Unjust Society

Aboriginal people in Canada took hope with the election of Trudeau�s Liberals in 1968. They were outraged when the Paper introduced by Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs Jean Chretien a year later amounted to an assimilation program: repeal of the Indian Act, the transfer of Indian affairs to the provinces, the elimination of separate legal status for native people. The Unjust Society, Cree leader Harold Cardinal�s stinging rebuttal, was an immediate best-seller, and it remains one of the most important ever published. Possessed of a wicked gift for satire, Cardinal summed up the government�s approach as �The only good Indian is a non-Indian.� He coined the term �buckskin curtain� to describe the barriers that indifference, ignorance and bigotry had placed in the way of his people. He insisted on his right to remain �a red tile in the Canadian mosaic. Above all, he called for radical changes in policy on aboriginal rights, education, social programs and economic development.