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The Indian Association of Alberta is a province-wide First Nations rights organization. It was founded by John Callihoo and John Laurie in 1939, after splitting off from the League of Indians in Western Canada.
Before 1946, Indians in Alberta were not as united. and The 1927 Indian Act forbade aboriginals in Canada from forming political organizations as well as practicing their traditional culture and language. Still, a number of Cree and Stoney Indians from central Alberta formed the League of Indians of Alberta (LIA) in 1933. President John Callihoo helped reorganize the LIA in 1939 as the IAA. The new association was inactive through most of the war years, and it still represented mostly Indians from central Alberta. In 1943, Chris Shade and other aboriginals from southwestern Alberta formed their own group: the Blood Indian Local Association. Callihoo met with the organizers, hoping to attract the association to the IAA. The two parties found common ground on a number of issues, but the Blood tribe's bitterness toward the "Cree Association" persisted.
In subsequent years, the IAA was able to expand its reach and unite the various Indian tribes of Alberta. James Gladstone, a Cree Indian by birth, worked on behalf of his adopted Blood tribe to improve relationships between their association and the IAA. In 1946, they formed two IAA locals and sent eight delegates to the IAA convention in Hobbema. Gladstone spoke for the Blood locals, presenting eight resolutions relating to education, ranching and land ownership. He demonstrated his capability to unite the tribes at the meeting and was appointed a director of the IAA. Tribal differences reemerged in the mid-1950s, when Blackfoot Clarence McHugh and Cree Albert Lightning each served a year as president. Gladstone helped restore order to the IAA and expand further into northern Alberta as president from 1950 to 1953 and 1956 to 1957.
Through leaders Gladstone, John Laurie, Malcolm Norris and others, the IAA became much more active at lobbying provincial and federal governments and raising public support. They were at least partially responsible for legislation extending financial allowances to Indians and other social improvements. They became involved in the planning of legislation when the federal government established a special joint committee to investigate ways to revise the Indian Act in 1946.
IAA delegates to the committee put forward a number of resolutions in favour of treaty rights, education and social assistance. They opposed two resolutions that government representatives and some other aboriginal groups advocated. Most Alberta Indians opposed the granting of the franchise to status Indians for fear that it would lead to the surrender of their special status and tax exemptions. They also did not want their reserve land subdivided because for decades, they had practiced ranching on common reserve property. Finally, IAA delegates could not agree on whether laws restricting Indians from drinking in Canada should be repealed.
The revised Indian Act of 1951 continued to prohibit Indians from drinking, their lands were not subdivided, and they were not given the federal vote. Furthermore, the Act no longer endorsed forced assimilation although it contained no clauses specifically protecting aboriginals' unique culture. Three quarters of the IAA's objections to the first Bill drafted from the joint committee's recommendations were remedied in the new Act. They included the granting of more powers to Indian band councils. Still, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development officials continued to treat each band as "their wards who were not ready for responsibility."
The new Indian Act also reduced the number of aboriginals who qualified for special status. In 1956, members of the Samson Cree band living in Hobbema in central Alberta were expelled because of this revision. A court decision overturned the ruling in 1957, but concerns over Indians' special status persisted. The IAA pressed for revisions to the Indian Act that would secure their treaty rights, and in 1959, another joint committee was established, with Gladstone as co-chair.
Prime Minister John Diefenbaker had appointed Gladstone to the Canadian Senate in 1958, a sign that his government was more willing to work on behalf of Indians' interests. Still, the 1951 Indian Act remained in place until it was revised in 1985.
The IAA again became active in federal politics when the Liberal government released its White Paper Policy in 1969. The White Paper spelled out procedures that would bring Indians into the mainstream of Canadian society. They included the transfer of responsibility over reserves to the provinces and the loss of Indians' special status. The IAA reacted vehemently against these proposals and released a counterpolicy entitled Citizens Plus in 1970. As a result of the opposition, the government finally dropped the White Paper in 1971.
For many years, the IAA and other aboriginal groups had pressed for aboriginal and treaty rights to be guaranteed in the Canadian Constitution. After Prime Minister Trudeau announced plans to patriate the constitution in 1980 and attach to it a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, aboriginal groups across Canada fought to include the rights in the Charter. The IAA organized a demonstration on the Alberta Legislature grounds of over 6000 Indians from throughout Alberta. The new Charter recognized only "existing" aboriginal and treaty rights but provided for the negotiation of these rights by means of an amending formula. Successive constitutional conferences failed to clarify these rights, including the Meech Lake Accord, signed in 1987. The IAA and other aboriginal groups, however, helped to defeat the Accord in 1990.
First Nations is a term used to identify Indigenous peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. Traditionally, First Nations in Canada were peoples who lived south of the tree line, and mainly south of the Arctic Circle. There are 634 recognized First Nations governments or bands across Canada. Roughly half are located in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia.
The minister of Crown–Indigenous relations is a minister of the Crown in the Canadian Cabinet, one of two ministers who administer Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC), the department of the Government of Canada which is responsible for administering the Indian Act and other legislation dealing with "Indians and lands reserved for the Indians" under subsection 91(24) of the Constitution Act, 1867. The minister is also more broadly responsible for overall relations between the federal government and First Nations, Métis, and Inuit.
The Kainai Nation is a First Nations band government in southern Alberta, Canada, with a population of 12,965 members in 2024, up from 11,791 in December 2013.
In Canada, an Indian reserve is defined by the Indian Act as a "tract of land, the legal title to which is vested in Her Majesty, that has been set apart by Her Majesty for the use and benefit of a band." Reserves are areas set aside for First Nations, one of the major groupings of Indigenous peoples in Canada, after a contract with the Canadian state, and are not to be confused with Indigenous peoples' claims to ancestral lands under Aboriginal title.
The Indian Act is a Canadian Act of Parliament that concerns registered Indians, their bands, and the system of Indian reserves. First passed in 1876 and still in force with amendments, it is the primary document that defines how the Government of Canada interacts with the 614 First Nation bands in Canada and their members. Throughout its long history, the act has been a subject of controversy and has been interpreted in different ways by both Indigenous Canadians and non-Indigenous Canadians. The legislation has been amended many times, including "over five major changes" made in 2002.
James Gladstone was a Canadian politician who claimed to become the first Treaty Indian to be appointed to the Senate of Canada.
The Métis are an Indigenous people whose historical homelands include Canada's three Prairie Provinces. They have a shared history and culture, deriving from specific mixed European and Indigenous ancestry, which became distinct through ethnogenesis by the mid-18th century, during the early years of the North American fur trade.
First Nations in Alberta are a group of people who live in the Canadian province of Alberta. The First Nations are peoples recognized as Indigenous peoples or Plains Indians in Canada excluding the Inuit and the Métis. According to the 2011 Census, a population of 116,670 Albertans self-identified as First Nations. Specifically there were 96,730 First Nations people with registered Indian Status and 19,945 First Nations people without registered Indian Status. Alberta has the third largest First Nations population among the provinces and territories. From this total population, 47.3% of the population lives on an Indian reserve and the other 52.7% live in urban centres. According to the 2011 Census, the First Nations population in Edmonton totalled at 31,780, which is the second highest for any city in Canada. The First Nations population in Calgary, in reference to the 2011 Census, totalled at 17,040. There are 45 First Nations or "bands" in Alberta, belonging to nine different ethnic groups or "tribes" based on their ancestral languages.
Harold Cardinal was a Cree writer, political leader, teacher, negotiator, and lawyer. Throughout his career he advocated, on behalf of all First Nation peoples, for the right to be "the red tile in the Canadian mosaic."
David Laird, was a Canadian politician. He was born in New Glasgow, Prince Edward Island, into a Presbyterian family noted for its civic activism. His father Alexander had been a long time Reformer and Liberal MLA. David became a Liberal MLA for Belfast. He also established and edited The Patriot.
J. Wilton Littlechild, known as Willie Littlechild, is a Canadian lawyer and Cree chief who was Grand Chief of the Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations and a member of Parliament. A residential school survivor, he is known for his work nationally and internationally on Indigenous rights. He was born in Hobbema, now named Maskwacis, Alberta.
In Canada, an Indian band, First Nation band or simply band, is the basic unit of government for those peoples subject to the Indian Act. Bands are typically small groups of people: the largest in the country, the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation had 22,294 members in September 2005, and many have a membership below 100 people. Each First Nation is typically represented by a band council chaired by an elected chief, and sometimes also a hereditary chief. As of 2013, there were 614 bands in Canada. Membership in a band is controlled in one of two ways: for most bands, membership is obtained by becoming listed on the Indian Register maintained by the government. As of 2013, there were 253 First Nations which had their own membership criteria, so that not all status Indians are members of a band.
The 1969 White Paper was a policy paper proposal set forth by the Government of Canada related to First Nations. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and his Minister of Indian Affairs, Jean Chrétien, issued the paper in 1969. The White Paper proposed to abolish all legal documents that had previously existed, including the Indian Act, and all existing treaties within Canada, comprising Canadian Aboriginal law. It proposed to assimilate First Nations as an ethnic group equal to other Canadian citizens. The White Paper was met with widespread criticism and activism, causing the proposal to be officially withdrawn in 1970.
Maskwacis, renamed in 2014 from Hobbema, is an unincorporated community in central Alberta, Canada at intersection of Highway 2A and Highway 611, approximately 70 kilometres (43 mi) south of the City of Edmonton. The community consists of two Cree First Nations communities – one on the Ermineskin 138 reserve to the north and the other on the Samson 137 reserve to the south. It also consists of an adjacent hamlet within Ponoka County. The community also serves three more nearby First Nations reserves including Samson 137A to the south, Louis Bull 138B to the northwest, and Montana 139 to the south.
The following is an alphabetical list of topics related to Indigenous peoples in Canada, comprising the First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.
Saddle Lake Cree Nation is a Plains Cree, First Nations community, located in the Amiskwacīwiyiniwak region of central Alberta, Canada. The Nation is a signatory to Treaty 6, and their traditional language is Plains Cree.
Indigenous or Aboriginal self-government refers to proposals to give governments representing the Indigenous peoples in Canada greater powers of government. These proposals range from giving Aboriginal governments powers similar to that of local governments in Canada to demands that Indigenous governments be recognized as sovereign, and capable of "nation-to-nation" negotiations as legal equals to the Crown, as well as many other variations.
The Michel Band is an Indigenous nation of central Alberta, Canada, which the Government of Canada recognized as a nation and treaty partner from 1878 to 1958. The descendants of that historic band, now organized as an association called the Michel First Nation, are engaged in legal and political action to regain recognition.
The self-formation of political organizations of Indigenous peoples in Canada has been a constant process over many centuries.
The Red Paper, also titled "Citizens Plus," is a policy proposal put forward by the Indian Association of Alberta (IAA) in 1970 under the leadership of Cree political leader Harold Cardinal. The Red Paper was a counter-proposal to the White Paper, a policy put forward by Pierre Trudeau's Minister of Indian Affairs, Jean Chrétien. The White Paper is also titled 1969 Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy.