frank Arthur Calder (born August 3, 1915 in Nass Harbor , British Columbia , † November 4, 2006 ) was a member of the Canadian First Nation of the Nisga'a and campaigned for the rights of the Indians . He was also the first status Indian to be admitted to the University of British Columbia . He was also the first to be admitted to the British Columbia Legislative Assembly , the first member of the Canadian Parliament, and the first Minister of the Crown .

He was a co-founder of the Nisga'a Tribal Council , the first tribal council in British Columbia. He was its president for 20 years. He was the first and only one of the four Nisga'a clans ever to be referred to as "chief of chiefs".

At the national level he was best known through the trial of land rights before the Supreme Court (Calder versus Attorney General of BC) in Ottawa in 1973. This was the first time that the claim to indigenous land rights was enshrined in Canadian law.

Thereafter, Calder received numerous honors and titles, including inductee to Canada's First Nation's Hall of Fame , President Emeritus, Nisga'a Tribal Council , Aboriginal Order of Canada , Officer, Order of Canada , and received the Doctor of Divinity , Doctor of Laws , Licentiate in Theology and National Aboriginal Lifetime Achievement Award , and he was inducted into the British-Colombian and the Order of Canada .

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Frank Calder was born in Nass Harbor in 1915. At the age of seven he was sent to the Coqualeetza Residential School in Sardis , which at that time was run by the Methodist Church and later by the United Church . He became the first Indian to be admitted to Chilliwack High School , then the first to graduate from the Anglican Theological College at the University of British Columbia , later the Vancouver School of Theology (1946).

He was elected to the Legislative Assembly three years later. He was a member of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation , which later became the New Democratic Party . Only once, in 1956, did he lose an election.

In 1955 he founded the Nisga'a Tribal Council and remained its president until 1974. In 1972 he became British Columbia's first indigenous minister in the Dave Barrett cabinet , but he lost this position as minister with no portfolio or for Indian affairs the next year - possibly as a pawn for the discredited government. In 1975 he moved to the Social Credit Party and beat the NDP candidate. He lost the legendary 1979 election by a single vote, with rumors circulating that he had not taken the time to vote for the Nisga'a in his own constituency.

Its proceedings before the supreme courts of the Province and the Court of Appeal, especially the front of the Supreme Court in Ottawa , he made known about the Canadian borders after his action both by the Supreme Court of British Columbia and by the Court of Appeal , the Court of Appeal , had been rejected.

This 1973 decision formed the basis for the 2000 treaty, in which Canada first came to terms with an Indian tribe. As a result, the so-called BC Treaty Process had to be set in motion, which prompted the province to begin a multi-stage negotiation process for the rights of the First Nations. This complicated process continues to this day. At the same time, the process has attracted international attention and has a major impact on legal disputes of a similar nature in Australia , South Africa , New Zealand and other countries.

In 1988 Calder became a member of the Order of Canada , but it was not until 2004 that he was accepted into the Order of British Columbia.

He died of cancer on November 4, 2006.

See also

• First Nations history
• History of British Columbia

literature

• Sandra Martin: Obituary: Frank Calder, Politician and Nisga'a Chief: 1915-2006; The 'dream child' started a native land-claims case that would reverberate across Canada and around the world. In: Globe and Mail, November 9, 2006.

Web links

• Order of British Columbia, Dr. Frank Arthur Calder , archive.org, May 9, 2010
• Calder v. Attorney-General of BC, 1973 CanLII 4 (SCC)