Taanshi kiyawaaw. Hello.

My name is Danielle Teillet. I am Red River Métis and settler, originally from Treaty 1 territory. I now live here on unceded and unsurrendered Algonquin Anishinabe territory. I'm also the inaugural historian of indigenous military history at the Canadian War Museum.

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me here today to speak and contribute to this important study.

As a historian, I can offer an overview of the experiences of indigenous veterans of the two world wars—that's my area of expertise—though I'm not well positioned to speak to contemporary issues, as Todd Ross just did.

Understanding the historical context of indigenous military service can provide us with crucial insights into present-day issues. As you can imagine, five minutes can only scratch the surface of this complex history, which is already quite well documented in the committee's 2019 report on indigenous veterans and other reports.

To understand the challenges indigenous service people faced, it's critical to consider the broader context of how indigenous people were treated in general through systemic discrimination and colonial policies and legislation. The government and society's treatment of indigenous veterans was inextricably linked to the treatment of indigenous people in general.

The number of indigenous people to serve in 20th century conflicts is elusive. Approximately 4,000 status Indians served for Canada in the First World War, and an estimated 4,200 served in the Second World War. Thousands more non-status first nations, Inuit and Métis people enlisted without official recognition of their indigeneity.

There were certain barriers that shaped the enlistment and service of indigenous people during this era. For example, during the First World War, initially first nations people were dissuaded by the government from enlisting. This was based partly on unfavourable and racist depictions in popular literature at the time, which led to a paternalistic logic that “Germans might refuse to extend...the [supposed] privileges of civilized warfare” to first nations soldiers.

In the Second World War, recruitment for the navy and air force initially required enlistees to be “of pure European descent and of the White Race.” Restrictive policies like these were not applied universally, and as casualties mounted during both wars, these types of barriers were abandoned in an effort to boost recruitment.

For many indigenous individuals who served during this era, their wartime service was the first time they had experienced a sense of equality with their white settler peers, but they would return to Canada after their service to the same discrimination they had known before they enlisted. Indigenous veterans did not generally receive equal treatment after returning to civilian life. Status Indian veterans, specifically, returned home to life as wards of the state.

Restrictions such as the prohibition on the sale of alcohol to status Indians meant that many first nations veterans were not able to participate in Legion activities, since liquor was served at many functions. Moreover, the right to vote federally did not come to status Indian men until 1960. They did not have the full rights and benefits of citizenship under Canada's Indian Act but had enlisted to go to war for Canada anyway.

There was a shared feeling by many indigenous veterans that there was a disconnect between the significance of their wartime service and sacrifices and the political, economic and social realities they returned home to. This was, in large part, because they were excluded in many cases from accessing veteran supports. Pensions and benefits such as land and financial grants that were set up to support veterans after both wars were notionally available to all veterans; however, most indigenous claims were denied.

Some veterans even returned home from the First World War to find that the reserve lands of their communities had shrunk or disappeared entirely. The federal government acquired more than 85,000 acres of reserve land in western Canada for the settlement of non-indigenous veterans after the war.

These injustices had lasting impacts on many indigenous veterans, some of whom went on to organize politically and lobby for indigenous and veterans' rights after their service. These experiences are well documented in the literature and in interviews with indigenous veterans, including through the Canadian War Museum's “In Their Own Voices” project, which includes dozens of interviews with indigenous-identified veterans.

Hopefully, this very brief historical overview has provided some context as you explore more contemporary issues in this study. The challenges that indigenous veterans faced in the post-world war era's discriminatory social, legislative and policy structures persisted for a long time, as did the lack of recognition they experienced.

Thank you for your time.