Frank Calder; Politician and Nisga'a chief
Hyfler/Rosner
November 9, 2006 Thursday
HEADLINE: FRANK CALDER, POLITICIAN AND NISGA'A CHIEF:
1915-2006;
The 'dream child' started a native land-claims case that
would reverberate across Canada and around the world, writes
SANDRA MARTIN
BYLINE: SANDRA MARTIN
Short of stature and towering of vision, Frank Calder, who
called himself "the little chief," was an inspirational
leader of the Nisga'a. He helped to effect political change
in the recognition of aboriginal land title not only in
Canada, but in other jurisdictions around the world. As a
politician, he had the intelligence, the patience and the
wisdom to know when he needed help and the persuasive powers
to go out and acquire it.
Frank Calder was a man with a mission even before he was
born. In 1913, Arthur Calder (or Na-qua-oon, the traditional
chief of the Nisga'a Wolf Clan) and his wife, Louisa,
paddled down the Nass River to take a job at the newly
opened salmon cannery. On the way, their small son fell out
of the canoe and drowned. And so it happened (in a story
reminiscent of the biblical account of Elizabeth's
foretelling of the Immaculate Conception) that about 18
months later, an old woman in the village of Gingolx had a
powerful dream in which she visualized Louisa's youngest
sister, Emily, conceiving a son who would carry the "chiefly
spirit" of Na-qua-oon's dead child. That's why, in a
traditional adoption ceremony in 1915, Job and Emily Clark
gave their third son, Frank, to Arthur and Louisa to raise
as their own child.
Four years later, when the Nisga'a clans met to discuss
their ongoing land-claim struggle, a task some chiefs felt
was akin to shifting "an immovable mountain," Na-qua-oon
presented the "dream child" and said: "I'm going to send
this boy to school where the K'umsiiwan [white people] live.
And I'm going to make him learn how the white man eats, how
the white man talks, how the white man thinks, and when he
comes back, he's going to move that mountain."
Mr. Calder spent 13 years in the Anglican Church's
Coqualeetza Residential School in Sardis, near Chilliwack,
B.C. Although these institutions have been widely reviled,
and Mr. Calder received $8,000 in an advance payment earlier
this fall from the federal redress program for survivors of
the residential-school system, his experience was not overly
negative. He learned skills that he would need in leading
the legal challenge and he met other smart children who
would grow up to be aboriginal leaders.
After residential school, Mr. Calder went to Chilliwack High
School and the University of British Columbia, the first
status Indian ever admitted to that institution, to study
theology, graduating from the Anglican Theological College
in 1946. He decided against being ordained as a priest and
turned to politics instead. In 1949, he ran successfully for
the CCF (a precursor to the New Democratic Party) in the
provincial riding of Atlin, the first aboriginal elected to
a Canadian legislature - a remarkable achievement
considering that he didn't enjoy the right to vote. B.C. was
the first province to amend its legislation, but the federal
government didn't extend the franchise unequivocally to
aboriginals until 1960.
Articulate, intelligent and doggedly patient, Mr. Calder
made his maiden speech in 1950, calling for, among other
measures, a bill of rights. The following year, the federal
Blue-Book decrees, which had arbitrarily ended land-claims
discussions in 1927, were finally abolished, ending, in Mr.
Calder's words, "a time of darkness and despair for all
aboriginal people."
At the same time as Mr. Calder was pushing native rights and
issues in the provincial legislature, he was encouraging the
Nisga'a clans to work together under his leadership on their
land claims. By 1955, he had revitalized the old land-claims
committee as the Nisga'a Tribal Council. Three years later,
he became one of the most significant Nisga'a leaders when
he inherited the title Chief Long Arm from Na-qua-oon.
It was in this capacity that he made the momentous decision
to approach a young white lawyer named Thomas Berger to
represent the Nisga'a in a legal challenge. In 1965, Mr.
Berger had argued successfully before the Supreme Court (in
Regina v. White and Bob) that two aboriginal men had the
right to hunt on unoccupied land.
"Pard'ner, we want you to represent us," Mr. Berger
remembers Mr. Calder saying. "We are going to bring a
lawsuit to establish our aboriginal title." The Nisga'a
launched their suit in September, 1967, and the Calder case,
as it was known, came to trial in April, 1969. The Nisga'a
lost at trial and on appeal, and then applied to the Supreme
Court of Canada.
The court handed down its judgment in February, 1973. Six of
the seven judges agreed that the Nisga'a had aboriginal
title before the Europeans came, but three judges, including
Mr. Justice Wilfred Judson, felt those rights had been
extinguished and three, including Mr. Justice Emmett Hall,
argued that their rights could still be asserted. The final
judge dismissed the case on a technicality without
considering the issue of aboriginal title.
Even though the appeal was denied, the timing was propitious
for political change. The Liberals under Pierre Trudeau had
been returned to power the year before, although in a
minority government, with Jean Chrétien as minister of
Indian affairs. Both men had been impressed by Judge Hall's
arguments in the Calder case. As well, the Progressive
Conservatives and the NDP were pressing the federal
government to recognize its obligation to settle native land
claims, a combined leverage that put added pressure on the
Liberals because of their minority position. In August,
1973, Mr. Chrétien officially opened the process, which was
finally resolved when the Nisga'a Treaty was ratified in
2000.
By then, Mr. Calder was 84 and had survived upheavals in his
own life. As the CCF transformed itself into the NDP, Mr.
Calder continued to represent the riding, becoming the first
aboriginal cabinet minister after David Barrett's sweep in
1972. The appointment was problematic, as it made Mr. Calder
a minister of one of the very governments he was suing to
secure aboriginal title for the Nisga'a.
But there were other issues. Mr. Calder, who enjoyed a drink
and the company of women, was arrested in July, 1973 (the
same year as the Supreme Court decision in the Calder case),
after a consensual situation involving a female companion,
alcohol and a car parked in an intersection. Although he was
not charged with a crime, Mr. Calder was fired from cabinet.
The Nisga'a, perhaps embarrassed by their leader's public
humiliation, also responded negatively and voted in favour
of James Gosnell to replace Mr. Calder as president of the
Nisga'a Tribal Council in 1974. Mr. Calder quit the NDP and
ran successfully the following year for Bill Bennett's
Social Credit Party. He held his seat until 1979, when he
lost the riding by one vote to the NDP candidate, and
retired from party politics. He was 60.
A prolific reader and an intelligent public-policy thinker,
Mr. Calder avidly followed the drawn-out Nisga'a treaty
negotiations, even though he was no longer officially
involved in the deliberations. And he was not averse to
making his feelings and opinions known. "Had I been the
leader, I would have stuck to issues relating to the land
question. I do not believe that self-government is an
aboriginal right; it is a civic right for all Canadians," he
said six months after the treaty was ratified. The Nisga'a
never argued with him publicly and later named him "Chief of
Chiefs" in tribute to his monumental efforts in moving the
"immovable mountain."
In 1975, he married the Japanese-born Tamaki Koshibe (who
was named "Bright Star" by the Nisga'a) and with whom he had
a son, Erick, now 24 and a recent graduate from Queen's
University in Kingston.
About the same time, Mr. Calder bought a family plot in the
Ross Bay Cemetery. When Jim Hume, a reporter for the Times
Colonist in Victoria, asked why he had chosen the provincial
capital rather than the Nisga'a territory on the Nass River
as a final resting place, Mr. Calder replied: "I want people
to pass by and look at my memorial and ask, 'Who is that,
what did he do?' and someone will tell them about Nisga'a
Lisims Government and how it came to be."
For the past few years, he lived in an assisted-living
retirement home in Victoria. In September, he went into
hospital for cancer-related surgery and moved from there to
a convalescent hospital with palliative-care facilities in
Saanich.
Frank Calder was born on Aug. 3, 1915, at Nass Harbour
Cannery in British Columbia. He died in Victoria on Saturday
of complications from abdominal cancer. He was 91. He is
survived by his wife, Tamaki; son, Erick; brother, Philip
Clark, and sisters Dorothy Smith and Virginia Overholt. A
memorial service will be held on Nov. 16 at Christ Church
Cathedral in Victoria.
corina...@gmail.com
Cayden Nichols
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