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When I found out we had an Indian Agent in the family I was really upset. I’d been reading in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission about how Indian Agents were the ones who dragged children off to the Residential Schools. It felt like discovering some kind of dark family secret. It turns out there was more than one in the family: Robert’s son Walter Colquhoun was an Indian Agent, and there was a Whidden in Nova Scotia who was an Agent too.
“Our people were, by Canadian law, virtually forbidden to leave our reserves without permission from the Indian agent, who now controlled almost every aspect of our lives. Our reserves began to resemble the internment camps that were set up during the world wars for enemy aliens.”
Arthur Manuel – Unsettling Canada
INDIAN AGENTS worked for the Government enacting and enforcing the colonial rules of the day. While Indian Agents no longer exist per se, the Canadian Government continues to pay civil servants to execute policies of assimilation and genocide: the Child Welfare system, the Comprehensive and Specific Land Claims process, pipelines through Indigenous land, wildlife and forestry enforcement on un-ceded territory, MMIWG, and the lack of drinking water in numerous First Nations communities. It is important to understand that Colonialism is alive and well in the Canadian Government and Canadian society today.