Sounds like you heard the same radio piece i did ... i don't recall the exact wording, whether indians enlisted at greater rates than canadians overall, or just greater than native-born canadians [which is more likely perhaps, as british-born who had immigrated in the previous couple of decades or so enlisted at above fifty per cent rate, native-born much lower] ... have to be careful with statistics, especially around the CBC who have a clear agenda on various topics
Early on, in the first months of the war, few understood what enlistment meant, most were young guys who were eager to get off the farm, get off the reserve, get away from some tedious apprenticeship job or academic studies, it was about adventure and challenge, the patriotic fervour served mostly to make it all acceptable ... quite a lot later, due to wartime propaganda and control of news, the reality of trenches and mud and Krupp shells became more widely known, as far as enlistment goes the two periods should be seen quite separately ... quite a few US nationals signed up as well, made their way across the border, invented a canadian home town and maybe a new name, got a paid-for trip across the water
The process of 'renouncing their indian status' was called enfranchisement, it meant they became regular british subjects, with all the rights and responsibilities thereof ... they could vote, stand for office, buy/sell booze, own land, own/run businesses, they could go anywhere on the planet that was coloured rose pink on the map and had british systems of law ... they had to pay taxes and obey the law, or at least try not to get caught much, as the rest of us need to manage ... it should be remembered, that for many many years, from early on until fairly recently, it was assumed that we were building a country where laws would apply equally to all ... that eventually we would all marry each other's sisters and the Proclamation of 1763 would be relegated to ancient history, irrelevant
Few could anticipate then, this current big-L Liberal push toward setting up superior and inferior classes of citizens based on race, with 'First' nations having some sort of sovereign immunity and at the same time enjoying a vaguely defined overlord status above the rest of us, who are presumably but never named as the 'Second-Class' nation and are expected to keep shovelling the federal tax money upwards in the structure and keep obeying such laws and restrictions as are passed downwards ... while keeping details quite obscure - note that the Trudeau regime has wiped out the transparency rules on how those handling band funds should be held accountable ... there is a tremendous amount that can be said about every aspect of this long and complex subject, what eats at me is how some things that really need to be said never are, especially on the CBC, which consumes my tax dollars and so rarely gives me in return a Lister Sinclair with a wider and more impartial view ... anyway, happy saturday to all, regardless of race or class status in the g.w.n. |
