The Idle No More movement and its flash ceremonies were an amazing constitutional expression of the grassroots Aboriginal peoples of Canada. The flash ceremonies centred on the launch of constitutional songs of protest and the need for reconciliation in many venues and malls. These mobilization ceremonies were Indigenous manifestos embedded in the performance of songs and round dance. Many non-Aboriginal media and peoples were perplexed by the lack of the familiar practice of having speeches define the issues, and by Idle No More’s reliance on Aboriginal songs, round dances, and protest signs in the its ceremonies. They looked for a clear cause or issues as might be derived from the accustomed Eurocentric protests. They found that the meaning of these inimitable ceremonies in the deep winter was ambiguous and bewildering. They found it difficult to comment on these mobilization ceremonies. This response demonstrated the narrowness of the Eurocentric protest genres and repertoires.
These flash ceremonies demonstrated a new genre of protest movements and manifestos. They featured the muted and ignored voices of the deep Indigenous democracy that exists in North America. These voices have no role in Canadian virtual representative government, federally or provincial, or in Canadian consciousness. Their manifesto were rhythms that invoked the Aboriginal and Treaty rights recognized in s. 35(1) of Constitution Act, 1982. Through songs and drumbeats they grassroots and leaders expressed their constitutional voice as part of the supreme law of Canada in s. 52(1). Most of the songs were constitutional liberation songs sung by people still chained to the disastrous federal Indian Act regime. These performances were designed to accelerate political mobilization and constitutional resistance to federal legislation and the lack of constitutional consultation with Aboriginal peoples. Their were songs which expressed Canada’s disregard of Aboriginal sovereignty and dialogical governance, decolonization as well as its failure to implement Treaty federalism. Some of these songs represented songs of betrayal as well.
These songs ended the silence imposed on Aboriginal peoples. They sung about Parliament’s failure to live up to its constitutional promises when it enacted Omnibus Bill C-45, stealthily labeled the Jobs and Growth Act; they sung of this failure to uphold the honour of the Crown, and to consult and engage in dialogical governance with Aboriginal peoples. The flash ceremonies awakened Aboriginal people to the refusal of governments and media to understand the role of their constitutional rights and the requirement that legislation be consistent with these rights.
These performance ceremonies were successful. They forced responses to the ceremonies and revealed the covert alliance between government operatives, communication officers, and the media. Their coordinated responses to these ceremonies highlighted again the importance of the scholarship of Mark Cronlund Anderson and Carmen L. Robertson’s Robertson in their book, Seeing Red: A History of Natives in Canadian Newspapers, (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2012). This book exposed 3 sets of Indian characteristics relied on in the history of Canadian newspapers: (1) moral depravity (sneakiness, thievery, dishonesty, laziness and a tendency for debased physical afflictions such as alcoholism and impulsive violence); (2) a presumed race-based cognitive inadequacy, as expressed through images of stupidity, poor decision-making, and childish, irresponsible and frequently irrational behaviours; and (3) a view of Indians as stuck in an “unprogressive and non-evolving past” that is associated with “maladaptive cultural characteristics” making it difficult for them to progress in ways understood and accepted by mainstream Canadian culture.
Contrary to promises set out in international conventions, Canada’s responses to media’s coverage of Idle No More stimulated further acts of racial discrimination against Aboriginal people, and perpetuated and reinforced negative stereotypes, belittlement, and depersonalization of Aboriginal members of Idle No More. This discrimination was based on race rather than constitutional rights. Edmonton Sun writer (Levant) strongly implied the Idle No More participants were “terrorists” or criminals committing crimes against Canada that the police failed to lay charges against. Moreover, Canada allowed the media to contribute to a pattern of escalating appeals to racial intolerance and acts of hatred and racial violence against Aboriginal peoples and Idle No More. Toronto Sun writers (Gunter and Worthington) denigrated First Nations’ hard fought legal and constitutional battles for Aboriginal and Treaty rights; their views presented participants as childish and irrational, reinforcing these negative stereotypes against Idle No More and First Nations. National Post writer (Blatchford) denounced Aboriginal spirituality and Treaty rights in her characterization of Idle No More participants as irrational: “the inevitable cycle of hideous puffery and horse manure that usually accompanies native protests swirls. Already, there is much talk of smudging ceremonies, tobacco offerings, the inherent aboriginal love for and superior understanding of the land, and treaties that were expected to be in place ‘as long as the sun shines, the grass grows and the rivers flow’ . . . . Smudging, drumming and the like do not a nation make”.
Nonetheless, these ceremonies allowed the law work for Aboriginal peoples. The Treaty nations submitted a complaint to United Nation Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination about Canada’s failure in Idle No More coverage to comply with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination as well as their international human rights obligations. The ceremonies were key in forcing the Prime Minster of Canada—who refuses to meet with provincial leaders—to meet with Treaty rights holders. This meeting began as a Treaty implementation process in the Privy Council Office, examining revenue sharing for Treaty resources and the need for reconciliation within the comprehensive land claims policy.
In contrast to the opinion of the media coverage and the governmental operatives, moreover, in December 2014, the Mikisew Cree First Nation successful proved the Idle No More manifesto before the Federal Court of Canada. The Federal Court held that Parliament’s Omnibus Bills altered key environmental laws that protect Treaty rights to hunt, fish and trap without consulting Treaty beneficiaries and thereby breached constitutional requirements. The Federal Court issued a judicial declaration that the changes implemented through the Omnibus Bills resulted in a reduced scope for federal environmental laws to protect Treaty rights. The Court said the legislation presented a sufficient potential risk to trigger the constitutional duty of governments to consult with Treaty beneficiaries. However, the Court declined to issue any injunctions in relation to the legal changes effected through the Omnibus Bills, as the legislative changes had yet to apply by either federal or provincial governments to specific situations involving the Treaty rights.
The ceremonies heightened, energized, and animated a global political mobilization of Indigenous people, environmentalists, anti-racist educators, social justice movements, and civil society, the likes of which humanity had never witnessed before. The manifesto worked for Aboriginal peoples as an expression of justice and righteousness because they were an Indigenous expression that animated their rights. The manifesto worked because it forced media to listen to Aboriginal voices in order to explain the meaning of these ceremonies. And it worked because, most importantly, it responded to what makes Aboriginal people come alive. What Indigenous peoples needed and what Canadians need are people who have come alive to justice and who refuse to remain idle to injustices.