NY Times: Winnipeg’s Treaty Payments: Meager Reminder of a Painful History

As the New York Times reports: 

On a brilliant afternoon in Winnipeg, scores of indigenous people lined up under a large white tent to collect what’s known as the annual “treaty payment” — money stipulated in treaties, signed by past generations with the Canadian government in exchange for territory.

The payment? Five dollars….

“The foundation of Canada is based on the exploitation and oppression of indigenous people, and the end goal of every policy has been to erase us, to get the land and resources uncontested,” said Niigaanwewidam Sinclair, an associate professor in the Department of Native Studies at the University of Manitoba.