British Columbia's new Lieutenant-Governor and the issue of personhood

The office of the Canadian Prime Minister made the following announcement last month:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper was pleased to announce today the appointment of Steven Point as British Columbia’s newest Lieutenant-Governor.

“Steven Point’s contributions as a provincial court judge, the Chief Commissioner of the British Columbia Treaty Commission, and an elected Chief of the Skowkale First Nation speak to his commitment to the people of British Columbia. I am certain he will continue to serve his province and his country well,” said the Prime Minister.

He was appointed a provincial court judge in February 1999, most recently sitting in Provincial Court in Abbotsford. In 2005, he was appointed Chief Commissioner of the British Columbia Treaty Commission. Judge Point has also served as an elected Chief of Skowkale First Nation for 15 years, as the tribal chair of the Stó:lō Nation, and honoured as Grand Chief by the Chiefs of Stó:lō Tribal Council.

Given the on-going tension between First Nations groups and various levels of government over such matters as land claims, this announcement is a happy one indeed. But one can't help but think of the views of British Columbia's very first Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Joseph Trutch, as a measure of the distance we've come. The following is taken from that invaluable resource, Wikipedia:

Throughout his political career, Trutch was noted for his hostility to land claims by First Nations people, and demonstrated contempt for their concerns. In a letter to his wife, Charlotte, regarding the Indians of the Oregon Territory he wrote, "I think they are the ugliest and laziest creatures I ever saw and we should as soon think of being afraid of our dogs as of them." (23 June 1850, Joseph Trutch Papaers, UBCL, folder A1.b.) And in a letter to the Secretary of State, "I have not yet met with a single Indian whom I consider to have attained even the most glimmering perception of the Christian creed." (26 September 1871, BC Papers Connected with the Indian Land, p.101).

Regrettably Sir Joseph's views, as repugnant as they sound to us, were widely held throughout the nineteenth and much of the twentieth century. First Nations people were effectively non-persons and had little or no say in decisions that affected their lives. Elections Canada notes:

British Columbia had a long history of [racial] discrimination [with respect to voting rights]: when it entered Confederation, 61.7 percent of the province's population was of First Nations or Chinese origin, while people of British origin accounted for 29.6 percent of residents. Under successive provincial governments, measures excluding First Nations people and people of Asian ancestry from the franchise were extended as immigration increased toward the end of the nineteenth century.

While First Nations people (at least the males) were eventually granted the right to vote, it only applied if they assimilated into the broader Anglo-Saxon and French culture and, for all intents and purposes, stopped being native people:

First Nations people in most parts of Canada had the right to vote from Confederation on – but only if they gave up their status through a process defined in the Indian Act and known as "enfranchisement." Quite understandably, very few were willing to do this. It is worth noting that this requirement to give up status was not imposed on them if they joined the military. In fact, the franchise was extended to members of the First Nations who served in both world wars – although until 1924, any First World War veterans who returned to their reserves lost the right to vote. A great many First Nations people also served with distinction in the Canadian Forces during the Second World War, and this was among the reasons eventually leading Canadians to conclude that all Aboriginal people should have the full rights of citizenship.

Proposals to extend the franchise to First Nations date at least to 1885, when Status Indians in Eastern Canada who met the existing requirements gained the right to vote. This was revoked in 1898, and in general such proposals met a great deal of hostility. Isaac Burpee, MP for Saint John, said that the Indian knew no more of politics "than a child two years old," while another New Brunswick MP, A. H. Gillmor, the member for Charlotte, called the proposal to give Indians the vote "the crowning act of political rascality" on the part of Sir John A. Macdonald. (source: Elections Canada)

First Nations people are not the only ones who were viewed, from the political point of view at least, as non-persons. Asians and women also had to fight to be treated as legal persons. In the U.S., slaves were defined by the U.S. Supreme Court as two-thirds of a person for purposes of the constitution.

Over time, North Americans have held views of personhood that are so repulsive to us now that we cannot imagine how mainstream society could have been so arbitrary, so racist, so arrogant, so self-serving. My question to pro-choice and pro-abortion people is this--How are you morally different from those bigots of the past in denying personhood to unborn babies? Are these little human beings, like American slaves of old, to be arbitrarily denied sufficient personhood? Are they, as native Canadians were seen for many generations, too ignorant? Are they to be viewed, as the British North America Act viewed women, as unfit and unqualified?

I hate to think of you as being like Sir Joseph Trutch in your position on human beings that you see as lacking in some way. But it seems to me that you must be. Please explain.

P.s. I note with interest that Martin Luther King's niece, Alveda King, was prevented from speaking at a public school because of her linking of personhood and unborn babies. Her "offensive" views were these: "At one time, we were told black people were only three-fifths human, so we couldn't vote. ... Now today, you're saying to some human beings that you can't live because you're not a person," King said. "Taking away the personhood of a person is taking away their civil rights." (source: DesMoines Register.com, Sept. 28, 2007).

And the beat goes on.