Abstracts
Abstract
Social assistance and related programs are an important part of life in the 13 Mi’kmaq communities of Nova Scotia. Given the substantive importance of social assistance and related programs in Mi’kmaq communities, it is surprising how little research has been conducted on the subject. This research aims to understand the origins of economic dependence and the related emergence of social assistance among the Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia. We identify key historical periods and processes that have shaped the current policy landscape. A defining characteristic of social policy on reserve has been the fact that First Nations themselves have had very little say in how programs such as social assistance are designed and delivered. There is hope that a more self-determined and holistic approach may emerge.
Keywords:
- Mi'kmaq,
- social assistance,
- economic dependence,
- colonialism,
- self-determination
Appendices
Bibliography
- Alexander, D. (1978). Economic growth in the Atlantic region, 1880 to 1940. Acadiensis, 8(1), 47¬–76.
- Alfred, T. (2009). Colonialism and state dependency. Journal of Aboriginal Health, 5(2), 42–60.
- Arneil, W. S. (1941). Investigative report on Indian reserves and Indian administration, province of Nova Scotia, Indian Affairs Branch. Department of Mines and Resources.
- Bednasek, C. D., & Godlewska, A. M. (2009). The influence of betterment discourses on Canadian Aboriginal Peoples in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Canadian Geographer/Le Géographe canadien, 53(4), 444–461. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0064.2009.00281.x
- Brownlie, R. (2003). A fatherly eye: Indian agents, government power, and Aboriginal resistance in Ontario, 1918–1939. University of Toronto Press. https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442659827
- Bury, H. J. (1925). The Indian situation in the province of Nova Scotia as it exists at the present time. Library and Archives Canada (LAC. RG 10, Vol 3220. File - 536,764-1).
- Campbell-Scott, D. (1925, February 3). [Letter to H.S. Trefry]. Library and Archives Canada (LAC. RG 10, Vol 3220. File - 536,764-1).
- Chapman, C., & Withers, A. J. (2019). A violent history of benevolence: Interlocking oppression in the moral economies of social working. University of Toronto Press. https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442625082
- Department of Indian Affairs. (1933, June 26). Report to Superintendent H. McGill on the Depression in Nova Scotia. Library and Archives Canada (LAC. RG10, Volume, 3220, File - 536,764-1).
- Ellingson, T. (2001). The myth of the noble savage. University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520925922
- Federal–Provincial–Territorial Directors of Income Support. (2016). Social assistance statistical report: 2009–2013. https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/services/social-assistance/reports/statistical-2009-2013.html#h2.1
- Forbes, E. R. (1993). The 1930s: Depression and retrenchment. In E. R. Forbes & D. A. Muise (Eds.), The Atlantic provinces in Confederation (pp. 272–305). University of Toronto Press. https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442657007-011
- Fortier, C., & Hon-Sing Wong, E. (2019). The settler colonialism of social work and the social work of settler colonialism. Settler Colonial Studies, 9(4), 437–456. https://doi.org/10.1080/2201473X.2018.1519962
- Fraser, J. (1905, July 21). Report of the Indian agent for Richmond County. Brook Village. In Annual report of the Department of Indian Affairs, 1905. http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?id=1905-IAAR-RAAI&op=pdf&app=indianaffairs
- Gonzalez, E. B. (1981). Changing economic roles for Micmac men and women: An ethnohistorical analysis (Canadian Ethnology Service Paper No.72). National Museums of Canada. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv16vf1
- Gonzalez, E. B. (1982). An ethnohistorical analysis of Micmac male and female economic roles. Ethnohistory, 29(2), 117–129. https://doi.org/10.2307/481372
- Government of Canada. (1896). Financial statements, tabular statement B, expenditure for Nova Scotia Indians. In Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs, 1896. http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?id=1896-IAAR-RAAI&op=pdf&app=indianaffairs
- Government of Canada. (1920). Table No. 6. Sources and value of income. In Annual report of the Department of Indian Affairs, 1920. http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?id=1920-IAAR-RAAI&op=pdf&app=indianaffairs
- Government of Canada. (2014). Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada. Income assistance: Key facts. https://www.sac-isc.gc.ca/eng/1369766807521/1533307648913
- Haddad, T., & Spivey, M. (1992). All or nothing: Modernization, dependency and wage labour on a reserve in Canada. Canadian Journal of Native Studies, 12(2), 203–228.
- Haigh, E. (2000). They must cultivate the land: Abraham Gesner as Indian commissioner, 1847–1853. Journal of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society, 3(1), 54–71.
- Hanrahan, M. (2008). Resisting colonialism in Nova Scotia: The Kesukwitk Mi’kmaq, centralization, and residential schooling. Native Studies Review, 17(1), 22–45.
- Hanrahan, M. (2016). Making Indigenous culture the foundation of Indigenous governance today: The Mi’kmaq rights initiative of Nova Scotia, Canada. Native American and Indigenous Studies, 3(1), 75–95. https://doi.org/10.5749/natiindistudj.3.1.0075
- Harell, A., Soroka, S., & Ladner, K. (2014). Public opinion, prejudice, and the racialization of welfare in Canada. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 37(14), 2580–2597. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2013.851396
- Hawthorn, H. B. (Ed.). (1966). A survey of the contemporary Indians of Canada: A report on economic, political and educational needs and policies (Vol. I). Indian Affairs Branch.
- Helin, C. (2006). Dances with dependency: Indigenous success through self-reliance. Orca Spirit Pub.
- High, S. (1996). Native wage labour and independent production during the “era of irrelevance.” Labour / Le Travail, 37, 243–264. https://doi.org/10.2307/25144044
- Hornborg, A. C. (2016). Mi’kmaq landscapes: From animism to sacred ecology. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315595375
- Howe, J. (1843). Report on Indian Affairs (RG1, Vol. 430, no. 191). Nova Scotia Archives and Record Management.
- Howard-Wagner, D., & Kelly, B. (2011). Containing Aboriginal mobility in the Northern Territory: From protectionism to interventionism. Law Text Culture, 15, 102–134.
- Inwood, K. (1991). Maritime industrialization from 1870 to 1910: A review of the evidence and its interpretation. Acadiensis, 21(1), 132–155.
- Ives, N., Denov, M. S., & Sussman, T. (Eds.). (2020). Introduction to social work in Canada: Histories, contexts, and practices. Oxford University Press.
- Jenness, D. (1977). The Indians of Canada (7th ed.). University of Toronto Press. https://doi.org/10.4095/306146 (Original work published 1932)
- Lescarbot, M. (1928). Nova Francia: A description of Acadia, 1606. Harper and Brothers.
- Lutz, J. S. (2008). Makuk: A new history of Aboriginal–White relations. UBC Press.
- MacLeod, J. D. (1906). Report of the Indian agent for Pictou County. Annual report of the Department of Indian Affairs, 1906. http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?id=1906-IAAR-RAAI&op=pdf&app=indianaffairs
- McDonald, R. (1884). Report of the Indian agent, District No.7 Pictou, Nova Scotia. In Annual report of the Department of Indian Affairs, 1884. http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?id=1884-IAAR-RAAI&op=pdf&app=indianaffairs
- McGill, H. W. (1934). Report of the deputy superintendent general of Indian Affairs. In Annual report of the Department of Indian Affairs, 1934. http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?id=1934-IAAR-RAAI&op=pdf&app=indianaffairs
- McGillivray, A. F. (1876). Report for Indian District no. 8. Grand Narrows, Cape Breton. Annual report of the Department of Indian Affairs, 1876. http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?id=1876-IAAR-RAAI&op=pdf&app=indianaffairs
- Midgley, J. (1997). Social welfare in global context. Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483327945
- Miller, V. P. (1976). Aboriginal Micmac population: A review of the evidence. Ethnohistory, 23(2), 117–127. https://doi.org/10.2307/481512
- Miller, V. P. (1995). The Micmac: A maritime woodland group. In R. B. Morrison & C. R. Wilson (Eds.), Native Peoples: The Canadian experience (2nd ed., pp. 347–374). Oxford University Press.
- Monaghan, J. (2013). Settler governmentality and racializing surveillance in Canada’s North-West. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 38(4), 487–508. https://doi.org/10.29173/cjs21195
- Mrazek, C. (2017). “After planting their few potatoes they wander about the Island”: The Mi’kmaq and British agricultural policies in nineteenth-century Nova Scotia. Journal of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society, 20(19), 18–36.
- Neu, D., & Graham, C. (2006). The birth of a nation: Accounting and Canada’s First Nations, 1860–1900. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 31(1), 47–76. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2004.10.002
- O’Connell, A. (2013). The deserving and non-deserving races: Colonial intersections of social welfare history in Ontario. Intersectionalities: A Global Journal of Social Work Analysis, Research, Polity, and Practice, 2(1), 1–23.
- Papillon, M. (2015). Playing catch-up with ghosts: Income assistance for First Nations on reserve. In D. Beland & P. M. Daigneault (Eds.), Welfare reform in Canada: Provincial social assistance in comparative perspective (pp. 323–328). University of Toronto Press. https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442609730-022
- Parnaby, A. (2008). The cultural economy of survival: The Mi’kmaq of Cape Breton in the mid-19th century. Labour / Le Travail, 61, 69–98.
- Parnaby, A. (2011). Indigenous labour in mid-nineteenth-century British North America: The Mi’kmaq of Cape Breton and Squamish of British Columbia in comparative perspective. In L. Fink (Ed.), Workers across the Americas: The transnational turn in labor history (pp. 109–135). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199731633.003.0011
- Patterson, L. L. (1985). Indian Affairs and the Nova Scotia Centralization Policy [Unpublished Master’s thesis]. Dalhousie University.
- Paul, D. N. (2006). We were not the savages: Collision between European and Native American civilizations (3rd ed.). Fernwood.
- Pedley, F. (1908). Report of the deputy superintendent general of Indian Affairs. In Annual report of the Department of Indian Affairs, 1908. http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?id=1908-IAAR-RAAI&op=pdf&app=indianaffairs
- Pedley, F. (1911). Report of the deputy superintendent general of Indian Affairs. In Annual report of the Department of Indian Affairs, 1911. http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?id=1911-IAAR-RAAI&op=pdf&app=indianaffairs
- Reed, H. (1895). Report of the deputy superintendent general of Indian Affairs. In Annual report of the Department of Indian Affairs, 1895. http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?id=1895-IAAR-RAAI&op=pdf&app=indianaffairs
- Reid, J. G. (2004). Britannica or pax indigena? Planter Nova Scotia (1760–1782) and competing strategies of pacification. Canadian Historical Review, 85(4), 669–692. https://doi.org/10.1353/can.2005.0043
- Reid, J. G. (2009). Empire, the Maritime colonies, and the supplanting of Mi’kma’ki/Wulstukwik, 1780–1820. Acadiensis, 38(2), 78–97.
- Robertson, T. (1936, June 9). Survey of Indian conditions in the Maritime Provinces (LAC. RG 10. File 536,764-1). Library and Archives Canada.
- Sager, E. (1987). Dependency, underdevelopment, and the economic history of the Atlantic provinces. Acadiensis, 17(1), 117–137.
- Samson, D. (2008). The spirit of industry and improvement: Liberal government and rural–industrial society, Nova Scotia, 1790–1862. McGill–Queen’s Press.
- Santos, T. (1970). The structure of dependence. The American Economic Review, 60(2), 231–236.
- Sargent, J., Monk. G. W., Tonge, C., Morris, C., & Mortimer, E. (1800, April 15). Report of the commissioners appointed to inquire into & to report on the condition of the Indians in the province (Nova Scotia Archives and Record Management, RG 1, Volume 430, Document 33, 1/2). Nova Scotia Archives.
- Shewell, H. (2004). “Enough to keep them alive”: Indian welfare in Canada, 1873–1965. University of Toronto Press.
- Shewell, H., & Spagnut, A. (2002). The First Nations of Canada: Social welfare and the quest for self-government. In J. Dixon & R. P. Scheurell (Eds.), Social welfare with Indigenous Peoples (pp. 1–53). Routledge.
- Simon v. Canada, [2012] F.C. 387, T-1649-11. https://decisions.fct-cf.gc.ca/fc-cf/decisions/en/item/60730/index.do?r=AAAAAQAWU2FuZHJhIFNpbXBzb24gd2VsZmFyZQAAAAAB
- Spragge, W. (1873). Report of the deputy superintendent general of Indian Affairs. In Annual report of the Department of Indian Affairs, 1873. http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?id=1873-IAAR-RAAI&op=pdf&app=indianaffairs
- Steen, S. C. (1951). The psychological consequences of acculturation among the Cape Breton Micmac [Unpublished Master’s thesis]. University of Pennsylvania.
- Taylor-Neu, R., Friedel, T., Taylor, A., & Kemble, T. (2019). (De)constructing the “lazy Indian”: An historical analysis of welfare reform in Canada. Aboriginal Policy Studies, 7(2), 65–87. https://doi.org/10.5663/aps.v7i2.29340
- Trefry, H. S. (1924, December 20). Correspondence with the Department of Indian Affairs regarding centralization of Nova Scotia’s Indians (LAC. RG 10, Vol 3220. File - 536,764-1). Library and Archives Canada.
- Union of Nova Scotia Indians. (2013). The health of the Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq population: Results from the 2008–10 Survey for the on-reserve population.
- Upton, L. F. S. (1973). Origins of Canadian Indian policy. Journal of Canadian Studies, 8(4), 51–61. https://doi.org/10.3138/jcs.8.4.51
- Upton, L. F. S. (1975). Indian policy in colonial Nova Scotia 1783–1871. Acadiensis, 5(1), 3–31.
- Wallerstein, I. (2011a). The modern world-system II: Mercantilism and the consolidation of the European world-economy, 1600–1750. University of California Press.https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520948587
- Wallerstein, I. (2011b). The modern world-system III: The second era of great expansion of the capitalist world-economy, 1730s–1840s. University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520948594
- White, R. (1988). The roots of dependency: Subsistence, environment, and social change among the Choctaws, Pawnees, and Navajos. University of Nebraska Press.
- Whitehead, R. H. (1991). The old man told us: Excerpts from Micmac history, 1500-1950. Nimbus Publishing.
- Wicken, W. (1991). Mi’kmaq Land in Southwestern Nova Scotia, 1771–1823. In M. Conrad (Ed.), Making adjustments: Change and continuity in planter Nova Scotia, 1759–1800 (pp. 113–146). Acadiensis Press.
- Wicken, W. (2002). Mi’kmaq treaties on trial: History, land, and Donald Marshall Junior. University of Toronto Press. https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442670211
- Wien, F. C. (1986). Rebuilding the economic base of Indian communities: The Micmac in Nova Scotia. Institute for Research on Public Policy/L’Institut de recherches politiques.
- Wien, F., Denis, J., Dockstator, J. S., Dockstator, M. S., Duhaime, G., Loppie, C., Loxley, J., Moore, C., Newhouse, D., Weir, W., Whiteduck, J., & Wuttunee, W. (2019). First Nation paths to well-being: Lessons from the Poverty Action Research Project. Global Health Promotion, 26(3), 6-16. https://doi.org/10.1177/1757975919831654
- Wilkins, D. E. (1993). Modernization, colonialism, dependency: How appropriate are these models for providing an explanation of North American Indian ‘underdevelopment’? Ethnic and Racial Studies, 16(3), 390–419. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.1993.9993789
- Young, T., Ginnish, D., & the Mi’kmaq Association of Cultural Studies. (2017). Tptinewey: Mi’kmaq Elders’ perceptions of social assistance. Report for the Building a Social Policy Framework for Mi’kmaq communities: A Two-Eyed Seeing approach. Cape Breton University.