Pass system (Canadian history)
[1][2]: 162–5 The system, initially intended as a temporary measure to quell disorder in the prairie provinces, eventually became a permanent feature of federal Indian affairs policy.
Under the pretext of broadly-defined vagrancy and loitering offences, North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) officers were authorized to detain Indigenous people who were off reserve without appropriate documentation.
"[9] From 1871 through the 1880s, as agricultural settlements expanded across the prairies, the Canadian government signed the Numbered Treaties, established the reserve system, and encouraged First Nations to adopt farming with the creation of industrial boarding schools.
[11] Sarah Carter described how, "The buffalo was the foundation of the Plains economy, providing people not only with a crucial source of protein and vitamins but with many other necessities, including shelter, clothing, containers, and tools.
[9]: 133 Vancouver Island University historian, Keith D. Smith described the pass system in his 2009 book Liberalism, Surveillance, and Resistance: Indigenous Communities in Western Canada, 1877-1927, as a "highly effective component of a "coercive and flexible" "matrix" of restrictive "laws, regulations, and policies" to "confine Indigenous people to their reserves" and advance the "interests of non-Indigenous settlers.
John A. Macdonald (1815–1891), Edgar Dewdney (1835–1916), and Hayter Reed (1849–1936) were the three federal officials who were the "most prominent in the development and implementation of Indian policy" during this period.
"[19][13] Ottawa-based Lawrence Vankoughnet, a top-ranking DIA bureaucrat, is often cited as the person responsible for cutting rations to First Nations reserves after the collapse of the buffalo herds, to minimize costs.
[20] It was Vankoughnet who first alluded to a pass system in his 1884 annual report, claiming it had the potential to "prevent Indians from camping indiscriminately near white settlements.
[20]: 63–120 Reed, who was recommended by Dewdney as his replacement as Indian Commissioner, continued to implement departmental policies that promoted "protection, civilization, and assimilation."
In 1885, the power of the local Indian agents was expanded giving them the authority as a justice of the peace in legal matters, as well as the right to confine Indigenous people to their reserves through the pass system.
"[22] In the mid-1880s in the Saskatchewan District of the North-West Territories, Treaty 6 Cree people led by Mistahimaskwa (Big Bear) (1825–1888) were facing starvation as bison herds disappeared.
[25]: 207–9 [26] In 1884 and 1885, the pass system emerged as Dewdney instructed the newly-formed North-West Mounted Police to "detain native leaders as they attempted to travel to meetings, breaking up gatherings where legal resistance and court challenges were being discussed, and [used] rations to squeeze the Plains peoples into submission".
[27]: 53 Following the 1885 rebellion, Macdonald and his administration introduced the "most restrictive policies and legislation" with the goal of "breaking up the tribal system and assimilating First Nations people".
"[31]: 36 According to the TRC, Indian Affairs instituted the pass system following the North-West Rebellion, with the intention of confining First Nations "to their reserves in selected areas of the prairie west".
[37] The North West Mounted Police Superintendent McIlree in Calgary had his officers return people from Sarcee (Tsuu T'ina) to the reserve, whether or not they had a pass.
[citation needed] Prime Minister Macdonald said that, "I beg to inform you that there has never been any legal authority for compelling Indians who leave their Reserve to return to them, but it has always been felt that it would be a great mistake for this matter to stand too strictly in the letter of the law.
To fulfill this mandate Sifton promoted railroads by convincing the federal government to help finance the Canadian National Railway which included a section that went through the Crow's Nest Pass.
[42][43] Sifton had reorganized the department early in his mandate, placing the DIA—which was intended to focus First Nations' concerns—at a lower priority compared to the Interior department—which supported the rights of settlers.
[3]: 26 The First Nations "were cut off from their children in residential schools, other relatives, and dispossessed of the ability to freely hunt, fish and trade, resulting in devastating and lasting financial impacts, with obvious human consequences.
"[47] The policy's effects included First Nations' inability to conduct trade and commerce or to attend cultural and social gatherings with neighboring Reserves and their isolation from Canadian society.
She indicated in her interview with Dila Provost and Albert Yellowhorn incidents details on the lack of dignity shown to Indians, who were viewed with suspicion by white people.
[49]: 152–3 The pass system in the prairies, which is now considered to be "segregationist scheme", was studied by a delegation from South African in 1902, as a "method of social control".
[50]: 53–4 Objections to the policy were raised by the NWMP in 1893, and Commissioner William Herchmer instructed police to request, not order, First Nations to go back to their reserves.
[52][53][54] In producing his 50-minute documentary which uncovered the "hidden history of the pass system", filmmaker Alex Williams spent five years searching in archives and in communities for evidence of its existence.
[47][55][6] In her June 26, 2016 article in the Toronto Star which discussed Williams's 2015 documentary, Joanna Smith wrote that the federal government admitted that "some records of the pass system—the apartheid-like policy that forbade First Nations from leaving their reserves without written permission—were destroyed before anyone knew of their historical value.
"[7] One of the Saskatchewan Archives Board's original signed permission slips, that had been issued by the Department of Indian Affairs on June 3, 1897, is featured in the documentary.
[6] A director of library and archives at the Calgary-headquartered Glenbow Museum said in a 2016 interview with The Star, that it was "absolutely astonishing" that in 1974, "federal government had to rely on outside sources to study its own policy.
In his 1973 book "Voices of the Plains Cree", Reverend Edward Ahenakew's fictional character Old Kayam described how every man on the reserve had to beg for permits.
