This print-on-demand title is available by request from most booksellers.

—

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.

Harold Cardinal (1945–2005), an author and prominent First Nations leader, spent his life working to develop and preserve First Nation culture. In 1968, he became the youngest elected president of the Indian Association of Alberta (1968–1977) and initiated programs to uphold Indigenous culture, religion and traditions. He fought against the 1969 Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy (otherwise known as the White Paper) and authored powerful novels that brought the injustices to light. In 2001, Cardinal was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation. His work is remembered and taught around the world.

Harold Cardinal's profile page