CFSC Service

CFSC's Quaker Aboriginal Affairs program committee at work, March 2011.

The Quaker Peace Testimony is based on Friend’s belief that there is that of God in everyone and that we cannot have peace without justice. CFSC believes Indigenous Peoples do not have justice and that Friends need to develop and nurture relationships of trust and mutual respect between ourselves, others in Canada, and the Indigeneous Peoples of Canada.

CFSC’s goals in our work on Indigenous issues are:

• to raise Friends’ awareness of the concerns of Indigenous Peoples, and to stimulate their active participation in supporting those concerns;
• to work with Indigenous Peoples to educate ourselves and the wider Canadian society;
• to provide small grants to Indigenous groups working for self-empowerment;
• to focus on issues of Indigenous concern such as
  • land rights and self-determination;
  • spirituality: acknowledging the right of peoples to worship in the way of their own cultures and faith traditions;
  • images in the media and educational institutions;
  • Indigenous rights as defined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and as protected under the Canadian Constitution.
• to engage in dialogue with governments, corporations and international organizations such as the United Nations;
• to cooperate with coalitions engaged in the work of securing Indigenous Peoples’ rights.

History of Canadian Friends’ work with Indigenous Peoples

“After some 500 years of a relationship that has swung from partnership to domination, from mutual respect and co-operation to paternalism and attempted assimilation, Canada must now work out fair and lasting terms of coexistence with Aboriginal people.” – Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, 1996

Since the times of William Penn and John Woolman, Friends have been listening to and involved with concerns of Indigenous Peoples. Canadian Friends continue to carry concerns through Monthly Meetings or through CFSC. The formal beginnings of work on indigenous issues within CFSC were prefaced by a minute recorded by Canadian Yearly Meeting 1974:

“…a confrontation between the Ojibway people of the [Kenora] area and various levels of government…has occupied our hearts and minds. We are concerned that active violence not erupt; and equally concerned that long standing grievances be understood, and all measures of settlement of those grievances be encouraged…”

Friends went to Kenora to be a presence and to hear first hand the long standing grievances concerning land rights, housing, medical care, education, Indigenous spirituality, child welfare, and mercury poisoning.

Friends have continued to listen and respond to the ongoing concerns of the First Nations of Canada. These include: self-determination; spirituality; land rights; fishing and hunting rights; health; housing; education; child welfare; extraction of natural resources; hydroelectric projects; protection of burial grounds; weapons testing; and the tourist industry.

In 2001 Sarah Chandler presented the annual Sunderland P. Gardiner lecture at Canadian Yearly Meeting. Her lecture, “The Never Broken Treaty? Quaker Witness and Testimony on Aboriginal Title and Rights: What canst thou say?” prompts us all to examine our roles in the ongoing oppression of Indigenous peoples and provides suggestions for engagement and working for positive change.

A major focus of our work since the 1990s, at the request of peoples at the grassroots, has been to work in solidarity with Indigenous Peoples towards a UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This work extensively drew on Friends’ tradition of “quiet diplomacy“, which has been used within the UN system for decades through the Quaker UN Offices. The Declaration was adopted by the UN in 2007 and now the work focuses on its implementation.  There is much information on the “Declaration” webpage about this work.