Cash Back
“Restoring Indigenous economies requires focusing on the perspectives of those most impacted by colonization and the attacks on Indigenous livelihoods. It means reclaiming the language for “sharing” in dozens of Indigenous tongues. It means recognizing that Indigenous inherent rights do not stop at the boundaries of the reserve. It means holding up the mirror to a beastly self-destructive world and guiding it forward through the fire.”
- Cash Back, Yellowhead Institute Red Paper
How much money does Canada owe Indigenous people for the theft of their land, and what could restitution look like? A Yellowhead Institute report posed this and other questions as it took a deep dive through the finances behind Canada’s historical and ongoing oppression of Indigenous Peoples. “Cash Back”, is the newest Red Paper from the Yellowhead Institute, an Indigenous-led think tank operating out of X University.
Like most things related to Crown-Indigenous relations and economic reconciliation, it’s complex and requires a lot of learning, understanding and seeing the interconnectedness of all of these spaces. But to begin, lets understand the history of the “Indian Trust Fund”, check out this link and watch the Yellowhead Institutes video to get the overarching history to this fund and why this knowledge if important to this story. It is also to understand Corporate Colonialism and how corporations were set up to build intergenerational wealth and profit off of Indigenous land theft. In this Yellowhead’s Special Feature on Coporate Colonialism you will begin to see how private capital has always been deeply interlaced with colonial governance.
So, you ask, why Cash Back? This Red paper, answers this by stating. “In Canada, the economy can’t be understood outside of the problem of land. This report is focused on cash and the different roles it has played in this colonial country. It is the companion-analysis to Land Back and perhaps a less told story, though every bit as critical. In many ways, money has become the language of colonization itself. Cash Back exposes how dispossession, debt, and discrimination has been constructed, created, and justified over the past 150 years.”
Land Back and Cash Back Red Papers by the Yellowhead Institute for me are the epidemy of Canadian citizen’s starting point to Economic Reconciliation. I share anything and everything by Yellowhead as they speak the truth, don’t hold back and tackle all of the systemic issues Canada has to face. So let’s take a peek into what this document shares with us:
Introduction: From Land Back to Cash Back;
PART ONE: How Canada Got its Economy - A History of Economic Dispossession;
PART TWO: Colonialism as Fiscal Policy - Following the Money;
PART THREE: How to Get That Cash Back - Redress, Compensation, and Restitution;
Conclusion: Building Economies of Life.
"...the more we live as Indigenous People, the more that we have, the more freedom that we have, the more we can envision the hope and the realization of our liberation as Indigenous People. And that is what is such a threat to the state, that is what is such a threat to the economy."
- Molly Wickham (Sleydo’): Cas-Yikh (Grizzly) house, Gidimt’en Clan of the Wet’suwet’en Nation, Ransom Economy Webinar
In short, this Cash Back discussion demonstrates the opposite of the “free handouts” stereotypes — the idea that somehow First Nations are pampered and privileged — reveals a much darker reality. That in fact, First Nations face a predatory environment of interconnected forms of violence, as Pitawatakwat describes in Part 3, due to systemic impoverishment. First Nations have been denied even a fraction of what they have contributed to this nation’s wealth. This Red Paper is summarized by sharing, ”In conclusion, the Wiindigo economy — a society built on death — shows why it is settler society that will need First Nation leadership and support to “build back better.” This time, the new economy must be built on life.
What Yellowhead’s Cash Back Red Paper is showing everyone, is a glimpse of how Canada got its economy through theft, how colonialism has been reframed as fiscal policy, and how Indigenous livelihoods can be protected and thrive even in the face of state deprivations and violence. Indigenous Peoples have continued to show their resilience by constantly walking through the fire and transforming, like a phoenix, into something amazing and forge ahead.
This speaks to what I share so passionately in my stories, podcast and the BC Economic Reconciliation Framework and reiterated by Yellowhead in that “It is important that we do not talk about a single “economy” in this country. Because the “Canadian economy” is not the same thing as the many other types of economies that organize Indigenous lives.” True Economic Reconciliation is not about this one economy is it does not include the First Peoples of the land and their respective worldviews which includes values, responsibility, accountability, spirituality, and reciprocity in relationship to all things for the well-being of everything.
I’ll close by sharing this quote from the Yellowhead Red Paper, ‘Cash Back’:
“The multiplicity of Indigenous economies is not a future prospect: it is already here. It is in the community-regulated fisheries and the dismantled dams that usher home fish kin.
They exist in community freezers of wild meat, at feasts that fill bellies and hearts with connection and care. They can be seen in the governance protocols of sugar bush camps and salmon harvests. They live in lipstick lines, airlines, and moccasin- making micro-enterprises. They are the multi-billion-dollar rental housing developments, tobacco trade, and lumber shops. They are in defund police movements, harm reduction initiatives, friendship centre childcares.
At their core, what makes them Indigenous economies is that they do not exploit that which they depend upon to live, including people. And they protect a world that is not prepared to value people’s time, homelands, and harvests solely in cash.”
Lasting Question?
Is a First Nations economy possible under Canadian law?
Cash Back means a return to traditional economies and must include Land Back.
First Nations economies currently exist and have always existed. They are on-reserve, off-reserve and in urban spaces. The Indian Act and other legislation limit the scope of First Nations economies. Many First Nations communities have been relegated to participating in resource extraction and manufacturing industries as the only source of revenue. Restrictions around land use on reserve, leasing arrangements and a huge lack of leveraging capital have created a perceived risk in doing business with First Nations. First Nations economies are possible under Canadian law. Our economies and financial institutions operate under an archaic regime in which outright ownership is the norm; this is changing but needs to be at greater pace. Reserve land in Canada is one of the only places where communal title exists, and if this feature were used in the appropriate fashion, ownership could be reimagined and transformed.
