A University of Saskatchewan professor says non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal peoples need to rekindle the type of relationship they once had during the fur trade.
Jim Miller teaches history at the U of S and he says what was once a partnership between the two groups deteriorated in the late nineteenth century with Western agricultural expansion and when non-Aboriginals began to see First Nations as peoples to be oppressed rather than as partners.
He says the two groups need to try to find this spirit of partnership again and one such opportunity may lie in the desire of many non-Aboriginal businesses to extract natural resources located on First Nations lands.
“It’s already happening and I just think it’s going to spread because a lot of those resources – oil, gas, uranium, timber, coal, you name it – are located on or under First Nations land,” he says.
Miller adds the residential schools apology was a positive first step by the Conservatives to rebuild a relationship but they have not done much since and instead have passed pieces of legislation such as Bill C-45 that have antagonized First Nations.
He says more First Nations unrest will continue to happen until the government starts to focus on a more positive and consultative relationship.
Miller was speaking Tuesday night at the Dave de Brou Memorial Lecture at the Frances Morrison Library in Saskatoon.