Indian Association of Alberta
The Indian Association of Alberta (IAA) is an association of Indian tribes in the Canadian province of Alberta . It was founded in 1939 as a split from the League of Indians in Western Canada and held its first meeting on July 28 of the same year.
Indians in central Alberta, especially members of the Cree and Stoney , founded the League of Indians of Alberta (LIA) in 1933 , despite the 1927 ban on establishing political organizations. Its president, John Callihoo, was one of the driving forces behind the formation of the provincial IAA. But during the Second World War it was not possible to involve other Indian groups in Alberta. On the contrary, Chris Shade and other groups from southwest Alberta founded the Blood Indian Local Association . This reflected old contrasts between Cree and Blood .
A bridge was built by James Gladstone , who, by birth of the Cree, had been adopted by the Blood. In 1946 two groups of the IAA were formed with the Blood, which also sent delegates to the meeting in Hobbema. At that meeting, Gladstone was named director of the IAA for his redevelopment and far-reaching plans.
Its importance was evident during the presidencies of the Blackfoot Clarence McHugh and the Cree Albert Lightning, whose contrasts Gladstone was able to balance out in the course of the 1950s. He was president from 1950 to 1953 and from 1956 to 1957.
The main objective was to secure contractual rights (see Numbered Treaties ), as well as education and help against impoverishment. However, no agreement was reached on three other points. This concerned first the lifting of the alcohol ban for Indians, then the possibility for Indians to lose their status, after all there was no consensus on the division and individualization of reservations . Above all, cattle breeding required large, contiguous areas that generally belonged to the tribe as a whole and should therefore not be dismembered.
The finally adopted Indian Act from 1951 continue to ban alcohol prevented the distribution of land and included the Indians continue to the right to vote before that they could win until the 1960th After all, the goal of Indian legislation was no longer the explicit eradication of Indian cultures. The Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development still believed the Indians were not ready to take responsibility. At least the tribal councils were given greater powers.
However, due to the new version of the Indian law, some tribes such as the Samson Cree in Hobbema in central Alberta in 1956 lost their status as recognized Indians - although this decision was repealed in 1957. Another success was the fact that Gladstone was nominated to the Senate by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in 1958 .
When in 1969 a long struggle for the special status of the Indians began, which should lead to the complete assimilation and the abolition of the reservations, as demanded by Jean Chrétien , the IAA in 1970 set up the basic program Citizens Plus . A little later, the government distanced itself from Chrétien's demands.
During the constitutional conflict in the early 1980s (see Constitutional Law of 1982 ), the IAA organized a demonstration in Edmonton , the capital of Alberta, in front of the Alberta Legislature , in which 6,000 Indians took part. This fight was just as successful as the one from 1987 to 1990 against the Meech Lake Accord .
Alongside these issues of legal integration into the Canadian state, the IAA tried to address the disbanded residential schools , boarding-like schools in such bad conditions that the government apologized in 2008, and to address their consequences. At the same time, more investment should now be made in training and education. Nevertheless, the legal questions about land claims dominated, such as those of the Lubicon Lake band , which was not included in Contract No. 8 of the Numbered Treaties and now threatened to lose their land for good.
At the end of the 1990s, the IAA's state subsidies were canceled, so that the organization has since then relied exclusively on private donations. Nevertheless, she continues to work as a lobby group for Indian rights in Alberta.
literature
- Laurie Meijer Drees: History of the Indian Association of Alberta, 1939-1959 , unpublished PhD thesis, University of Calgary 1997
- Laurie Meijer Drees: The Indian Association of Alberta: a History of Political Action , Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press 2002
- Keith Johnson: Indian Association of Alberta. Formative Educational Concerns , Thesis, University of Alberta, 1977.